WYSO expanding, moving into old schoolhouse owned by Dave Chappelle

WYSO plans to renovate and move into an old school building owned by Iron Table Holdings, the real estate company owned by comedian Dave Chappelle.

WYSO said in a news release that the Yellow Springs Planning Commission approved the plan this week. Construction will be managed by Iron Table Holdings, which will own the building.

The building, commonly known as the Union Schoolhouse, is located at 314 Dayton St. in Yellow Springs.

The station says the new space will allow it to host more in-studio newsmakers, musicians and volunteers, as well as community members for workshops at the Center for Community Voices.

This move is part of an expanding newsroom at WYSO. In the last 18 months, the station has more than tripled its reporting staff, hiring four additional full-time journalists and several contract reporters, editors and producers.

“WYSO’s news department has an aggressive growth strategy, and the support of our community is allowing us to expand,” said Jason Saul, WYSO’s director of news and programming.

Saul said on the music side, the station is developing new hosts and shows all the time.

He said he hoped to continue to hire more journalists, as well as increase the number of interns and freelancers.

“We really take our role as a teaching and training organization very seriously,” he said.

WYSO and the Eichelberger Center for Community Voices also have been awarded a $250,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to support a project to preserve archival audio on Black college campuses around the country, WYSO said.

The grant would go toward supporting Historically Black Colleges and Universities in preserving audio from protests about the rights of Black people, from the Civil Rights era to more recent Black Lives Matter protests.

About the Author