I’m Will Baumgartner and I’m a sophomore at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa. I’m originally from Elmhurst, IL, where I lived for the first 19 years of my life before moving out to Iowa to pursue a major in Digital Media Production. While attending Drake University, I’ve worked with organizations such as Drake Broadcasting System, Times-Delphic, and Drake Intramural’s.
I first joined Drake Broadcasting System my first semester freshman year in the fall of 2021. I heard they had a radio studio in Meredith Hall, and I immediately knew radio was something I wanted to explore. My first shows during the fall 2021 semester were on Wednesday’s at 3:00 pm and featured just me playing music and talking about basically whatever came to my mind. When the spring 2022 semester came around, my friend, JD Snover, joined the show as my cohost and Backtalk with Will and JD was created. It has been airing every Friday morning at 10:00 am for a year. We play a wide variety of music, from classic rock, to country, alternative rock, and so on. We also talk a lot about sports, music, experiences around Des Moines, among many other topics. We won the 94.1 Top Dog award for DJ’s of the Year for the 2021-2022 school year.
I would later join Drake’s student newspaper, Times-Delphic, in the spring 2023 semester. I had always been curious about writing and decided to see if I liked writing or not. My first article was a commentary on Valentine’s Day, but I would later move on to different subjects, including writing about sports and politics. One of my sports stories I wrote for the Times-Delphic was about 3 MLB teams to watch this coming season and 3 MLB teams to be caution of this season. My first political story that I wrote for the Times-Delphic was about Senator Tim Scott when he gave a speech on Drake’s campus in February 2023.
I’ve been working for Drake Intramural’s as a referee since the fall 2021 semester. The sports I’ve officiated include volleyball, basketball, football and soccer. These sports have had a consistent amount of teams show up, so in each game, you must be able to know what call you want to make, and be able to call it when you see the end of a play, or perhaps a violation. My favorite sport to officiate would definitely be Volleyball, since that was the first sport I officiated and I caught on quickly.
