LIBERTY, Ohio – Michael Bosela knows firsthand how difficult navigating the world can be with limited vision.
As a student at Ohio State University in the early 1970s, he hired people to read for him before fraternities and sororities began recording the readings for free.
When he returned to Youngstown, Bosela found a job through the Society for the Blind and Disabled in 1979 with the fledgling Youngstown Radio Reading Service, which was then directed by James Donnan.
The reading service, a vital news source for those with impaired vision in the Mahoning Valley, will celebrate its 50th anniversary from 3:30-5 p.m. May 28 at its location inside the Youngstown Area Goodwill Industries headquarters in Liberty.
“The biggest thing in the newspapers, the obituaries – you never know about your friends or your parents’ friends,” Bosela said. “That’s probably the most listened-to program – then the regular news – in the newspapers and suburban papers.”
The reading service uses the help of volunteers to relay stories from The Vindicator, the Tribune Chronicle, The Business Journal, various community newspapers and national publications, including USA Today and Time magazine. They also read books that are not already readily available as audio books.
“The shopping ads,” Bosela notes. “You imagine that if a person is blind, they listen to the shopping ads, and we play it twice because it’s hard to hear the bargains the first time around.”
Bosela first discovered the Youngstown Society for the Blind and Disabled while proposing a telephone answering service for the blind, which interested him after college. That led him to Radio Reading, which later produced a recurring program about technology for blind people.
Paul Dustman, then director of the society, got about an $80,000 grant, according to Bosela, which helped them purchase 800 radios pretuned to the subcarrier of Youngstown State University’s radio channel, WYSU, which airs Radio Reading broadcasts. Bosela said they passed the radios out by going directly to the homes of older people and showing them how easily they worked.
Early on, Radio Reading’s content was broadcast only 10 to 12 hours a day, Bosela said. But now, due to the growing list of volunteers, content airs 24/7.
The free radios continue to be available to individuals who are blind, have low vision or face other health issues that impede them from holding and reading print material.
Mike Muder, the current Radio Reading manager, said the subcarrier still exists due to the generosity of YSU, which also provides technical support when needed.
But Muder said Alexa and Siri have become a second source for Radio Reading content.
“Accessibility is a big thing,” Muder said. “We’ve tried to make ourselves, with the changing technology, as easy as possible.”
Connection with Goodwill
When the Society for the Blind and Disabled closed in 1992, it left the future of Radio Reading in jeopardy. But Bosela said Mike McBride, then director of Goodwill Industries, offered to bring the Radio Reading program, the workshop and two other programs from Glenwood Avenue to the organization’s location on Belmont Avenue.
Donnan passed the torch to Bosela about that time. And then Muder assumed the role when Bosela retired in 2018, though Bosela continues to help. He currently hosts the “Good Community” podcast, which highlights the work of local nonprofits.
Throughout the years, Radio Reading usually operated with only a small crew with part-time helpers, including Eric Stovall who worked weekends.
In 2019, Mark Galoja, then CEO of Goodwill, gathered a few blind employees from the organization to work at Radio Reading, including Larry Karabin, Otho Mae Braziel and Alex Budrevich, according to Muder.
“There’s only been three managers of Radio Reading since it started, and it’s a real honor for me to be the third manager,” Muder said. “I often think about all the work that has been done by both Jim and Mike to build Radio Reading to what it is today, and I take that very seriously to try to continue to improve it as much as I can and build upon that.”
Muder interned at Radio Reading in 1995 while studying to get his telecommunications degree at YSU, where Donnan had become a professor and the internship coordinator. Interning at Radio Reading gave Muder a varied experience in radio and led to a short career in commercial radio before he returned to work at Radio Reading in 1997.
“Because of our small staff, interns have always been a big help,” Muder said. “Really, our interns worked and did everything basically that we did, just about. So I learned a lot of different aspects of it.”
Not unlike many nonprofit organizations, funding can be tight. Bosella said the local Lions Club organizations, spurred by their connection to Helen Keller’s request that they become “knights of the blind in the crusade against darkness,” have helped support the Radio Reading program through the years. Radio Reading has also received subsidies and state funding, and Bosela and Muder have obtained many grants.
Volunteers
The reading service’s longevity can be attributed to more than funding. Volunteers have been vital.
“These people love to come in,” Bosela said. “They’re the salt of the Earth. They come in on their own time. They’re not getting paid. … You just can’t help making friendships with them. They’re just great people.”
Muder agreed, saying the volunteers have been phenomenal and use their own strengths to make Radio Reading a great resource for the community. He said he never has to worry about the quality of the reading, and everyone makes good decisions about what articles to read.
“They’re dedicated, and they really believe in our mission,” Muder said. “That makes my job easier.”
Richard Smiley is a volunteer reader and said no matter what he is reading, he tries to give listeners the information and let them make up their own minds without editorializing. He reads from USA Today every Thursday.
Smiley has volunteered with Radio Reading since its beginning. After high school, he went into radio work and credits a former grade school teacher with first telling him about the effort to launch the service.
“I started doing filler,” Smiley said. “I think it was Popular Mechanics. And then they got me reading newspapers and books.”
Even when he served in the U.S. Navy and was in the Aleutian Islands on the edge of Alaska, Smiley would read books on cassettes and ship them home for Radio Reading.
“If you have a talent and you don’t use it to help someone else out, what bloody good are you in this world?” Smiley said. “What are you here for?”
Pictured at top: Michael Bosela, Richard Smiley and Mike Muder.