West Virginia University’s Perley Isaac Reed School of Journalism began its partnership with WHFI-FM in Summer 2006.  The WVU School of Journalism received a New Voices grant in 2006 from J-lab, the Institute for Interactive Journalism to help fund the creation of news programming at WHFI.  The initial goals were to train student and adult community volunteers how to produce and report news for a daily 15-minute newscast, and to launch an interactive website for the station.  Between Summer 2006 and Spring 2007, WVU journalism students and faculty, led by West Virginia Public Radio correspondent and adjunct Instructor Emily Corio, traveled to Monroe County to conduct training seminars.  During the seminars, WVU students were paired with volunteer reporters to cover an actual event in the community and produce reports for the radio station.    In addition, WVU students mentored high school volunteer reporters through the school year, providing feedback on their scripts and stories.
 
In November of 2006, a feature story about the Monroe County Radio project aired on West Virginia Public Broadcasting and can be accessed through www.youtube.com:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZpfWrYAdHc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vt320w460lA&mode=related&search
   
WVU’s School of Journalism is also helping to develop a training manual for future volunteers and launch this interactive website, through the help of Bryan Cooper of WCGnet and the research done by Nathan Miller a WVU journalism graduate student.