PA Broadcaster Donates $5.3M To University

After 65 years in the broadcasting industry, Forever Media's  Kerby Confer is creating a new legacy at Bloomsburg University with a $5.3 million gift to build a state-of-the-art media center.

The Press-Enterprise reports the university will use $1.5 million to create a fully renovated radio station, TV studio, newsroom and interactive space on campus. The remaining $3.8 million will serve as an endowment for the center.

Kerby Confer

Confer said he grew up in Williamsport, PA and spent every day listening to his transistor radio and dreaming of being on the air.

An underprivileged kid, Confer didn’t have money for college, or the know-how to break into the radio business, but he had the full support and encouragement of his grandmother, he said.

And when he discovered a company had gotten a permit to operate a radio station in town, he headed over and made a nuisance of himself, he joked.

“I did what you did in those days to get a job and that was to keep hanging around until they said, ‘Kid, get lost or empty the wastebaskets,’” Confer said.

So that’s what he did, making $1 an hour, until the station went on the air a year later and he officially joined the radio team.

“That was the most exciting day of my life, second only to this one, 65 years later,” Confer told the trustees.

Eight years ago, Confer made his first gift to BU to create the Confer Radio Talent Institute. It brings some of radio’s top broadcasters and industry experts to the university for a summer program.

Since opening the institute in 2013, Confer also has funded student scholarships and faculty fellowships and has donated funds to upgrade equipment and rebrand the university radio station.

“Having more than doubled in size and scope since its inception, the Media and Journalism program is one of Bloomsburg’s largest majors and has outgrown its current space,” according to a release issued by the university. “This gift will address that immediate need while also creating new scholarships to help with recruitment and retention of students across the region interested in pursuing careers in the media and journalism industry.”

Construction on the center, which will be housed in the McCormick Center for Human Services, will began once the university undertakes renovations on the building in July.