The only program of its kind on the air in northern New England, "The Quiet Storm" includes two highlight features: "The Smooth Jazz Artist of the Week" -- which, as its name implies, is a set of three songs by a featured Smooth Jazz artist -- and "The Way-Back Machine," a set of three classic "old-school" Soul, Funk and R&B tunes from the 1970s and 1980s.

"The Quiet Storm" has been a staple on WGDR's music schedule for more than a decade. It debuted on June 6, 1998 as a Monday-morning program, moving three months later to Sunday nights. The show has aired in its present Thursday-afternoon time slot since September 2003, becoming one of WGDR's most popular music programs. 

About the Host 
Skeeter Sanders loves rainbows. The multi-colored arc has long been a symbol ofdiversity. And Sanders is a living, breathing celebration of diversity.

Born to an African American mother and Native American father in 1953, Sanders is about as multicultural as one can get. Aside from his mixed heritage, He's a Pagan who follows Wiccan and Native traditions.

While no longer wearing flowers in his dreadlocked hair, he's had a love affair with nearly all things hippie for almost four decades (he still vacations at Rainbow Gatherings every summer).

His musical tastes run the gamut from the Smooth Jazz and Cool R&B he playsnbsp;on his Quiet Storm program to rock-and-roll, pop, '70s disco and funk, folk, classic soul, techno, you name it.

He prefers the jeans-and-sneakers life in the slow lane to the dog-eat-dog, suit-and-tie corporate rat race (Consequently, he works full-time at Saint Michael's College in Colchester when he's not spinning tunes on WGDR).

A native of New York City, Sanders grew up listening to then-Top 40 powerhouses WABC and WMCA and Urban FM pioneer WBLS. It was the late WABC DJ Chuck Leonard, one of the first African Americans to break into mainstream radio, who inspired him in 1967 -- while on a visit to the then-14-year-old's junior high school -- to go into broadcasting. 

But nearly 30 years would pass before Sanders would put his childhood dream into practice, launching a short-lived classic-soul program on the University of Vermont's WRUV-FM in 1996. He moved to WGDR two years later to launch "The Quiet Storm," patterned after the namesake format pioneered in 1979 by WBLS' sister station, KBLX in San Fransisco.

Along the way, the professional lives of Sanders and WGDR General Manager Greg Hooker would cross in December 1998, when Hooker, then Program Director at WNCS (The Point), listened to one of Sanders' then-Sunday night broadcasts at his home in Marshfield and invited him to send in a resume and demo tape.

One thing led to another and for the next three years, Sanders anchored The Point's Saturday overnight music ("They were three of the happiest years of my radio career," he said) while maintaining his WGDR show.

Despite being laid off from The Point in January 2002 -- a casualty of a downsizing ordered by the station's parent company -- Sanders and Hooker remained friends. Little did either of them realize it at the time that their paths would cross again almost five years later when Hooker was hired by Goddard College to be WGDR's General Manager in December 2006.

Today, in addition to holding court on "The Quiet Storm," Sanders also writes a thought-provoking weekly Internet commentary on politics, called "The 'Skeeter Bites Report," which you can read at:

The Skeeter Bites Report  

Email Skeeter:
TheQuietStormVT@hotmail.com