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commUNITY Spotlight: Sheila Brown, first African-American woman to own a radio station in WNY

The station has a museum to display its rich history. You can stop by for a tour. The hope is to build a WUFO Black Radio Collectives Museum.

BUFFALO, N.Y. — Sheila Brown is the first African-American woman to own a radio station in Western New York. She is the owner of WUFO Radio and president of Vision Multimedia group, owner of WUFO Radio 96.5 FM and 1080 AM.

Brown started at the station as a commission only salesperson in 1986.  “October 1998, I said you know what, my time is up. When I left, I turned to the station and I said don't worry baby I'm going to come back and buy you."  

In 2013, she moved the station on Broadway next to the Colored Musicians Club in the African American Heritage Corridor.

The station has a storied history. Popular deejays who worked there went on to national fame including Frankie Crocker and Eddie O’Jay. “He was a deejay at WUFO and he had a group of friends that knew how to sing really well and he said look, it's a Colored Musicians Club here you should come you should sing there so when they got here they didn't have a name. He said we're going to name you the OJay's, so the famous OJay's that everyone knows across the country came from our deejay at WUFO.”

The station has a museum to display its rich history. You can stop by for a tour. The hope is to build a WUFO Black Radio Collectives Museum.

As a female owner, Brown has this advice. “If you've got it burning in your heart that you know it’s a dream, that it keeps aching at your heart, go for it, and then keep quiet, you don't have to share it with everybody."

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