With questions like “Who do you love the least?”, “Favorite fundie?”, and “Worst grade you’ve received at Hillsdale?”, Greeks, athletes, and fundies overcome their differences on a new radio show that features the sects and stereotypes of campus
Airing on the radio every Tuesday, “Truman and Claire Like People” features a different guest every week. Recent guests have included junior Kaeleigh Otting, senior Christopher Dick, and alumnus Nathan Bly ’23.
Its hosts, seniors Claire Gaudet and Truman Kjos, are relatively new to the radio world.
“I’ve done guest spots on the ‘Collegian Week in Review,’ but that’s about it,” Gaudet said.
Kjos did a show in the spring of 2022 and the fall of 2023, discussing historic NFL seasons called “Story of a Season.”
The idea for “Truman and Claire Like People” emerged from a film and production club meeting.
“Originally, we were talking about a show where we talked about movies,” Gaudet said. “We scrapped that idea.”
Truman and Kjos instead discovered a common interest in people.
“We both know a lot of weird corners of campus. What if we just talked to some people? It was all very quick after that,” Gaudet said.
According to Gaudet and Kjos, one of the strengths of the show is their nonidentical social circles.
“Truman and I are different enough people,” Gaudet said. “So we have different enough friends on campus, but we also intersect in a lot of ways.”
Unlike some radio shows that appeal to more niche interests, Gaudet and Kjos hoped to create a program that could interest most of campus.
“I think we chose to do something so broad it couldn’t fail,” Gaudet said. “I’ve been shocked at how many people have listened to the show. I’ve had people I’ve never met before in my life come up to me and talk to me about it.”
Kjos said he was expecting a few more people to listen to the show but has still gotten a positive response.
“Dr. Bart came up to me in A.J.’s one time and was saying, ‘Use a different bleeping sound for your radio show,’” Kjos said.
Every one of their guests has their own brand of humor, Gaudet and Kjos said, from dry to offbeat to traditionally funny.
As Gaudet and Kjos’s second-ever guest, senior Benjamin Hinrichs said he didn’t know much about the show before he was invited on it. According to Hinrichs, Gaudet’s and Kjos’ manner reminds him of Nardwuar, a Canadian celebrity journalist and musician with an eccentric interview style.
“They’ve done such intense research about people that they’ll be able to bring up stuff that happened—or didn’t happen—two years ago,” Hinrichs said. “It was fun how much work they put into the questions.”
Hinrichs said Gaudet and Kjos both maintain their fun, easy-going personalities even behind the microphone.
“They’re very easy to have a conversation with, and I already knew that as friends,” Hinrichs said. “But being able to transfer that in a more formal setting of a radio show is more difficult.”
Hinrichs said various people on campus have referenced different funny moments from his episode on the podcast.
“I feel like a decent amount of people listen to it,” Hinrichs said. “They’re growing a loyal and dedicated follower base.”
Hinrichs said his favorite episode of the show is its first, in which Gaudet and Kjos interviewed senior Michael Bachman about his legendary Saga interaction with senior Mary Ann Powers.
Junior Daniel Molter, a friend of Gaudet, said he was excited when she invited him as a guest. According to Molter, the podcast both challenges and mocks the fragmentalization of campus culture.
“They make it very clear that they’re very interested in learning about and tying together all these different sects at Hillsdale,” Molter said. “It’s especially helpful that they’re seniors because they realize that the compartmentalization of an already really small campus is kind of silly.”
Molter said the show invites students to lay aside their assumptions about one another.
“We feed on it too much,” Molter said. “They’re very good at being interested in every part of campus, every microbiome.”
