Podcasts are in style. In recent years, media personalities, athletes, and everyone in between have taken a seat behind the microphone to make their presence felt in the world. As the school year winds down, two members of the student body have adopted the trend, hoping to make the most out of their final months in Wilson Hall.
Sixth Formers Garrett Kriebel and Billy Rayer are the co-hosts of the Lunchroom Legends Podcast, which they describe on their YouTube channel as “the podcast where we talk about everything you would hear in the lunchroom.”
“Garrett was the one who actually came to me with the idea originally,” Rayer said, “and he was just like, ‘Billy, it’s our senior year. Let’s start a podcast.’”
Kriebel had been looking to start a podcast for months before the first episode aired on January 16, 2024.
“I’ve always wanted to start a podcast.”
Garrett Kriebel ’24
“I’ve always wanted to start a podcast,” Kriebel said. “At first, I thought I’d start just a sports podcast, since I love talking about sports. But then, talking to Billy, we were like, ‘Why don’t we just talk about anything?’”
The topics range from sports to school to entertainment, and the co-hosts have found the process for each episode fairly straightforward.
Rayer said, “We have our own notes that we type up for each individual that we bring on the podcast, and really we just look at what’s going on this week, the drama in the world, and we ask the individual what questions they want us to ask them, then go from there.”
Part of what makes the work easier is that, to Rayer and Kriebel, it does not feel like work.
“We really enjoy what we’re doing right now, and the best part is, we get to have a fun time with our friends.”
Billy Rayer ’24
“We really enjoy what we’re doing right now, and the best part is, we get to have a fun time with our friends,” Rayer said. “It’s something that we have a fun time doing, and it’s kind of giving us all an excuse to see each other and talk about stuff that we normally don’t talk about, and have good conversations.”
To this point, the Lunchroom Legends Podcast has hosted Sixth Formers Sean Brodnik, Alec DeLuca, and Quin Bongiovanni. The co-hosts have run the operation smoothly, but not without challenges along the way.
“Filming has been a challenge,” Kriebel said. “We didn’t have the correct tripod for the first few episodes, so we were taping my phone to a pole. An obvious struggle is actually getting people and figuring out times. With sports and everything, it’s hard to get people. We’re going to start trying to cut down on that challenge, record multiple [episodes] in a day and have them stacked up, so we can post them and always be ready weekly to put out the podcast.”
Right now, they are taking things one episode at a time, and they hope that there will be many more to come.
“We’re really enjoying it so far,” Rayer said. “Obviously through the school year we want to continue doing it, and the goal is to keep it going towards the summer and see how it evolves.”
As the spring approaches, there is no finish line in sight.
“As long as we keep getting people who want to come on, and as long as it doesn’t plateau, as long as we have the passion to do it, and as long as people want to do it,” Kriebel said, “we’ll keep going.”
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