Noah Homsley: Never Say No
In the ninth episode of What's Your College Story?, Katie sat down with Noah Homsley — broadcast professional, morning show personality, and a man who has been on the radio in one form or another for nearly 30 years. You might know him as Porkchop. He tried three colleges. He finished none of them. And he ended up with one of the most durable creative careers in Pacific Northwest radio anyway — because one summer afternoon in Portland, he walked past a student radio station and thought: I could do that.
Three Colleges, Zero Degrees
Noah's college story starts in Florida, where he grew up after his family moved from Gresham, Oregon when he was 11. In his early 20s, he enrolled at St. Petersburg Junior College in the Tampa Bay area — and lasted about two terms.
My mind was not really into studying. It was into other things — extracurriculars and having fun and a good time. At that age, at least for me, I had zero idea what I wanted to do. I just wanted to not be nagged by people, have a great time, meet new people, have really cool experiences.
He took about a year off, then tried again at Hillsboro Community College in Tampa. Another two terms, another departure. From there: Atlanta, more fun, back to Florida, and then — with his parents understandably losing patience — a move back to his hometown of Gresham, Oregon to, as he put it, recharge and reinvent.
I decided, hey, I gotta get out of Dodge. I'm gonna go recharge the batteries and see if I can reinvent myself.
He was in his mid-20s, he'd tried college twice and walked away twice, and he still had no real plan. What he had was curiosity, energy, and a willingness to say yes to almost anything. It turned out that was enough.
The Radio Station Next Door
When Noah moved back to Portland, he happened to land right next to a community college. One sunny summer afternoon, with nothing else going on, he wandered onto the campus — and spotted a student-run radio station.
I saw a student-run radio station. I'm like, ooh, alright. I have a plan now. Maybe I could go to broadcasting school — have a fun job earning some money — and put myself through film school. Because honestly, I didn't really care much for radio. My main focal point was to write a screenplay and learn how to do different things within cinema. I thought, why not broadcasting school? I'll pass out stickers at rock concerts and maybe get in for free, and then go to film school.
That's how he got into radio: as a practical stepping stone toward somewhere else — a means to fund the thing he actually wanted. It's an origin story that resonates: a lot of people stumble into their calling while looking for something else entirely.
He enrolled in the broadcasting program. It was his third shot at college. He became the music director of the campus radio station — a role he loved far more than he expected.
Building that relationship with record reps, finding out about bands that were getting ready to break, getting new music before anyone — it was such a thrilling piece of my education. I miss not doing that in radio. That's what I kind of wanted to do when I got in.
He never finished the degree. He was about half a year of credits short when things moved too fast to bother finishing. But not before landing the internship that changed everything.
The Paid Internship That Opened the Door
The broadcasting program required an internship to graduate. At the time, Noah was living on his own, working two part-time jobs, and going to school. When he explained to his instructor that he couldn't afford to do an unpaid internship, the instructor didn't argue — he made a call.
He called me up one day and said, a guy that I used to teach — he's a program director at a radio station that just bought a frequency. They need people, engineers, just to run the board, because there was no automation in that building at the time. They needed live people to push the buttons. And it was a paid internship at that.
I hadn't even graduated, and I had a paid job in Market 24. My foot was in the door. And that really, sometimes, for a lot of people, is all you need — is that foot in the door. It's what you make of the opportunity.
The station was 107.5 The Beat — a Portland station with a format Noah affectionately describes as very Lilith Fair: Sarah McLachlan, Fiona Apple, that whole late-'90s sound. He was running the board overnight, keeping the music on and the commercials playing. Not glamorous. But he was in the building.
2AM to 4AM: Never Say No
The philosophy that built Noah's career is simple, and he said it plainly: never say no. When the station needed someone to fill a midnight-to-six shift, he raised his hand. When there was something to do, he was there. The more he was around the building, the more people he met, the more opportunities found him.
After a couple of months, the program director said, I'll let you crack the mic and go live from 2AM to 4AM. And that's really how it started. You start to realize, alright, it's weird — you're having a conversation with yourself. But at 2AM, you're there by yourself, and you need to figure out, well, I've got to entertain myself. And so you start to have fun with the little breaks and the transitions between songs.
From there it built: 2AM slot to the rock station, rock station to a morning show as a stunt producer alongside a host called Dogface. If you were in the Portland, OR area in the late 90s to early 2000s, you might have listened to Craig the Dogface and Porkchop on 101 KUFO. The show became one of the most successful in the Portland market. Noah was making real money doing something that felt, as he put it, genuinely unbelievable.
I found a spot where my skills were valuable — the creative part of my brain. And I just could not believe it. I'm like, are you serious? I'm gonna get paid for this?
That station broadcasted from the "Pink Tower of Power" in Portland and People as far away as Longview and Kelso still stop Noah to tell him they used to listen to him there. The signal, he says, had some power.
Skills You Don't Know You Have
Nearly 30 years in, Noah has done morning radio, sports radio for seven years, and is now on country radio in the Longview-Kelso area of Washington. The format changes. The skills travel with him.
Sometimes, because you're so close — you're in it — you forget what the day-to-days are and what you've actually learned, what can be passed along to another career field. Radio — I'm a copywriter. I'm a production director. I put together commercials from paper to audio. Marketing, social media management — all of those little things. I could probably easily turn it into a resume looking at a position as a marketing director.
That's exactly what Katie was picking up on. A traditional résumé would list his job titles. It wouldn't capture what he actually learned in those roles — the writing, the production, the audience awareness, the ability to be genuinely compelling at 2 in the morning with nobody around. Those are skills. Real, transferable, marketable skills. They just don't have a certificate attached to them.
Noah is already thinking about his next act. He's planning to take free ukulele lessons at the local library — not for a career change, but because he can see exactly how to fold a new skill into what he already does. Learn a few chords. Introduce the next song on the ukulele. Turn it into a bit.
When I'm into something, I'm in. I love it. It's tough for me to learn stuff that I'm just not really excited about. But when you find something you really like, it's intoxicating. I don't care if you dig ditches. If you enjoy doing what you're doing and you're super passionate about it — two thumbs up. Do it. Continue that route.
Every day is part of the journey. Maybe that journey is figuring out what it is you love. And for some people, university life isn't the thing.
Why His Story Matters to Elikonas
Noah Homsley attended three colleges and left each one without a degree. He built a nearly 30-year career in broadcast radio through an internship, a willingness to take the overnight shift, and a creative instinct that found its home in a medium he wasn't even originally interested in.
None of what he learned is on a transcript. The music directorship. The copywriting. The production work. The live broadcast skills developed at 2 in the morning in an empty studio. The relationship-building with record reps. The years of learning how to read an audience, hold attention, and be present. All of it happened on the job, in the doing — and none of it shows up anywhere on a standard educational record.
Elikonas is built to change that. Not to replace the career he built, but to give people like Noah — and the young version of Noah who had no idea what he wanted — a place to see and show what they've actually learned. Those free ukulele classes at the library? That counts. The internship that got his foot in the door when no degree could? That counts too.
As Noah put it: maybe with what you're doing, you could take a certificate from a ukulele teacher and input that as a skill. Exactly. That's the whole idea.
Watch the Full Episode
Catch the full conversation with Noah on YouTube — including his thoughts on passion-driven learning, the role of luck in creative careers, and what he told his son about college.
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Every week on What's Your College Story?, we sit down with real people and talk about their real education journeys. The winding ones. The interrupted ones. The ones that took longer than expected and meant more because of it.
If you have a story to share, we'd love to feature you — either as a podcast guest or in a written profile right here on the blog. Email us and submit your story, or just let us know that you'd like to chat. We'll either turn that chat into a blog post or schedule you to be on the show. Whatever is most comfortable for you.
The more voices we gather, the stronger the case becomes: education is not a straight line, and why would it be? Those paths are as unique as you are!
About What's Your College Story?
What's Your College Story? is a weekly podcast hosted by Katie Stroud, founder of Elikonas, Public Benefit Corporation. Each episode features a real conversation with a real person about their education journey — the detours, the discoveries, and everything in between. The show exists to celebrate non-traditional paths and to build the community that Elikonas will serve. New episodes drop every week. Subscribe on YouTube or wherever you listen to podcasts.
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