If you’ve made a career out of radio, chances are you picked up a great deal of knowledge along the way. You know how the industry works as an entertainment and information medium. You appreciate the business model, whether you’re working for a commercial station or a non-profit. And you have no doubt gathered a strong understanding of the inner-workings of radio, the ebbs and flows of stations as the seasons change and as the quarters roll on.
But one thing that may have eluded you is precisely how most people get hooked on radio to begin with. I’ve met thousands of people through my journeys as a researcher, programmer, and consultant. And I’ve found the best ice breaker when I’m introduced to someone I don’t know is to ask her how she first got into radio.
Or “How were you bitten by the radio bug?”
Like fingerprints, they are unique to each person. Everyone has a story. And while they bear similarities, most are novel, fascinating, and even revelatory. Sometimes that first brush with radio was by chance. Or part of a school tour. Or meeting someone in the business. Or watching American Graffiti and being charmed by the night studio occupied by the amazing Wolfman Jack. Whatever that first encounter was, there’s an addictive quality to radio that most of us cannot quite explain.
But chances are if you’re in radio, you remember that charge – somewhere between electric and nuclear. But palpable and memorable. You remember where you were, what you were doing, and who you were with. And perhaps you recall breaking the news to an astonished parent who maybe couldn’t quite get their heads around why you had taken leave of your senses, turned your back on their guidance, threw caution to the wind, and proudly announced:
“I’m going into radio!”
Many of our parents are still trying to figure out precisely what we do for a living. But we know.
And those are the moments I think about a photo like the one you see at the top of this post. It’s the young Scott Westerman, shown back in 1971, a recent “bitee” of the radio bug. Here he’s working for 25¢ an hour to file records at his local Ann Arbor radio station, WPAG. (He would have no doubt done this job gratis.) Scott went on to a brilliant, accomplished career, making waves in campus radio at Michigan State, joining the staff of the legendary WVIC, and distinguishing himself in the cable TV industry and at his alma mater, MSU.
But while Scott has done some amazing things in the business, perhaps his most amazing feat is resurrecting the radio station he grew up with – WKNR, better known as Keener 13 in Detroit. Like virtually every one of those AM Top 40 stations from the 1960s, Keener is long gone. But not if you’ve got an Internet connection and you’re a big dreamer.
Scott has written the book on Keener – literally – collecting all those old Keener Music Guides, those unforgettable jingle packages, and everything that was Keener. You’ve heard of tribute bands? Scott has build a tribute station, paying homage to the sound that helped him dream his big dreams growing up.
It is a gift to be able to hold onto that as an adult now enjoying his seventh decade of life. While some of us go to radio reunions, Scott has created the radio version 24/7/365. He even has the entire collection of staff memos from the era – “Inside Keener” – that tells the stories of the inner-workings of the station and how it evolved.
Along with old radio buddies like Steve Schram who he grew up with in the business, Scott has mixed the classic with the contemporary, building a mobile app for Keener, smart speaker invocations, while streaming on Live 365, along with a website. Keener 13 also has a full line of merch – shirts, hats, mugs – you name it.
Through his journey to bring back the station he grew up with, Scott has befriended those great Keener 13 jocks, many of whom are very much alive and still kicking today – Scotty Regan, Bob Greene, Jerry Goodwin, Gary Stevens, Dick Purtan, Pat St. John, and other legends.
Growing up in Detroit in that era, we had Motown, the Bob Seger System (yes, and Bob Seger and the Last Heard), Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels, and some amazing bands that are still revered here more than six decades later. And we had the radio stations that provided the soundtrack of our lives – in cars and transistor radios: CKLW (The Big 8), WXYZ, and WJBK – all before FM came along and ate the radio world.
But for Scott Westerman and Steve Schram, Keener is not just a radio trip down memory lane. For both of these accomplished pros, the “Keener Way” has become a way of doing business. Here’s how Scott explained it to me:
“Steve and I had a maxim. Anything Keener has to be excellent. ‘What would Keener do?’ became my business mantra, a magnificent obsession with distilling the essence of success and applying it at every stage of my career.”
I thought about those seminal moments when many of us first got into radio and the impact it had on many of us while at Ford Field last week – not for a Lions game – but for the second annual Michigan Association of Broadcasters’ Great Lakes Broadcast and Sports Media Academy.
More than 900 high school and college kids showed up for the program on a blustery November morning in downtown Detroit, curious about a career in radio or television. And if I squinted at the throngs of radio (and TV) wannabes, I could’ve sworn I saw the young Scott Westerman in the crowd.
I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow, as well as the compelling story of an endangered high school radio station here in the U.P. (Upper Peninsula, for those of you who don’t live here) that just received a stay of execution, due in no small part to your generosity and the spirit of radio.
After all, the more things change….
Jacobs Media has consistently walked the walk in the digital space, providing insights and guidance through its well-read national Techsurveys.
In 2008, jacapps was launched - a mobile apps company that has designed and built more than 1,300 apps for both the Apple and Android platforms. In 2013, the DASH Conference was created - a mashup of radio and automotive, designed to foster better understanding of the "connected car" and its impact.
Along with providing the creative and intellectual direction for the company, Fred consults many of Jacobs Media's commercial and public radio clients, in addition to media brands looking to thrive in the rapidly changing tech environment.
Fred was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in 2018.
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When I was around 13 or 14, I met a famous DJ at an event. I decided I wanted to be just like him – I later got an invite to his station. It was a total dump, but I was in Heaven. As Jeff Detrow of the iconic Jeff & Jer’ show once said, ‘he never quit being that 16-yr. old looking through the studio window of a radio station.’ Me neither.
Great story, Don!
I had dreams of playing golf at the college level then joining the PGA tour. When I realized I wasn’t as good as I thought I was, I stumbled upon the campus radio station one day. I’m still working in radio and still working on my handicap.
Two things you love! Thanks, Scott.
I wanted to be Marv Albert when I grew up.
You came close!
YES!!!
My (great) uncle owned a farm. My dad had ‘volunteered’ my services for a couple summers helping out. One year, his usual threat of ‘if you don’t find a job you are going back to Walter’s farm’ didn’t work when our next door neighbor offered me a job to come work 4pm until signoff so he could send his folks home at a decent hour.
That was 1982. I’m still in it.
And you’re not milking cows!
I got my first radio at 7 years old when I was in Dallas, TX and heard the most magical radio station, 98 KZEW (The Zoo). I loved hearing the imaging sound of Zoo Lou, I had the Zoo Lou sticker slapped on my stereo and woke up to LaBella and Rody before school. It was at that moment, I knew I was going to be a PD in radio…and here I am 40+ year later, as PD and OM. Because of that radio station, I have had no other career (or job). Radio is the only thing I have ever wanted to do.
Once again, one of those iconic stations that had moments of magic. My brother, Paul, and several ABC ex-pats worked for KZEW in the early 80s. It was a cool station. Thanks, Steve.
Two of the best: Scott “The Hugger” Westerman and “The Doctor of Rock,” Steve Edwards! It all started under your tutelage at WBRS, WMCD and WMSN.
Growing up in the shadow of New York City, my idols were WABC’s Bruce Morrow and Dan Ingram. I went through 9V batteries like popcorn listening to Cousin Brucie on my Lafayette transistor radio under my pillow as I went off to sleep as a kid.
I wanted to do what they did. Starting in 1979, I did, in faraway upstate NY.
And in 1983, Bruce himself – in person – hired me to do mornings on WHMP-FM, his station in western Massachusetts. And he got Dan to cut a liner for me.
When the Bug bites, he brings along a big bag of dreams.
Wonderful, also grew up in NYC. Grandpa Clark showed me the AM table radio for WOR and the FM in the bedroom for WPAT when I was two. Live NYC exposure to Howdy Doody & Capt Jet before grade school. PA announcing in grammar ad prep with music listening for the best tunes and baseball. Graduate John Sterling visited in my Sr. Year at McBurney and told me…when they ask you to do something, just do it. Don’t worry if you fail in the beginning. First job WBIS 500w D Bristol CT, 1966. Built WWUH-FM Stereo Univ. Hartford 1968. Currently developing low cost digital radio at my second station WDEE, Hamden/New Haven, now Digital 1220watx.com An essential life skill and wonderful public service with entertainment and great people. Encourage participation of the next generation and offer the connection on many great sounding receivers.
I got the bug earlier than most, as my father bought time on WOPA in Oak Park (Chicago)for a Polish language show and as a three-year-old I got to hang out and look at the patch panels and the endlessly fascinating teletype machines. As I got older, there were WLS and WCFL. Hook, line and sinker. Where the hell did 47 years go? (one of the highlights being on the former sister station to Keener 13) What a wild ride all from a bug bite.
In 1982, my Cub Scout pack visited 79Q in Houston, where I grew up. I was a regular listener, and knew the “Q Morning Zoo” schtick. After completing our tour of the station, the station staff member asked us if anyone had any questions. I raised my hand.
“I’m a jell-o head,” I told them.
The staff member busted out laughing, and couldn’t believe that this 9-year-old kid knew the regular gags and lines of the morning show. The staff member excused themself and told us all to wait there for a moment.
The next thing I knew, a hand was on my back and I was scooted into the control room, whereupon I was interviewed live on the air by John Lander and the rest of the folks in the studio. I was probably on the air maybe 60 seconds, but in my 9-year-old mind it felt like five minutes!!
The DJs all signed and wrote notes on a souvenir lyric booklet of the top hits of the day that the station was giving out. It still exists somewhere in my parent’s house.
The next day at school, I was shocked when so many of my friends told me they head me ON THE RADIO!!!
That’s my earliest radio memory, and probably planted a seed. I have another “how I got into radio” story, but it’s more pedestrian, in that I’ve always been a musician. And so when I was leaving high school and going into college, I knew that I really wasn’t good enough to be a pro musician. BUT–I knew from being a radio lover from a young age that I could be close to music, and culture, as long as I worked in radio/media. And so that’s what I did.
*heard me, not head me lol
I was a big fan of 80s College Rock, to the point of obsession. Freshman year of college in ’87 made friends with a guy who worked at the college station. He talked me into doing a show with him because of my knowledge of the music. He quit after a semester, I changed my major.
In 1956, my 6th grade class wrote and produced an hour-long radio program about Brotherhood Week. After several days of rehearsal, we went into our high school’s studio to perform the program live on a Pontiac station. I took one look at that control room and railroad engineering went right out the window as my career goal. I took radio drama in the 8th through twelfth grades but ended up working in Motown’s studio instead of a station.
I was a business major in college and took a communications class as an elective. An assignment was to listen to a fledgling show called All Things Considered on WBEZ Chicago. I knew THAT was what I wanted to do. Make radio with an impact. 50 years later (mostly in public radio and including 6 years on the NPR Board) I’m still at it in semi-retirement. Just can’t quit.
When I was very young, before we had a radio in the house, my father bought a TV (a big box with a tiny screen) for his buddies to watch Friday Night Fights. He dragged it onto the front porch with rabbit ears and they came weekly to get semi-rowdy. Next came the radio, for Phillies games. I thought that radio was exclusively for baseball until one day, while dad was at work, I turned on his radio, turned the tuning knob and heard…Wibbage! Philly’s early Top 40 station.
From that moment, my obsession grew. So did radio. I had at least 6 radios confiscated from me by teachers in my time in elementary and high school. Always listening. And at night, WBT would take me to Charlotte. WBZ to Boston. WOWO to Ft. Wayne, etc. Among my friends, was the first to discover FM and subsequently WMMR. Got to college, got a shift on the volunteer progressive station from which I was canned for playing a Jackson 5 song. (You mean there are rules?)
After that, 5 decades of joy in radio ensued. Thank you Michael, Tito, Randy, et al.
I’ll try to condense this because I believe I have one of the most unique stories on the subject.
I actually started in television … at age 12. My hometown of Ventura had a “flash in the pan” UHF station, a chance encounter with its owner a month before its launch got me added to the staff, then when his investors pulled out less than three months in, those of us who stuck around kept it on the air for another nine months as volunteers. I actually ran Master Control a few dozen times.
The following year, the school district decided to experiment with TV in the classroom and wisely (?) decided to start at the junior high school “where we already have a student who worked at channel 16”.
That got me an in with the local cable company, which was just getting started in local origination programming, including televising the annual Ventura County Fair parade (which conveniently had a route that passed right in front of the studios and offices). In 1972, a well-known local radio broadcaster who had just put a new FM station on the air volunteered to host the parade coverage; he heard a few of my station breaks and afterwards told me to get my Third Phone and that he would hire me if I did. Got my ticket in April 1973, he hired me in July for weekends, went full-time after about a year and a half, stayed until almost exactly my four year anniversary there, and a little over a year after that got my first PD gig (still in my hometown market).
Never looked back after that.
(P.S. I have a small tribute site telling the story of channel 16, including scans of some of the many station paraphernalia that I luckily saved at the time and kept over the decades. Anyone who wants to see it can contact me directly for the link.)
Lots of great stories (as you’d expect from today’s topic) but yours truly is especially unique! Bet those days seem like yesterday. Just sent you a note for the link to your channel 16 page. Would love to see it. It reminded me of working at a station that was tossing tons of vintage equipment–including air studio turntables that at one time would have been bringing the Beatles and the Beach Boys the Mamas and Papas to all of San Diego. I just couldn’t bear to think of it all in a dumpster so I kept a lot of it. One of the turntables–still working–is sitting next to me as I write. Thanks for sharing your story.
Got the bug from a friend of the family. Rick D’Amico was the afternoon guy on Keener 14 in Battle Creek, and the Program Director. I was invited a few times to go watch him work and ask questions. When I had spent a couple summers working a board for Detroit Tigers games at a local FM, he helped get me to WVIC. After an employee shuffle there, he put in a good word for me with a guy at a station in Charlotte, Michigan. They were launching a new format, and I got to work with Fred and his modified ideas. There have been several stations since, I do voiceover now, but occasional on air work isn’t foreign to me. And Mr. D’Amico? He went from radio to TV, starting with local weather, to CBS national weekend weather, to Morning host on a Phoenix TV station. He retired a few years back, but still keeps busy.
The bug bit me when I heard a radio announcer with a unique voice and delivery doing dedications on the air. My sister came home from a date one night saying she had visited that station, the announcer talked from a kitchen. It was that kind of mental picture that stuck with a (then) 7 year old kid. Fast forward to a family moving to the suburbs with FOUR local station transmitters within 2 miles of our house. My buddy said “let’s go” -and back then the doors were wide open. I met a board op who-as a kid-had visited my uncle who (unknown to me at the time) was Chief Engineer at another local station. I spent the next 2+ years at that station just observing and raiding the “discard” pile whenever possible. I knew I could do it-and 6 years later got my first job at the local station known for hiring people “off the street”. That was 57 years ago. It’s still fun, still fascinating and despite its well-known issues, hearing one’s voice “on the air” is still a total trip.
I must have been 8 or 9, in a summer day camp. One day, we visited our local radio station, WAUX, Waukesha, WI. In the middle of what I’d now call a “bullpen” was a machine (“Associated Press”)appearing to type – very loudly – news, weather, sports scores, and more news from around the world! I couldn’t take my eyes off it. Any business that had this wondrous machine, where you could know everything that was happening at that very moment, was something I had to be part of.
I grew up on fifteen acres of land in rural Virginia, and during the day I had my local stations, but at night, WOWO, WCFL, WLS, WABC and maybe a little known one-WNOX in Knoxville. Even to this day, I remember their jingles and I just wanted to be a part of radio. There was just something about the sound of those stations coming into my eight transistor Toshiba radio at night that was.. magical. Radio still is, even after 51 years behind the mike. Can anyone here still remember the smell of the inside of control room?
So I caught the radio bug when I was around 10 or 11. I started really paying attention to what was between the music… the DJ’s, the sweepers, the contests, where do the jingles come from? etc
I started calling into Houston radio stations and did anything I could do to get on the radio… winning contests, coming up with bits, doing celebrity impersonations, etc. Yup… I was that pesky kid. It worked though!
I won a lot of free stuff and was all over the dial… but most importantly, it allowed me to get to know some of the DJ’s which eventually led to an internship (in 1987), part time job and onward to a career in radio that has lasted over 35 years.
* By the way, I recorded most of my on air appearances as a kid on cassette and last year I finally edited it all down and digitized it. It’s fun to go back and listen to. A real time capsule of 80’s radio.
I was not a TV kid. As long as I remember, I would sit in the living room (or live in the sitting room) and spin the A.M. dial at night, and paying more attention to the announcers than the music. At the age of 6, while driving by WOKY studios in Milwaukee, I had a crying fit because my Dad would not stop. I wanted to go in and meet The Beatles. I thought that they were actually there, playing their music. Dreaming on and on about being on the air until I got my chance on an A.M. station in Wisconsin, doing the “God Squad” Sunday morning programming. I can explain, in detail, the studio, and everything in it, including the smell. Over 40 years later, “From town to town…up and down the dial” I’m still at it. It’s the worst business I’ll never leave, doing what I’ve wanted to do since I was a little buckaroo. Thanks to John “Records” Landecker’s “Boogie Check”, David Haynes “Burnt Toast and Coffee Time”, Bob Berry, Walt “Baby” Love, Allison Steele, and the countless others that inspired me to do what I love.
I grew up listening to Jerry Baker the PBP guy for WIBC and IU basketball with Don Fischer. I was fortunate that Warren Central High School was starting a radio station (1970) when I was a sophomore. WEDM is still the 10 watt giant of the Eastside. I remember sitting in a dark room with a film projector showing a black and white Warren Central basketball game. I gave my rendition into a plastic microphone on a Panasonic tape recorder. I won the PBP job for basketball and color on football. I went on to do news and weather on the classical station @ IU and landed my first commercial radio gig @ WTCJ-AM in Tell City, In. Love that I still get to play radio every day in 2023!
M2
My earliest memories were listening to Lyle Bremser call 1970’s Husker games on the radio while I was at my grandpa’s house mowing the grass with my dad driving and me in his lap on a John Deere. The excitement in Mr Bremser’s voice made every play seem like he was calling the moon landing.
A few years later, my parents would blast the “South O polka show” with Big Joe on AM radio. Talk about pinnacle branding and rhyming. His catchphrase in between the accordions was “happy music for happy people”. It was a vibe.
Who doesn’t love a good public relations stunt? In 1981, a nighttime disc jockey at Sweet 98 (KQKQ – amazing call letters and name) locked himself in a studio and played “Mickey” by Toni Basil 2 or 3 dozen times in a row. I don’t remember the exact total. Does anyone have an audio file of that?
When I first got my drivers license, Z-92’s Todd and Tyler were making jokes about MY high school. It was equal parts cutting and extremely funny hearing all the bashing about Omaha Creighton Prep High school.
Radio was joy.
When I finished my lackluster third semester at college, chasing a career in industrial organization psychology didn’t have the same joy to me. My buddy was calling games at Nebraska’s KRNU in Lincoln for Husker baseball, basketball and football…. just like Lyle Bremser. I was sold. Hello Broadcast Journalism!
Fast forward a few decades in my role as an adjunct professor in college and every year I would ask Mass Comm majors about how they “use” audio. For 9 years, about 5% less said radio. Their joy came more from Joe Rogan podcasts, YouTube shows and streaming platforms.
The radio shows cutting through that competition seems to be “multiple” like the Kansas City Chiefs offense. The examples they used usually tended to have a podcast platform they could listen to while away at college, a tv component like the Dan Patrick show and active on social media they used which seemed to evolve every semester like an Andy Reid playbook.
Radio still provides joy.
You just have to market and re-invent that joy.
Great article, Fred!
I had the radio bug as a pre-teen listener back mid-60s. Chicago was a great radio town then and beyond the obvious ones, I loved
listening to the smaller stations that surrounded the city. By 1970 sometime, I had discovered a nearby suburban AMFM combo that welcomed me to hang out and I took full advantage of that, eventually getting my FCC third phone. Some of the air talent,
most notably present-day media broker Bob Heymann would give me and my bicycle a ride home after the station signed off at 11pm. I soloed for the first time Christmas night 1972 as they couldn’t find anyone else to work. By 17 I was doing afternoons. I had 25 minutes to get there by 3pm when school let out. The rest is history.
Here’s a piece written by someone who years later worked at that same radio station. We got to know each other over the years and he summed it up quite well: https://michaelmallace.blogspot.com/2008/05/where-are-kids-on-bicycles.html
Growing up in Nashville, I always loved listening to Top AM radio since I was about 7 or 8 years old (WMAK & WKDA, and later WLAC).
When I was about 12, a neighborhood friend & I decided to record some songs (and spots!) off the radio with a portable cassette player. Then on Halloween night, we placed a speaker by his front porch and entertained trick-or-treaters as they came to his front door. We also had a mic hooked up to spook them upon their approach. The bug had “bit”!
In my pre-teens, had always loved the college radio station at Vanderbilt and made it my mission to work there. When I went to apply, they told me that I had to be a Vanderbilt student in order to work there. So when I was 16 & still in 11th grade, I enrolled for one college course in “unclassified studies” — it was enough to get me a Vanderbilt student ID — and I was on-the-air a few days later!
It started with obsessively listening to the radio when I was a kid. Then, I saw a remote broadcast from the Detroit Auto Show when I was perhaps 12. A high school station in the Detroit suburbs followed, then countless hours on three Michigan State University Campus Radio carrier-current stations and in the labs atop the MSUnion. It was a good, 25-year run.
When your earliest memories are of a guy named Shotgun Tom Kelly and the non-stop sound of the Beatles coming out of your transistor radio, there’s never a moment when you want to do anything else. After winning countless contests, a midday jock invited me down to “watch how everything works” one night. I was hired that night, and after that was never without one, often two, and at times, three different radio jobs. As I tell people, when I was young, all i wanted was to do radio really badly. After years of hard work and practice, I got to where I could do radio really badly.
Fell ass-backward into hosting a weekend morning show in Los Angeles after making a few hundred appearances on shows in the area.
A new station “Fox Sports Radio” in Los Angeles, was looking to fill it’s weekend morning roster with hosts for specialty shows. The station wanted a show on horse racing and I was tabbed to be the host of the show by friends and colleagues and people who worked for the station.
Parlayed that gig into a 22-year career in sports talk radio for a Fox Sports affiliate in New Mexico until layoffs ended that career in January of 2020.
Hearing Dick Biondi on WLS for the first time in September of 1962. I was 11 years old and now to resort to the old cliche, it changed my life. The rest of my life has been centered around that fateful night.
Bob, oftentimes that’s all it takes. I wonder how many others were inspired by Biondi. And by YOU!
In 1971 my high school English teacher told me she had recommended me to a local PD who asked her if she had any students that didn’t have a terribly thick Texas accent who might be able to work weekends.
I spent the next four years working various slots at KBST, AM 1490 in Big Spring, Texas. I started with Saturday and Sunday nights but by the time I took off to continue college I was working morning drive. I had fun and learned a lot — mostly about getting along with odd personalities.
As I prepared to go to school at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, I got an offer from KCLS, AM 600 and continued to work my way through school. I started with weekend board shifts but worked my way through news and sportscasting duties for five more years.
I chose not to stay in radio, but my experience has served me well in everything I’ve done in my career.
Larry, fascinating that the lack of a drawl helped get you into radio. Thanks for your story!
So Fred, I can’t say that I’m surprised by the HUGE amount of comments posted after your superb blog, and hopefully mine will be the last. It has taken me all day to get to this (now past midnight). My saga (and yes in the 70’s I worked for Ed Christian) began in 1959. After listening on a battery-less crystal radio every night to Bernie Herman on 1430 WIRE in Indianapolis, I later assisted my radio mentor, Jim Shelton at WIBC, the 50 kw number one station. After moving to Michigan in the fall of 1962, my love grew stronger. At Ann Arbor high, Bob Seger was in my gym class and pop singer Deon Jackson was in my English class! My first chance to crack a mic. was on WOIA locally where a 16 year old by the name of Landecker also got HIS first chance. A 33 year run with my company called The RADIOGUIDE People, afforded me the chance to work with hundreds of legendary stations across the entire country. When Scott Shannon dubbed me “Radio’s Best Friend” I was indeed flattered. Only now, that I’m near the end of my 7th decade on the planet, do I realize the legacy, especially on video, that I’m going to leave behind and I am most grateful for the opportunity!
Art, you didn’t just “get the bug” – you ARE “the bug.” Congrats on a wonderful career and all you’ve done for radio.
Fred –
Corny as it may sound, my first exposure was visiting the DJ at a DeWitt Ox Roast remote – youngsters were invited to sit in their “mobile sound studio” and watch radio being made.
But the real clincher came several years later, when I gave my High School buddy a lift to register for classes at LCC. In those days, folks had to queue up in lines to get the classes they wanted, and those lines were LONG. I was bored as heck, and so when I heard music coming from down the hall, I meandered down to investigate. That’s when I discovered their closed circuit “radio station” WLCC. When I discovered it was a student activity (only had to be a student) I signed up for a speech class and by that Winter I was “the Morning DJ on WLCC” … and shortly after got my first commercial gig at the very station I had visited in DeWitt. I started there April Fools Day 1972, and have been gainfully employed in the biz since then.
PS: Met my bride Nancy at WLCC … we celebrated our Golden Wedding Anniversary earlier this year.
What a cool story, Geary. I wonder how many radio people got “the bug” while at a radio remote.
My parents used to send me to summer camp during the junior high/middle school years. One year, they sent me to one near Kansas City, and, on a field trip to Independence Center one afternoon, I picked up a bunch of Power 95 bumper stickers at the record store. That and an AM/VHF assembly kit from Radio Shack started to pique my interests. It wasn’t until the next year, however, when I really started thinking that was what I wanted to do. At another summer camp on the opposite side of the state, I was listening to Randy Wright on KHTR 103.3 on my Walkman. It sounded fun, and I realized he had work hours similar to my school hours (if only I’d have known how much time radio people work OFF the air!). The thought of that made school, which I had always disliked, a lot more tolerable. I also realized that my dad usually didn’t get home until almost 6:00 and was out the door in the morning when I was getting up. Going to school twelve years so you could spend even longer at work after graduation just wasn’t appealing to me. Plus, I wanted to have more time with my kids than my dad had with me. Ironically, I wasn’t able to have kids of my own and only played the role of a father for a few months when a girlfriend of mine had a son, and I was working a “real job” in telecommunications at the time.
I didn’t end up lasting all that long in radio, though I did get to compete against the same Randy Wright who inspired me to get into the business roughly 20 years later. That was still an amazing experience, and I hope he enjoyed it as much as I did.
Kent, even people who only worked a short time in the radio business usually cherish those years. Thanks for sharing yet another interesting story.
I listened to radio a lot as a kid, at about 13 started hanging local stations in New Smyrna Beach Florida. A band teacher from Daytona Beach was moonlighting at a local station. I was in band too. He took an interest and taught me to run the board. After wearing my welcome out there I started hanging at the other station in town. They finally said get your license and we’ll give you a job. So my Mom drove me to Tampa to take the fcc test. I got it and was hired part time. Couple months later Cleveland Wheeler who was pd of WMFJ in Daytona hired me full time for over nights. I’m retired from full time radio now after working all over the country for over 50 years. I still do an all request show every Saturday night. Radio is love that will never die!
Brent, you are the classic radio guy. Great to hear your story!
I’m late getting to this article, so late to share, but like many, the radio bug hit when I was young. At 13, a buddy and I were part of a live studio audience at KHOP in Modesto, CA where Rob Sherwood was our idol. Every part was magic, from the difference in how people looked from how they sounded to the “copter” traffic reporter in the next booth with helicopter sounds playing off a cart. We even got to sign a wooden bridge over the audio console (I’d love to know what happened to that)
More than 25 years later, working at a station in Las Vegas, I met a guy who had also been inspired by Rob to go into radio when he met him as a teen in Minnesota. I wonder how many others he inspired.
I’m now decades into a career that has included on-air, management, and ownership stints and I still love it!
Great story, Frank. Thanks for sharing it!
I was born into the business! My dad was the manager of CMKF in Cuba (before Castro took his radio station). Years later, I started first grade in Fort Worth Texas ‘cause dad was a salesperson for KCUL — on a new fangled technology called FM radio.
Appreciate you sharing your story, Marcos, going all the way back to AM radio in Cuba.