It's Over

5/12/1976-3/8/2007

The gestation period started in 1972 when I first attended radio school. I was 16. I was introduced to the radio school by my brothers second wife. With work and regular school happening, this part of my life had to be put on hold until after work and/or college. I went back to radio school at the age of 20 and finished the 18 month course in nine.



It was born on a sunny day in May of 1976 it was a Saturday. The first song was 'Chevy Van' by Sammy Johns. The location was WHBF-AM in downtown Rock Island Illinois. A man named Dick Stuart saw something in this long haired kid and offered me Saturday nights and Sunday afternoons. The following week, Mickie the night girl took a week off whicH allowed me to put together a 'tape'. You needed one of those to do anything. Thank you Dick Stuart. I hope rumours of your ill health are untrue.



This allowed me to get my first full time job at 99plus stereo KFMH in Muscatine Iowa in October of 1976. This was a 100,000 watt mafugga with a free form format that allowed the jocks to pick their own music. I was in heaven and I was also in the poorhouse because the pay was next to nothing. What a great time that was, I did the job for the love of the music at such an early age in my career. Little did I know that this would be the second to last time in my career that I could play what I wanted. Thank you Steve Bridges. I got in the business listening to guys like you. You are as big a prick now as you ever have been and I know you take that as a compliment.


I was approached by the management at an AM station in the Quad Cities and asked to put on an album rock show at a station that played Barry Manilow in September of 1977. I went and bought the records, put together playlists, rotations and mentored the night gal, nevermind she was 13 years older than me. At seven PM every night, the strains of Simon and Garfunkel would fade and the dulcet tones of Ted Nugent, Rush and Black Sabbath would permeate the air. It was my first foray into programming and it was good. We went from a 4.5 men at night to a 17.3 in three ratings periods on friggin AM radio, for God's sake. I was fired because a local FM station figured it out and we changed our format to...disco...ew. This was the last time I got to play what I wanted. Thanks Jim Mahanay for firing me, you and I both knew it was coming.


In the summer of 1978, WXLP-FM signed on the air and I was jealous not to be a part of the first staff there. When I lost the AM gig, I immediately went to the station with my 'tape'. I was hired and started the next day. I did middays until John Keith left mornings to teach. I didn't last long in the morning slot. Our slug line was 'Stereo Album Rock' 97X. We told our audence we were in stereo, that's how long ago it was. Thanks Tom McGuire and Jim Ohara, it's hard to believe you are still there.

In he fall of 1978, Max Floyd, Program Director of the legendary KY102 in Kansas City was test driving his new car. Instead of flying to Chicago to attend a convention, he drove and stopped in the Quad Cities for the night. He woke to my morning show and when he returned to KC offered me a chance to do nights there. He wanted me to be 'Bizzaro Man' on the air, whatever that meant. A very strange thing happened the night I spent at the Sheraton Airport Inn, which is about 20 miles from KC. I was in KC interviewing for a job and while watching TV that evening, the episode of WKRP in which Johnny Fever was offered a job in LA was being shown. I thought that was extremely strange. My show was from 6-10pm, a timeslot to be an entertainer and that I did. I moved to afternoons in 1982 and continued the personality radio with countless ratings successes. During that time, a mighty competitor arrived in KC called 'KCI'. It was helmed by a man named John Beck, they put up a valiant struggle, but John ultimately left to head KSHE95 in St. Louis in 1984. In 1984 and 1985 I was either number one or number two in the ratings. When I did lose, it was to the cat down the hall spinning country tunes, Phil Young. Once John got set in St. Louis, I wrote him a letter starting my undying desire to work at KSHE, a station I had fallen in love with in the early seventies.
In the summer of 1985, I left KY 102 to do afternoons at KSHE. Thanks to Max and a hundred people in KC too numerous to name. Thanks to Tammy, who at the time, was THE love of my life and a woman I will think about to the day I die.