Going back in time "On The Air"

     Here's another "back in time" post for my newly rediscovered biological family. Many of them know I worked in radio and TV for a number of years and this is a brief history of what I did and how I ended up where I am today.

    I began my career radio at age fourteen illegally broadcasting on a small transmitter purchased from Radio Shack with profits from my Dayton Daily News paper route. To this day the FCC is none the wiser. After high school I enrolled in a broadcasting school in Dayton and impressed even myself by securing two different broadcasting jobs before graduating.

Nothing better than college radio

     I got my first break in radio at WING-AM. One of my college classes went on a tour of the well-known Dayton station and at the conclusion the program director asked if I was interested in a job. I think we was impressed with my knowledge of the inner workings of radio. Or, he just needed a warm body who would push a few buttons every hour for minimum wage. Within a few weeks I was working and sleeping in the janitors closet during the weekends and working six hours on and six hours off for 2 1/2 days. I did everything from running syndicated programs and Sunday morning church programs to production. And, most importantly, I gave an hour 7 second weather forecast. This is where I learned the broadcasting adage, "Less is more." I learned it to the second. 

Sometimes in radio you have to 
get your hands dirty

     My TV break came from being in the right place at the right time. Being the broadcasting nerd I was at the time I would hang around the college radio studio long after all the other students had left. One day, the main office got a call from WRGT-TV asking if they had anyone who could run a camera. I volunteered and ended up working there for about a year. I left after being offered a full-time on-air position in radio at WGTZ-FM. I started out on overnights and ended up doing afternoon-drive. 
     Since then I've held a variety of positions in radio and been fired from most of them. I can't honestly tell you why I've been fired so much. Well, maybe I can. I was never a good butt kisser and have a tendency to speak truth to power--even if they don't ask for it. There was the time I told the GM of WDJK-FM in Xenia he was running the station into the ground. He fired me about 10 minutes after I got off the air but then he and everyone else at the station were let go two months later after the station was dumped by its owner because it was losing too much money. I certainly never was a good "company boy" and was even voted by my co-workers at WHIO-AM as the person most likely to lead to a coup against COX chairman Jim Kennedy. I have the certificate to prove it.

Grand Marshall 1996 
Beavercreek 4th of July Parade

     Though, some of my work has garnered rave reviews (besides from my mom) and have even won a few awards. To this day people tell me they still remember the shows I hosted or events I produced or promoted. However, most pleasing to me was being named Grand Marshall of the 1996 Beavercreek Fourth of July Parade. The "local boy makes good" story line made my family happy and my parents couldn't have been prouder to see their son waving to the crowd while be chauffeured in the back on a 1968 Dodge Dart convertible squeezed between two Hooters Girls. 

Me and the bloke

     In late 1996 I was named co-host of an alternative radio morning show at WXEG-FM--hence the piercing scars in my left ear, and on my soul. It was a tumultuous four years, both personally and professionally. While there I was dealing with depression, divorce, financial issues, and trying to be essentially a single parent, for all intents and purposes. I was no day at the beach, that's for certain. Plus, there was a great deal of backbiting and passive aggressiveness at the station and it wasn't a great environment. And I had to work with a foreigner. The same day I was fired from that gig in January 2000, I was offered an interview for the position of Director of Entertainment for the Dayton Dragons professional minor-league baseball team. I may not have been the first to launch hot dogs into a crowd but I was the first to launch Happy Meals. We called it, "Do you want fries with that?" Imagine an order of fries scattering above the crowd. It was art. 

On-field shenanigans 

     After a season of practically sleeping at the ballpark, dodging foul balls (and bats) and getting dumped by my fiancee, I returned to radio for more abuse. I was lured to Clear Channel Dayton by the promise of job that I don't believe ever really existed. I was hired to be a program director for a talk station I was told they were putting on the air, but a two weeks after beginning I was told they had "changed their minds about the station." So, I was relegated to promotions director of Mix 107.7. Though, while at Mix I was able to create the Time Warp Prom, which to this day, some 15 years later, is without question a listener favorite. In fact, the event is now held in many other radio markets making lots of money for other people besides me. After being put of my misery there I returned TV. 

Risking life and limb 
in Chopper 7

     While at the number one CBS affiliate in the country, WHIO-TV, I wrote daily news topicals, series promos, image pieces, and wrote and produced two historical documentaries. Both documentaries won regional Edward R. Murrow Awards which are now hanging in my home ruining my wife's decor. The highlight, however, had to be riding in Chopper 7. After several years of happiness and creative contentment, they hired a new guy who was shady and had an aversion to cutlery. I left there to try my hand at broadcasting sales and despised every minute of it, expect the time we went on a team building retreat to a laser tag venue. That was fun! 

Me, content and happy

     Now I do creative and art coordination for an advertising company in Dayton, Ohio and I'm very content and happy once again. I have my own office, a window, and get free bottled water (when in stock). I also host a few music shows on Troy Community Radio on a part-time basis. It's nice to be paid for your hobbies. I enjoyed my time and radio and TV broadcasting and maybe one day I'll return on a full-time basis. Just have to want until Obama's Highway Bill is implemented so some of those bridges I burned can be repaired or replaced.