I can't remember the exact date, but it's May - and in May of 1981 I walked into WLRO AM 1380 Radio in Lorain, Ohio in a short sleeve dress shirt, dress pants and tie to apply at my first radio station as a "professional." It was about one o'clock in the afternoon. I had my reel-to-reel 5 minute audition tape and typed resume, such as they were. I was unannounced, had no appointment, it was a cold call. I was a few months short of my 20th birthday, and it was a day that changed my life, 44 years ago this month.
I finished my education in Broadcast School the day before and this was the first radio station I applied at. I walked in this very small building on Broadway in Lorain and handed my packet to the women sitting at a very humble front desk area. She asked me to wait and to please sit down and I did. She took my materials down a hallway that I couldn't see well. In a few minutes a very nice, well dressed woman, named Joan Lowery came out and shook my hand and asked me to come back to her office. We talked for a few minutes and she asked me to wait while she talked with another employee named Pat.
She returned and asked me if I would like to do the 2PM news on WLRO. I said yes. She took me to a studio looking into the main studio that had a blue table and a microphone. She handed me the news copy and gave me her headphones to use and I did the news cast on the air. Same thing at 2:30. She then asked if I could start the next day doing the afternoon show as my first job. I again said yes. I started for $3.35 an hour, and I was allowed to work 25 hours a week. A few months later they moved me to mornings, and a raise to $4.00 an hour and 30 hours.
WLRO in those days was a "day-timer" and they don't really exist anymore. We "signed on" at 6AM, and turned off at sunset which depended on what season it was. In the morning I would walk into a dark building and use a rotary dial phone to turn on the transmitter at 6AM - then play the National Anthem and we were on the air for the day. It all sounds so ridiculous now, but it's all true. I worked there for about a year, then I was hired at WOBL in Oberlin and that was my first country station and I've been country ever since.
WLRO is now WDLW and is owned by WOBL and the studios have been moved to the wonderfully famous WOBL farmhouse on Route 20 in Oberlin. Hard to believe that's been 43 years ago and I have worked in radio every day since. So this month I begin my 44th year. I owe Joan Lowery a lot, and even tough I have not seen her in decades, I love her very much as she was the first one to believe in me. Same with Doug and Lorie Wilbur and Dave Lenahan at WOBL who thought I'd make good country on air personality, and I love them too.
WOBL Days - Shortly Afterwards - 1982
I will never forget the first day I talked on the radio as a professional after broadcast school and working in college radio at Baldwin-Wallace while in high school. I will also never forget how lucky and fortunate I was to be hired at the very first station I ever applied at. The next day was my first "show" on WLRO, and the first song I played was a 45 rpm "record" , "Just The Two Of Us" by Grover Washington Jr, with Bill Withers singing. (It won a Grammy that year). Not a bad song to break in with.
Thanks for listening and reading! Here's to many more years!
