I rarely note any National (fill in the blank) Day in this space. Most are silly and tedious. There is a day dedicated to just about anything under the sun. I've had enough.
Today is the exception, and noting it is personal. Sunday was National Radio Day, a dedicated to noting the invention of radio. I'm sorry I missed it.
While I've been a television creature for a long time now, I started in radio, and I'm proud of it.
My first time behind a microphone was December of 1979, at Marywood College's radio station, WVMW 91.5. Ten watts of power, beamed to you from the below sea level top of the Learning Resources Center. Marywood College is now Marywood University. The radio station is now much more powerful, and sits on 91.7 on your dial. By the way, are their dials any more?
I started at WARM 590 when I was a sophomore at Marywood. My job was to play the religion and public affairs shows between 1 and 9 am Sunday mornings. You never heard me. The money was slightly above minimum wage, and I didn't care. It was a foot in the door and I was a tiny cog in the Mighty 590 machine.
I eventually weaseled my way on the air, and when I left 10.5 years after I started, I was doing news during morning drive time, one of the prestige slots.
While I love my job and the WNEP treats me great, I've always considered myself the radio guy who is working in TV, not the TV guy who started in radio. Yes, there is a difference. It was great experience, a great training ground. We did some wonderful things there and I am extremely fortunate.
That brings me to something that happened Friday afternoon on WILK radio. Afternoon hose Rob Neyhard brought together two of his old radio buddies. I didn't hear the show, but I did see the most entertaining news story WNEP's Ally Gallo produced. The show consisted of Neyhard and two former co-workers from the now defunct WMJW 92.1, David DeCosmo and Bob Reynolds. You may remember, this was an unusual FM station in the 70's. MJ92 played a lot of music, but it also had an exceptionally strong news department. Unfortunately, it didn't last long.
I was lucky to work with Rob in the early 90's at WARM, David at WYOU in the early and mid 90's, and Bob for several years at WNEP beginning in 1998.
I've lost touch with most, but not all, coworkers and competitors from my radio time. Some are very happy about not being in touch. Sadly, many have left us.
The bottom line is that radio was a spectacular medium then. Even though it's changed quite a bit since my day, there's still some great stuff out there. Think of the men and women who make ht happen when you hit the "on" button.
