by Gary West

I found WIDB before I had ever seen SIU or C’dale. It was almost a year before I started there.

It was because of Dave.  We were always hanging out in high school, and Dave graduated a year ahead of me.  So my high school senior year, Dave comes home to visit in October with reel-to-reel WIDB airchecks.

Dave. (Ed at left).

I’m 16 years old, still in high school and listening to Jeffrey Thomas (“In the Nighttime”) and Sam Glick, and Alan J. Friedman doing news.  I’m hearing the ID (“WIDB Carbondale…is…Together”) It all sounded great, like a real station, almost like WLS.  Dave lived in Wright I (second floor) so he was at WIDB all the time.

Dave reported that in his first R-T classes, the professors told the students not to consider working at WIDB because it was not “real radio” and if you worked at WIDB you would “never work in broadcasting.”

This made Dave head straight to WIDB immediately.  (Dave just retired after 40 years at CNN as Chief Engineer).

A few weeks later, in early November 1970 I took the pre-Amtrak train to visit C’dale for the first time.  We stayed with friends in Schneider, and Dave took us to WIDB.  At that point, WIDB had existed for 7 months and had been on air maybe 70 days (30 days in spring, off summer and 40 days in fall).

A REAL radio station

I found a real station at WIDB.  There was a control room, audio board, turntables, CART MACHINES, a playlist, a 45’s and LP record library, a jock studio, a news studio, a production studio AND a teletype UPI machine.  There were schedules for jocks, newsmen, board operators.  There were people there, and everyone seemed to have a sense of purpose; they all had something to do.

Alan J. Friedman (left) delivering the news.  Jeff Butler, right.

I was talking nonchalantly to Alan J. Friedman in the news studio when he said “Shut the door.”  I obeyed and he immediately hit the mic and delivered the news headlines.  I was impressed this was done so professionally, in such a relaxed, confident manner.  And it all sounded so great to me.

After a few hours hanging out at WIDB, I realized that no one there was over 22 years old.  “Where are the adults, the supervisors,” I asked Dave.  “We don’t have those here,” he said.

10 months later, my father dropped me off at my dorm.  As soon as he left, I headed for Wright I.

This time, the station was different.  It was not full of people (classes hadn’t started yet).  The UPI machine was not working.  There was no newsman on duty.

I was immediately drafted to do news.  There was no copy, no teletype.  We had to use newspapers, SIU press releases and a few recorded reports, mostly outdated.  There was no one to train me.  I was still 17.

Gary, age 17, prepares the next newscast

People were coming & going as jocks and board operators, but no newsmen.  I kept trying to leave, but there was no one else to do news.  That day I did all 14 newscasts.  I became known as the “One man news Department.”

This set the tone for me as I spent probably 85% of the rest of my SIU time at WIDB.

Anybody else get recruited in high school with WIDB airchecks?