The WIDB 50th Anniversary Reunion is June 25, 26, & 27, 2021. Have you signed up yet?
“Crabby Pants” inspires Maria
Coming to SIU in the fall of 1977, I was fortunate to land a one time only morning drive shift on WSIU Radio in October. Like many R/T students, I dreamed of the days of being on air.
WSIU-FM control room 1977
Nervous as hell, I flipped on the mic for the obligatory top of the hour ID, and the few other times you were allowed to speak during the NPR show. Then the phone rang. OMG! Who could it be?! They didn’t tell me what to do when the phone rang. So I answered timidly, ”WSIU Control?” It was the chairman of the department, Dr. Charles Lynch, old crabby pants. OMG!
Dr. Charles T Lynch (pants not shown)
“Maria”, he began, “It’s HALLoween, not HOLLoween, All Hallow’s Eve. I died of embarrassment and mumbled something in response. “Maria, I’ve seen many aspiring announcers come and go, and I’ve got to tell you, behind the mic is not for you. Contact a Patty Reilly, the sales manager at WIDB Radio. I think that is where you need to be.”
I was devastated. First of all for being SO bad that I was reprimanded while still on air, and secondly for having to let go of the on-air dream. So I uncovered where they hid WIDB and begrudgingly trudged over to Wright 1, looking for this Patty Reilly gal.
What Maria found when she got to Wright I. (Patty on left).
I don’t remember much about our first meeting, but I do remember thinking ‘Oh my!” when I first walked into the station. What I didn’t know then is that WIDB would be the first step in a long and fulfilling Broadcast Sales Career. And that Ms. Patty Reilly Murphy would end up being a lifelong cherished friend.
So in retrospect Dr. Lynch was right. I NEEDED TO BE AT WIDB, I am forever grateful for his sage advise, although to this day I wish he would have found a kinder way to tell me!
Silly Thing #5
Mirth on Memory Lane
by Kerry Peace (PD, DJ 1979-1981)
The author in his natural habitat.
Friends, I had some memorable experiences in my WIDB days, triumphs and tragedies alike. The day Slaga handed over the keys to the Program Directorship embodies the former, while the night John Lennon was killed is over-qualified for the latter.
But it’s the silly things I remember best. They just seemed to be in the air at WIDB, ready to ignite at a moment’s notice. Some return in a flash as indelible images (“JOEY RAMONE ATE THIS BREAD!!!”) and some inspire a more substantial reminiscence. Below is one of a handful of my favorite silly WIDB episodes. Fair warning: I don’t swear to recalling events exactly as they happened, etc, disclaimer, fog of war, blah-blah, woof-woof…
SILLY THING #5: SILLY BECOMES US
Sometimes silly happens and sometimes you thrust silliness upon the world. Such was the case in Spring of 1981, when we produced a bunch of funny skits and encouraged general foolishness for April Fool’s Day. There were many highlights, including:
John “Scoop” Dachik’s spot-on impersonation of WSIU’s Erv Coppi in full pledge drive frenzy, for a series of bits that ran throughout the day. Listeners were exhorted to donate during “National Beg Week,” as John/Erv groveled for donations as small as “the juice leaking out of that Tyrolian Special you’re eating at Booby’s.” And each time he came on, the name changed from Erv Coppi (pronounced COPE-ee) to Erv Copy to Erv Photostat to Erv I Can’t Coppi Any More, etc., etc.
The one and only A close approximation thereof
Tim Cawley’s giggle-inducing commercial for the fictitious Paper Thin Mobile Homes. Using a pre-produced bed he found in the production studio, Timmo added some appropriately silly copy, leading off with “Tornado season is just around the corner and you’ll want to be living in a mobile home from Paper Thin Mobile Homes!” and closing the deal with “Act by June 2nd and we’ll even throw in a free boat anchor!”
Randy Lynch’s Monty Python-esque BBC Rock Hour promo, which was really nothing of the sort, just him bellowing an assortment of British colloquialisms and naughty bits over our standard BBC Rock Hour promo music bed. He never even said the words “BBC Rock Hour,” for fuck sake. Breathtaking in its simplicity, it was.
Randy Lynch
Program Director Peace’s tongue-in-cheek apology to the listeners for the aural absurdities the WIDB staff had inflicted upon them that day, which somehow morphed into the spanking of firm little bottoms and oozing skin lotion. Program Director, Perversion Director, what’s the diff?
WIDB Alumni Radio Hijinks (1990)
The 50th Anniversary Reunion is getting closer! At the 1990 reunion Mke Bennett and I signed up for the first air shift at the WIDB Open House because we had a hunch the next alum would oversleep and we’d get more time. Based on this playlist, it looks like we were right.
This was the last year the reunion happened during the school year. I remember in 85 I was only able to make it to the open house because I had to spend most of the weekend studying for my first two finals on Monday.
Recruited in high school for WIDB
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?