by John (Hot) Spotts (himself)

I moved from Michigan in the middle of my junior year of high school to Downers Grove.  My new school was on complete lockdown –  my former HS school had a completely open campus and I lived so close to it many days I went home for lunch and played pool/ping pong in my basement with friends.

Arriving in February at a very overcrowded Downers Grove North –  counselors gave me a schedule where my first class started at 740am and last class ended at 440pm!  Finishing off the junior year of HS featured FIVE study hall periods and a lunch period!  I wasn’t allowed to leave the building to go outside for any of it.

I met Don D’Agostino.  He lived in my new neighborhood.  I discovered D’Ago spun records in the radio station at the high school.  Better yet this station WDGC was located in a portable class room outside of the main building but you either had to have a Radio licensing class in it or a special pass to allow you to get in and out of the building.

Don D’Augustino

So my plan was hatched….having no knowledge or much interest in Radio or Radio licensing…. this purely an avenue to escape that hell hole of a HS building and attend worthless study hall periods.  By default that special pass let me hang out at DGC all the time and I ended spinning records that summer, caused trouble with Dave Price (another IDB alum) and generally not heeding anything the faculty instructor said – never did take a Radio licensing class even during my senior year….which featured some really bad play by play calls of rain soaked football games. I was the only one who really knew football that wasn’t already on the team working at the station willing to do it.

The WDGC gang 1980

Let’s fast forward a year or two…. D’Ago ended up going to SIU to pursue an R/T major….he followed after Timmo Cawley (who never did quite understand how I got shifts at WDGC despite never taking licensing classes).  I went to College of DuPage still trying to decide on my major and was about to get my Associates Degree.  D’Ago convinced me to visit SIU during the spring of his freshmen year for a weekend.

It sounded like fun so I hopped on the Amtrak from Union Station to C’dale.   I arrived at his dorm (3^rd floor of Allen 1). D’Ago and his roommate DJ were highly agitated.  They were in the middle of fight with several guys who lived down the hall from them and in other buildings– firing tennis ball cannons at each other primed with rubbing alcohol!   It got so loud we had to get out of there and out of the line of fire.

The cannon that propelled Hot Spotts to WIDB.

D’Ago said let’s go! At full speed we ran out to the blare of cannons dodging tennis balls out the windows of Allen – even some cannon fire from higher floors of Neely all the way past the Boomer Triads.  We sought refuge entering the front door of Wright 1 going to the down the stairs In Da Basement.   And that’s how I got to WIDB.

by Chris Wissmann

I wasn’t interested in radio per se. I had done radio speaking for my high school speech team, mainly because I had a crush on one of the girls on the team—and nobody else wanted to do radio, so I was on the team. Neither of those things worked out—I was terrible at that kind of speech competition and the girl left the team. But I got to spend a few extra Saturdays with one of my best high school friends, Jeff Whitten, who also started competing in radio.

After high school I came to SIU in 1987, and Jeff went to Augustana in Rock Island, where he started DJing for his college station, WAUG. Jeff encouraged me to see if SIU had any similar opportunities—and it turned out it did.

I came to WIDB in spring 1988, my second semester at SIU. The only thing I knew about it was that WIDB was on the Student Center’s fourth floor. I still didn’t care about radio. I was just interested in music—mainly recording engineering, because I can’t play an instrument or sing—and thought that ‘IDB might get me moving in the right direction while giving me access to an amazing record library.

What WIDB was playing when Chris came

Sure enough, it did. The music was amazing—records by bands I read about but had never even found in record stores, let alone had a chance to hear anywhere else. And it was all there for us to play.

Chris and Kevin (Tyrant) Lange at WIDB

About a year later, I was able to join radio with recording engineering and began a local band show where I recorded and mixed live performances for broadcast.

But most importantly, WIDB was populated by an amazing assortment of freaks and geeks with whom I fit in perfectly. It was home. Starting in my junior year, I lived with WIDB coworkers and former coworkers until a few years after I graduated. I formed most of my best and deepest friendships—particularly with Mark Venegas, Kevin Lange, and Jeff Stapleton—at WIDB.

Chris (left), Slimb, Jazzy Jeff, Kevin (right) and Mark Venegas, foreground

I can’t wait to see them, or many others I befriended over the years, in 2020.

The story of how I got started is a pig of a tale, so let me get the lipstick out right away.

I transferred to SIU in the fall of 1977 after 2-1/2 years at Champaign/Urbana. Since I had plenty of credits in my bank, I took the beginning Radio/TV classes 300M and 300P in my first semester in Carbondale. As you recall, 300P was the lecture class, and I was lucky to have Dr. Lynch(no relation) as my teacher. The focus in 300P was solely on Dr. Lynch, and rightly so. He knew everything about TV, and was able to present it in a very entertaining fashion.

300M was the practical beginners class, small groups learning studio operations under a TA. I don’t even recall who my TA was, but I did have three WIDB folks in my 300M class; Amy Elvart, Roy Millonzi and Maria Bernardi.

Roy Millonzi

I enjoyed great camaraderie with these three as well as the rest of our classmates. Amy baked me a cake for my 21^st birthday. Roy invited me over to his place once, showed me his Les Paul Jr. and shared some.. .inspiration. Roy and Maria were the stars of my class final project, a one minute commercial. Maria nailed the money shot that got me an A.

It appears that I’m fresh out of lipstick.

As for how they got me involved at WIDB, well, they didn’t. I wasn’t ready. I knew it was what I wanted to do, but was just afraid to fail. Publicly. So I kept muddling along in R&T classes, meeting more people. Eventually I landed in a TV criticism class with Al Levy. We seemed to be on the same wavelength with regards to TV, so Al must have presumed that maybe I knew a little radio too. He specifically told me I should be stopping by WIDB, that there would be a place for me, and that I would enjoy it there.

After the semester ended, I checked for auditions to be on air during the summer, when the competition was less fierce. And the listenership was smaller. Especially doing the midnight to 4am shift. I was afforded the opportunity to fail, and I failed at failing. I actually got better, probably lifted myself up to mediocrity over the couple of years that I DJ’d. It was my love and knowledge of music that kept me afloat. Garble a backrap, you get embarrassed. But come back in to a new set with Santana’s “All I Ever Wanted”, and you’re back in the game.

Randy Lynch and his jacket (in the background, Kerry Peace, John Amberg, and Cyril Radwin)

The game, as played at WIDB in the late 70’s, was tremendous fun and highly educational. Still some of the best times of my life.