The Beginning

Here's an excerpt from the beginning of a story, which I have already started to write:

The important beginning of this story, takes in place in the summer of 1967 – when I toured a radio station that was owned by an older cousin and her husband, and decided, “I want to work in radio someday”. The station was KRMS at Lake of the Ozarks, owned by Jim and Ella Mae Risner.  The Risner's owned the station from 1959 until 1979.  Ella Mae was the daughter of my father's oldest brother.

I was 11 years old and had just discovered what kind of career I wanted later in life. Growing up in St. Louis – and over the years listening to some of the great on air talent there – Johnny Rabbit, Mason Lee Dixon, Davey Lee, Jim White, Jack Carney, Robert “The Country” Fox, Radio Rich (Dalton), Peter E. Perisi, Jack Buck, Harry Carey, Mort Crowley, Rex Davis, John McCormick and a cast of thousands more.

From listening to radio I learned, among other things, The Star Spangled Banner (radio stations signed on and off with The Star Spangled Banner, back when many stations signed off the air at midnight and back on the air at 5 AM), The Lord's Prayer (recited early each morning around 5 AM for many years on KMOX by John McCormick, “The Man Who Walks and Talks at Midnight”), and a radio shift sign on by Mason Lee Dixon that went something like - “Good evening ladies and gents and boys and girls …. and those of you in neither category ….”, which would be just a little politically incorrect these days, although I suppose it was Dixon's humorous approach to equal opportunity entertainment.

After touring that radio station at the age of 11, all my formal education from then on, was approached by me with the attitude - “Will this be helpful in radio or not?”