Ch Ch Ch Changes....

Well, it was announced today that our radio stations were finally sold by CBS.  We even got to meet the new owners and they seemed nice enough.  Now comes the ulcers and frequent vomitting wondering who's gonna get to be successful somewhere else.  It always happens.  I've been through three station sales and ended up unemployed twice. 

The first time was back in Wichita, KEYN FM to be exact.  When I first went to Wichita I worked for Long-Pride Broadcasting, the Pride part of that being Charley Pride.  Only met him twice.though.  Anyway, they sold the stations to Aberdeen Communications.  They were a holding company that were into pharmaceuticals and industrial lubricants.  That makes them a perfect fit to own radio stations, don't you think?  That ownership lasted 4 years before they gave it back to the bank.  The receiver came to the station and fired my friend Lisa Allan first.  She was the General Manager of the station.  I gave her a ride home that day as we lived near each other and her car was in the shop.  I no sooner got home when the phone rang and the voice told me they needed me back at the station.

So, after I was fired, I had to drive myself  home.  We went back that night to clean out my office so we stopped to get some boxes out of a dumpster.  I pulled out a box that had a small copier inside.  I said to myself, "This must be my lucky day!"  Even better, it worked!  I lost a 6 figure job but found a used $150 piece of office equipment.

A couple of months later I got hired on at KYQQ and that's where Dan Holiday and I did our first morning show together.  We did things like Roxy the airborne scavenger hunt, The hidden Christmas Salami and had a 1959 pink Cadillac we named the Party Pig.  Dan has a great story about the Party Pig when he was nearly arrested driving it.

The fun lasted a year.  The Friday before Christmas we went off the air and I went and climbed our 1200 foot tower to put us back on the air.  Luckily I only had to go up about 400 feet since I didn't have any safety equipment on.  The General Manager fired me two weeks later. The owner eventually went to jail for defrauding a big bank out of some obscene amount of money and the sheriff had to forcibly remove the GM who had barricaded himself in his office.  Those were my last days of radio in Wichita.  We sold our dreamhouse we built and moved into on Stacy's birthday and eventually moved to Lincoln Nebraska.

Whoever said "Change is good" should be dragged out in the country and shot!.