Dream Team Part Dos...

I've got to get part two done pretty fast as I still have to file my unemployment for the week.  Anyway, first there was the sales team.  As many as I can remember, there was Mark (passed away in the nineties), we knew him as Hike, Cindy, Lisa, Ken, Dave and a couple others.  They set the standard for how you sold advertising in Wichita Kansas in the early eighties.  On air there was David Stone, Ron Eric Taylor, who replaced Lee Corey, the guy who hired me, Jay Walker in the evening and Greg Williams overnights.  I was the morning guy with Mark Elliot as my news guy.  Mark is now with the Weather Channel in Atlanta.  I'll have to write about all the successful people who worked with us on Salina Street sometime.

It was Jim Long's theory that a radio station was the end product of many peoples' efforts.  He believed that the radio station had to be entertaining ALL the time, even the commercials.  We had a great staff to ensure that happened.  Joe Myers was the commercial writer.  He wrote some of the most entertaining commercials ever.  He even won a CLIO, the highest award for a commercial writer.  David Stone produced those commercials in our state of the art recording studio.  We were multi-track before multi-track was cool.  We even produced jingles in our studio.  That was totally ahead of the curve.

So, we did well.  When I arrived at the station, it had a 12.1 share.  My first book dipped a tenth of a point and I heard they wanted to fire me, but the guy they had picked out, backed out.  I have his demo tape to this day.  The books come out every 6 month and at about my one year anniversery our second book came out and we were number one!  KEYN became a ratings behemoth.  I was lucky enough to be able to stay at number one for the next 5 1/2 years in the morning, on the radio in Wichita. 

The dream team slowly fell apart as our competition recognized the talent and started stealing them away.  For a brief snapshot in time, we were the "perfect storm" of radio stations.  I think back on my friends from that era and smile.  Everything was going our way, and it was special.

That is all....Peters out!!!