It's National Radio Day, or so I was told when my Facebook memories popped up on my phone today. Which inevitably resulted in my feeling a bit nostalgic and looking back at what a wild, crazy ride this career has been.
I started in radio after failing in sports. Yep, this girl wanted nothing more than to be a sports writer or a sideline reporter. I traveled the country with the American Junior Golf Association as a communications intern after graduating from college and then found myself doing group sales for the Spokane Indians upon my arrival back home. And I just didn't have what it took to be in such a cut-throat, male-dominated industry. I'm too sensitive. I'm too sassy. I needed an industry that allowed me to be ME.
There was an opening for a promotions technician at a local radio group here in Spokane that I decided to sink my teeth into. I was setting up events - the tent, the Marti, the Comrex, the sound system...I was getting muscles and getting confidence that maybe this was an industry I could find my heart in. But I had zero interest in being on air. I hated my voice - so did everyone else. So much in fact that my roommate's boyfriend in college wouldn't even be in the same room as me he found my high-pitched squeal so obnoxious. I'd shudder hearing my voice on the answering machine.
Yet somehow that's exactly what the other industry folk had in mind for me. I helped produce a sports show, then moved on to entertainment reporting for a local morning show. Somehow that turned into doing weekends for a country station and eventually nights on an oldies station. Then it was back to country before I found my home here at KISS 98.1. The same station I listened to as a child and would call in to make requests to. The place I now call home.
But through all the years only one thing got me through...and that's you. The listener. You believed in me. You shared in my trials and tribulations. You rooted me along. You gave me wings and the strength to never give up. So today, on National Radio Day, I'm celebrating YOU. Because without listeners there would be no radio. And I'd still be rooting on my favorite sports from the sidelines, wishing I could find a home as perfect as this one.
xo,
SJ