Barefoot Boy with microphone...continued

Faces made for radio








If you have been following this nonsense...

KVRA hired Frank as general manager and he, in turn, hired a program director named Jim Metcalf. Metcalf was a law school student who had been working as a disc jockey at KYNT in the neighboring berg of Yankton, South Dakota. Lucky for me, Metcalf also hailed from Spencer, Iowa and he hired me, after a brief audition, for the afternoon show on the station. Jim was smart, funny, and very talented. He could have worked in almost any major media market he aspired to, but he was determined to make it big as a lawyer. (Did mention that he was smart?)
Radio to him was merely a paycheck that required no heavy lifting while he pursued his law degree.

Metcalf had a pal named Dick Francis who was a recent advertising graduate of USD and Jim got him hired as Frank's sales manager. Francis was from New York and had big plans for a career in advertising, marketing or anything that paid well and required him to do little more than look good and talk pretty. His wife, as I recall, was already back in New York and had no plans to join him on the frozen and dusty plain of South Dakota. Francis was "camped out" on the couch in Metcalf's apartment and it was there that the two conspired to drive the "big guy", Frank, crazy. They would have him paged for fake phone calls in the radio station; contradict him in front of clients and employees, and in general make him appear even more clueless than he was. It wasn't long before lack of control of the operation and the absence of of any appreciable revenues on KVRA made Frank the logical fall guy for an impatient couple of owners like Ted and Macy. He was dispatched to a richly deserved obscurity selling cheap suits at Duke's men's store and eventually wound up back at WNAX selling hog reports.

With Frank deposed, Francis lost interest in the radio station and sleeping on Metcalf's couch. I'm not sure when the exact departure took place, but it was definitely time for "this bird to fly" as the future advertising tycoon would put it. Richard "Dick" Francis took a marketing job with General Foods for the fantastic annual remuneration of $16,000, (good dough in those days) and was off for points East...never to be heard from again.

As Frank's replacement, an old buddy of Ted's was brought in as general manager. Monroe Alvin "Monk" Johnson had been a very successful sales manager at KORN in Mitchell, South Dakota the home of the world famous Corn Palace. Monk looked like a cross between Artie Johnson and Don Knotts. He came complete with a bow tie and out sized tortoise shell glasses.
"Sports is my meat", Monk declared as he introduced himself to the staff. "I'll be emphasising local high school and college sports." This promise came complete with daily morning sports round-ups featuring the Monkster in his high pitched dufus delivery that we all became quite deft at aping. He often bragged to us that he had once fired Gary Owens when he was at KORN. I often wondered why anybody would take pride in having fired one of the icons of radio, but there was a lot about Monk that made no sense.

I really didn't care who was managing the station. I was going to college and paying for it with the money I was making doing what I was born to do. I was being a wise ass and honking the hits in the afternoon and I wasn't yet twenty. Life was good!

Almost immediately, Metcalf began trying the same old "gotcha" type tricks that had worked so well to undermine Frank on the new and improved general manager, Monk. In spite of appearing to be another rollover victim for "The Met", Monk was on to him from the start. I remember a confrontation one day in the control room while I was on the air...Metcalf questioned Monk's authority on some aspect of station operation and Monk invited him to continue the conversation in his office. Metcalf never revealed how that exchange went, but almost immediately the baiting and mocking stopped. In addition, Metcalf seemed to lose interest in the station and his position as program director. He had a new "high maintenance" girlfriend anyway and was looking for bigger paychecks than he was ever going to see in broadcasting. He was now determined to get his law degree...and GET RICH.



to be continued...