RADIO & BEER
(made for each other!)
The summer theater experience in 1967 convinced me that I had little talent for the theater and that the best thing for me to do would be to set my sights on a lower rung of the showbiz ladder. Since I had no circus connections, radio would be my destiny.
My fellow thespian/garbage man pal, Steckler, stayed active in the theater for a couple of reasons. First, he loved women and found an abundance of them fighting over any straight guy in the dramatic arts department, and second...he had an immense gift for comedy which made him very successful in his university career. I managed to get a job at the university radio station, KUSD, and handled everything from newscasts to hosting the afternoon opera shows. I also swept floors. I was a broadcast mogul and I was LOVING IT.
I remember once skipping an entire act of an opera which was being featured that particular afternoon. You see, I hated opera and couldn't wait to get the damn thing over so that I could move on to the next scheduled program which happened to feature a promising young disc jockey...ME. The station got many calls and letters, (in those days people actually knew how to write), from all the uptight opera buffs; management damn near fired me. I threw myself on the mercy of the program director and managed to hang on after receiving a major ass chewing. A couple of weeks later I was sorry that I had groveled and begged at all because I got word that a new AM/FM station had been licensed to Vermillion, South Dakota (where the university is located) and that the station would be on the air in late 1967. A by God COMMERCIAL radio station with hit records, jingles, commercials and DISC JOCKEYS! I knew that this would be my ticket to, well...everything I ever dreamed of.
I applied immediately!
KVRA was to be managed by a guy named Frank. Frank was a nice guy who had been in sales at WNAX in Yankton, South Dakota. WNAX was a regional powerhouse manure spreader that blasted farm reports and polka music that seemed to keep all the rural knuckleheads in the barn happy. Frank was a natural fit for the place and should have stayed there until all the cow flop on his shoes had fossilized. But NO, Frank wanted to be the general manager of a radio station and KVRA's owners, attorney Ted Dolney and railroad executive Ralph Macy hired him to be the "Big Guy"...
BIG MISTAKE!
to be continued...(probably a mistake)
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