Childhood Ambitions

I knew by the age of 6 that I wanted to be on the radio. Because of my love of music, my parents had given me a radio at an early age. I never got interested in traditional toys the way a lot of my friends did because I spent most of my free time listening to that radio, which by 1977 was covered with Star Wars stickers.

I was amazed and even a little dumbfounded by the technology. Some of my earliest memories are of listening to the radio, thinking there were little people inside it, talking and singing to me. I eventually learned voices and music could be transmitted through the air and knew I wanted to be part of it.

I became enamored with the disc jockeys on the air and thought that had to be the greatest job — being able to play music, be heard by lots of people and get paid to do it. My favorite station at the time was Little Rock’s KAAY, the Mighty 1090 AM. I was fascinated by how everything came together — high-energy, wisecracking DJs mixing the latest hit songs and elements like station jingles, sound effects and commercials.

At some point my parents gave me a record player and I started buying 45-rpm singles. They had a few albums, but the smaller, faster spinning records with only one song on each side were more appealing to me. They were more like what I envisioned a DJ playing on the air. Each week I would take my $1 allowance and buy a new single. As I expanded my collection, I started playing DJ — sitting in my room for hours playing one 45 after another, back announcing and introducing songs. In fact, my mom told me that before I could read or write, I was writing out playlists of song titles, copying the words exactly as I saw them on record labels.

It was while playing DJ one night that my dad came into my room to tell me there was a  television show on in the living room about a radio station. I still remember it vividly, that I was having a good time playing and didn’t want to stop. But I went with him to watch what turned out to be WKRP In Cincinnati, which immediately became my favorite TV show.

It intensified my desire to work in radio by providing a visual of what a radio station looked like. I would later learn just how accurately the stereotypes had been portrayed, with Johnny Fever as the burnout DJ, Les Nessman as the geeky news director and Herb Tarlek — played by Little Rock-native Frank Bonner — as the sleazy sales guy.

By the time I was in 2nd grade in 1980, I was listening to Little Rock FM album-oriented rock station KLPQ-FM 94.1, or as it was called, KQ94. I would also stay up late on Sunday nights listening to the syndicated Dr. Demento Radio Show, which I think was on 10 p.m. to midnight.

KQ94 also aired what was called the Amateur Hour every Wednesday night, allowing listeners to come up and host an hour playing their favorite songs. I wanted to be on this show so my dad called the station, but was told they were uncomfortable having an 8-year-old on the air.

They did, however, invite me to visit the station, so that same day we went over to KQ94, which was located in Little Rock’s Riverdale area. After talking with the receptionist, we walked upstairs to the second floor where the control room was located. I wish I could remember the name of the DJ, but he was a friendly guy. He showed me the equipment, how it worked, and let me watch as he did a few breaks on the air. In fact, he tried to get me to talk with him during a break, but I was too nervous. I didn’t know what to say, so I didn’t say anything. I guess I missed a good opportunity. After spending a bit of time with him, the DJ gave me two albums, Joe Walsh and Pablo Cruise, and sent us on our way. I was euphoric after the visit. Seeing what the station looked like definitely reaffirmed my desire to work in radio.

More than 15 years later in the mid-1990s I returned to the same building, which still housed the station, even though it has changed formats and identities several times since. I was meeting a friend for lunch who I had worked with at KARN when she was in charge of payroll. It gave me chills how well I remembered the layout, all the way down to the stairs that went from the reception area up to where the control room was located. In 2010, while reporting a story about the station canceling the long-running program Beaker Street, I went back to that building and again felt a sense of deja vu.

While attending Northeast High School in North Little Rock during my junior year in 1988, I took the first step toward getting on the radio. Two friends and I enrolled in a radio broadcasting course that was offered by the Little Rock School District at Metropolitan Vocational Education Center. We would spend the first half of our days there, then come back to our high school to take regular classes in the afternoons.

The instructor of the class was Bob Gay, a former broadcaster who had retired from radio after a lengthy career. He possessed a wealth of knowledge and did a great job of teaching the basics of what radio was really like and the skills that were needed to succeed in a difficult industry.

The facilities at Metropolitan featured two control rooms and two production studios with professional equipment. Up until a few years before then, It had been where the district’s radio station KLRE-FM 90.5 was housed. The station hit the air in 1973 as an educational, student-run facility, but later became the first NPR member station in the area. KLRE would eventually become part of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock after the university was unable to obtain a frequency of its own.

For my class, we had a low-watt AM transmitter and simulated how a commercial radio station would operate. We hit the air each day at 9 a.m. and broadcasting for two hours. Rotating shifts each week, students took turns in different positions being a DJ, writing and anchoring newscasts, producing commercials, and preparing on air logs. The class very effectively conveyed what it took for a radio station to function and taught each student the basics of each position.

Within a few months, I was ready to hit the air on a real radio station and became a volunteer hosting an alternative rock show one night a week on Little Rock community radio station KABF-FM 88.3. A few months after that, Bob helped me get my first paying radio job at KBBA-AM 690 in Benton, just outside of Little Rock. While I went on to take higher level radio classes at Arkansas State University in Jonesboro and the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, I felt like I got more real practical knowledge from Bob Gay.

A little more than a year after first hitting the air, classmate Vonn Tipton, who was a writer for our high school newspaper, wrote a short profile about me working in radio. It also ran in the weekly high school section of state newspaper the Arkansas Democrat. I was a little overly simplistic about the work and sound a little goofy in my quotes, but the article summed up my experience at that point. I also come across a little snobbish in my disdain for country music, saying “I wouldn’t listen to it in my free time.” In fact, my jobs at country stations would end up being an introduction to a lot of incredible music. I’m glad the story included a reference to my interest in news and a desire to work as an anchor. After a few years of being a DJ, I would get the opportunity to focus entirely on radio news.

 

While in high school, I also had a mentor in Sherry Westbrook, who I met through a mutual friend. Known on the air as Sherry Books, she had been the nighttime DJ at Little Rock’s KZ95 (KZLR-FM 94.9), a rock station that hit the air in May 1987. I liked the station, which challenged the established rock station Magic 105 (KMJX-FM 105.1). After only two-and-a-half years, KZ95 changed formats and became an oldies station playing hits from the 1960s and ’70s, calling itself Cool 95 (KOLL). Sherry was able to stay on, becoming the midday jock. It was around that time that I met her.

Having just started in radio and working mostly at small town stations, I looked up to Sherry as someone who had established herself by working at a major station in a real market. Many times she would take me to eat and we would sit and talk at length about what radio was like. She would also let me come visit her at the station, which was then housed in a strip mall on Rodney Parham Road. This was important because I was seeing what a major radio station’s equipment looked like, as opposed to the mostly dilapidated equipment I was working with at the time. She would also give me some of her airchecks, which, for those not familiar with the lingo, are recordings of an airshift made from a cassette deck that only records when the studio mic is turned on. I saved two of those and eventually digitized them, which you can listen to below.

AUDIO: An aircheck of “your nighttime rocker” Sherry Brooks on KZ95 in Little Rock, March 10, 1988.

AUDIO: A midday aircheck of Sherry Brooks on Cool 95 in April 1991.

Sherry would later work as music director and nighttime DJ at Little Rock’s dominant country station KSSN, using her real name Sherry Westbrook. I visited her a few times then, back when the station was still housed on Cantrell Boulevard, was locally-owned and the top rated station in the market. Looking back, I realize how much insight she gave me at a critical time as I was trying to launch a career. She was also incredibly supportive to someone who wanted to do the same thing she was doing.

NEXT — MY FIRST RADIO SHOW: KABF

Page published in May 2002, most recently revised on July 19, 2023.