KJJC

 My last month at Drake I heard from a small radio station in southern Iowa. KJJC-FM, Osceola.

The program director heard me on WHO and apparently had heard of me through Drake's Journalism School because I'm fairly certain I had not sent a cover letter or resume his way.

They offered me the position of News/Farm Director.

Friends in the J-school and professors said it was most important to not accept less than $1,000 a month.  So, that was my position and that's what I got.  (As I later learned, that was a lot more than disc jockeys at the station earned.)

So off I went for what boiled down to less than $6.25 an hour.  As news director, I wrote and delivered the morning newscasts, the noon cast, and left a recorded update for mid-afternoon.  The DJs read the late afternoon news and perhaps played a taped piece if I assembled one while I was there.  On Saturdays, I delivered the morning news, but was usually out the door after the 8am news.  40 hours a week would have been a vacation, but I didn't care, I was doing news!

KJJC played current country hits and our logo used cowboy boots for the "J."  The owner, Jack, lived at the other end of the building.  What that meant was an early morning trip to the break room was also a visit to his kitchen.  Jack was a retired Iowa State Trooper who wanted his home-town to have a radio station.

In addition to Osceola, our broadcast area was eight counties in south-central Iowa.  I went to Osceola's city council and school board meetings in person (at night) to cover those governmental bodies; covered the Clarke County Board of Supervisors (they met three days a week, usually in the mornings) in person; did my rounds of the Osceola Police department and stopped in the Iowa State Patrol Headquarters each day.  The rest of the counties were generally covered by phone and some in-person coverage.

It was a very much learn as you go proposition.  The County supervisors met pretty informally and since all three of them were farmers, I learned a lot from them about hog farming.

For our Sunday morning half-hour public affairs program each week I would look for interview subjects and topics all the time.

I interviewed U.S.Senator Charles Grassley in the back of a compact car for the 30 minute show.  He sat in front while an aide drove and I sat in back handling the microphone while covering a host of topics.  For a small station to get that kind of guest was a big deal.  He was very gracious - and still in office.

There was another show I recorded in a hot air balloon.  Indianola, in the northern part of our coverage area, hosted the National Hot Air Balloon Championships for many years, and I was able to get connected to a couple balloon pilots.  I interviewed them and recorded sound while they prepared to launch - and continued the conversation while floating and flying above the Iowa countryside.   I would do that experience again in a minute!

I wanted to get a sense for a "day in the life" of various occupations in the area (kind of "Dirty Jobs" before Cable as we now know it came to be) so tried to bring that to the audience.

One time, I was on the road with a State Trooper - talking about their days, what it was like to run radar, and the day to day things that kept them busy.  He clocked a guy speeding north on the Interstate and he took off - at one point going 99 miles an hour in pursuit.  (I made my questions pretty basic while that was going on.)  The speeder was very concerned their was media in the car when he pulled over - but the experience was what made it a special interview.

There were also interviews around a table with several subjects to talk to - and realized 15 minutes in that they had nothing more to say, but there was still half a show to do. 

As the news guy, covering meetings - fires - car crashes - and enterprising (coming up with) stories led to a good relationship with Iowa's Associated Press office and other small radio station shops across Iowa.

Before the fall of 1985 rolled around, our DJ/Sports guy left and I was able to do play by play!  Football and basketball in southern Iowa - covering teams that our sales staff could sell to get on air.

It seems funny now - for each game I had to order a phone line installed that we could use for the broadcast.  For football, our Traffic manager's (has to do with ad placement) husband, Kevin, was my color analyst.  For basketball, it was just me, and my wife came along to keep statistics.  Oh, and I received a $25 per game talent fee - so this was a nice help to the pay check!

The games were fun, I loved the experience, and poured my soul into each game.  The most memorable gridiron clash came in the town of Leon one rainy night.  It was so foggy I literally could not see the other side of the field and the mud so deep that the players I saw I could not identify their number.  That was a very fun and funny night on the air.

One time, national news came to town.  Literally.  I was out of town one night covering the local girls volleyball team competing for a berth in the State Tourney when the Amtrak train derailed.  The roads were ice-covered as I drove back from Atlantic - getting to the station and then out to the crash site.  My night was on the phone sending sound and giving updates to the AP and our national radio news network that we used (ABC).

It was a blur and about the time I realized I hadn't called home it was past 2:30am.  I would need to be at the station anyway by 5 and there was still work to do, so I stayed.  I didn't call because I didn't want to wake her.

Let's just say I didn't make that mistake again.

There's some other stories about my time at KJJC to share in another blog... but it was a great first step in my broadcast career.

FM 107.3 was sold somewhere along the line after I left, and the last I knew it was an ESPN sports talk station.  A long way from the locally centered news-sports and community station we tried to keep on the air.

Thanks, KJJC, it was fun.