Chapter 28 - The Weekend

Originally published October 16, 2015

Vicki was looking out the studio window at the town square when she noticed Patti walking east.  She couldn't remember if it was Patti with an 'I' or Patty with a "y" and wondered who on earth could tell the difference.  She decided an 'I' ending for her name was the superior way to go. 

Vicki started her shift at 4:30, an hour before dusk and 30 minutes before she went on air.  There were always details in the log book to check out and the FM side of things to check on, and she learned the hard way waiting to do such things after going on the air made life a lot more difficult.

A couple weeks after Vicki started working weekend night shifts at WRSE, she had settled into playing the music, commercials, and the network cut-ins without a problem when she noticed a couple of bright yellow flashing lights through the windows of an adjacent studio - the one with five racks of automated music. 

Which is when she remembered she failed to update the playlist for her shift and yellow flashing lights mean dead air!    

Vicki launched into the next song, "Hey Jude" by the Beatles which is a song disc jockeys play anytime they had an emergency or needed a break of more than five minutes.  "Hey Jude" gave her 7.  Go! 

Running into the WMJM control room, she found a mess of her own creation because she failed to do all the checks prior to her shift.  Working from behind and with dead air was more difficult.  She hit the switch so WMJM and WRSE resumed a simulcast giving her a good six more minutes to square things away. 

First she worked on the commercials, station identifications, station promos, and drop-ins so they would be on a schedule through 6 a.m. tomorrow.  Then came the music.  Since it was all digital there were seemingly a jillion hours of music inside the black box, but it needed to be told the style.  The mix called for this weekend by the program director was in the notes left for each DJ in their weekend in-boxes. 

Two minutes left of "Hey Jude" and Vicki had time to take the transmitter readings she would need anyway at the top of the hour for both stations.  All looked good, so she made the notes on the official log and returned the clipboard to the official nail. 

The first song up for WMJM has a long and quiet ramp over the first minute, so she hit play and manually potted up the song on the FM dial while fading out of Hey Jude.  Then with 20 seconds to spare, she dashed back into the WRSE studio and started the commercial block before the top of the hour network news. 

Which is when the phone rang. 

"WRSE - WMJM.  This is Vicki, may I help you?" 

"So,"  it was Steve.  Vicki knew that the moment she heard his voice.  "what happened?  Is everything 

OK?  Are you OK?  Do you need any help?" 

Vicki was surprised he wasn't shouting.  The program director at her college station yelled at her for smaller details than this.  "No, Steve.  I'm sorry.  I must have been distracted when I came in.  It's my screw-up.  It won't happen again." 

"OK, Vicki.  It wasn't as bad as you think, there was less than 30 seconds of dead air, so nice job on the quick reaction.  But, of course, we don't want any dead air.  If you don't mind a piece of advice, what always worked for me was a checklist of jobs that needed to be done every hour and during the shift.  If you put one together and bring it with you to work - it should keep you from having this kind of thing happen again.  If you want help or want me to look it over, just give me a call when you're free on Monday." 

"Thanks, Steve.  That's a good idea.  I'll work on that, and believe me this will never happen again." 

Thinking back on that night two years ago, Vicki smiled at how much she had learned and the higher levels of responsibility the station gave her.  And, she thought to herself, she hasn't had a dead air gaff like that since and she still brought the shift list to work every time.

Vicki looked up at the big clock in the DJ's bullpen, 4:50, time to head into the studio to say hi and see if anything unusual is on the horizon.  As she ran her hand through her red hair, she thought back a couple of weeks to the almost incessant scratching she was doing because of her meat allergy. 

Thankfully it was long gone and under control. 

Jack Beeman was in his truck heading north to his favorite place in the world to hunt and fish. Of course, WRSE was on his radio. 

Even though it had been years since he bought the station, he still didn't believe he owned it.  In many ways, he didn't think of himself as the owner, but a steward. 

He left the running of the station to Steve, Jeff, and Pete - but he was completely on board with the sharpened focus the station took this year to hyper-focus on the local audience, local issues and celebrations.  Revenue is up, commercials are selling out for games and special remote broadcasts, and his buddies at the Lions Club are coming up and talk about stuff they heard on his station. 

While turning left onto State Highway 27, Jack heard a promo for the station's public affairs broadcast called Thirty which aired at 9 each Sunday morning.  The familiar voice of his newsman, Pete Moss, made him smile about the surprise and much deserved opportunity he was able to set up for him. 

"Yes," Jack thought, "Pete is the right guy to become the next owner of WRSE."  Jack heard Pete might be dating for the first time since his wife passed away two years earlier.  He wanted Pete to be happy in Roseville.  The last two years was tough on him personally, but you couldn't tell on air or at the station. 

Jack's train of thought paused temporarily as Vicki came on with the latest forecast before starting the next song.  He knew a Badger game would be coming on the air soon as they got ready for another Big Ten contest.  And the nice weather in the forecast should make tomorrow a great one to be on the water.

There's more to come... please return tomorrow at 9 am.