Hello It's Me

It was strongly suggested to me that I start blogging, to add content to the Bus’s website.  I said, “Sure, how much more will you be paying me?”  They thought that was pretty funny.

For my first post, I thought I’d tell you a little more about myself and how I got here.  I thought about giving you the thumbnail sketch of my life’s story on the air, but decided against it.  If I tell you all this during my show, and you lose interest, you might tune out.  That’s bad for the station, and more importantly, bad for my bottom line.  But if I tell you all this here and you don’t care, you can scroll down or hit your back button or something.  Plus, I’m now required to fill this space with something.    For no additional compensation—just sayin’.   

I grew up in Coaldale, Pennsylvania, a small town in Schuylkill County, home of the Yuengling Brewery.  It takes about 20 minutes to get from my family’s home in Coaldale to the Yuengling Brewery in Pottsville.  I timed it.     

I came to Centre County to attend Penn State, and while earning my degree in communications I somehow stumbled into a radio career.  I lived in West Halls while I was a student, and then moved to State College proper after graduation.  I spent a few years in a Patton Township townhouse, but then it became clear that it was time to eschew roommates had make my way to the ‘burbs.  Since moving out of State College, I live or have lived in Bellefonte, Axemann, and Pleasant Gap.  I guess you could say I’ve gotten the full Centre County experience.  

My first radio jobs were at WRSC AM and WQWK FM.  In those days, The Bus didn’t even exist.  Today, QWK Rock is on 103.1, but back then, it was on 97.1.  Today, The Bus, QWK, and WRSC are all sister stations, and their studios are right down the hall from ours in a nice building in Cato Park. Back then, the RSC and QWK studios were in this crapshack out on Clearview Avenue.

If you were to look out of those studio windows back then, you could see horses.  Today, it’s apartment buildings.  Up the street where the Colonnade now stands, it was nothing but woods.  And just down the block, there was an unused, overgrown drive in movie theater, just waiting to become a Wal-Mart.   

My first professional radio job was as what was called a board operator for WRSC.  Basically, I would push buttons, change tapes (Mostly songs by Laurnce Welk and the Ray Conniff Singers back when music was more common on AM radio), and update news copy on Channel 4.  Computers do a lot of this kind of work now, but then, they would hire someone with little or no experience if they were willing to come in during the least desirable hours for the lowest amount of pay allowed by law.  Enter:  Me.  I would show up at midnight Friday night, and stay on until Saturday morning at 7.  It wasn’t much, but it was a foot in the door.  I feel badly for people trying to break into the business today.  Those entry level opportunities just don’t exist anymore.  Progress, I suppose.   

OK, that’s enough with the background info and then vs. now comparisons.  Next time, I’ll tell you about how some d-bag made me want to get out of the radio biz when I was barely even in it. -Pat