Thanks, Randy!

From my years and years in this crazy radio business, I've met a lot of my peers, and can consider quite a few of them as "friends."

There are a handful that I consider much more than that. Mentors, even "idols" or closer to "Brothers." The kind of guys that I'm not ashamed to say that I love, as human beings, for who and what they are as opposed to what they do. One of those cream-of-the-crop guys and I have had a chance to really solidify our friendship over the past few years. After me admiring his work from afar for so long, he made contact with me once and complimented me on my show and the radio station I was programming at the time. Said he'd always liked my work...and even though I thought at the time it was just "words," I was as high as could be for weeks after that.

Since then, we've done one of my morning shows together, kept in touch and with e-mails and phone calls with him giving me advice and insight, and recently, he took the time to make sure we could get together for lunch. The "still star-struck" side of me took over, I guess, and I had to get a picture with him.

He's even wearing one of my shirts from my old morning show!

Thanks Randy Raley...for all of the advice, the conversations, the ideas, but more importantly, just for remaining a true, class act. You are truly the best, Brother.

So Long, Sophie

I haven't had any pets in years. The last one that I had that I really really loved died last week.

Sophie was a little Pomeranian that I bought and brought home wrapped up in my coat when she was just a very small puppy. I'm not sure that it was the smartest move...we were never really able to get her fully house-trained, she shed all over the place, and all the other things were brough around that an "inside dog" brings, but she became a part of the family, and a part that I missed after the divorce. Hannah had fallen in love with her, and vice-versa, and with my situation of odd hours and not knowing exactly what kind of dweeling situation I'd be in, it was best that she, too, make the move to the Ozarks. I remember the way she went absolutely nuts the day that we first brought Hannah home from the hospital after being born. The second we came in the house, she just ran and ran and ran...I thought she'd blow out her heart and die then!! She was what they call a "lap dog," I guess--and I can so clearly remember the way she would just sit at the front of my recliner and wait for me to pat my leg so she could jump up there and sit in my lap, getting both of us warm, and we'd both fall to sleep. She also loved the same kind of Doritos that I liked...as well as meat scraps, and I was notorious for letting her eat a lot of things she probably shouldn't have. I guess, looking back, she came by that honestly from me! Maybe the only "legacy" I had with her.

I kept up to speed on how she was doing through calls and e-mails from Hannah, and knew she was getting older and less healthy. Sophie died last week, and it made for a very sad day for all of them that loved her every day there in Arkansas. It was sad for me, too...remembering all of the things that I just wrote about, and it made me even sadder to know that her death made those that DID get to see her each day even MORE sad. It's amazing how pets can change lives and make people get so attached to them.

Thanks for keeping me warm on so many cold evenings and Sunday afternoons watching football and NASCAR races, Soph.

What A Headline!!

In checking out our Kansas City Fox 4 affiliate's website, I saw the following "TOP STORY" headline:


Man Arrested For Masturbating In Shawnee Walmart Toy Aisle

So, I gather it would have been okay, and he would NOT have been arrested, if he had been in the Lawn & Garden aisle, maybe?

Another rocker dead...

SO many of the rock and rollers that I grew up listening to (and STILL listen to...) are heading for that "Great Gig In The Sky." I just got an e-mail with the following info:

BILLY POWELL, keyboard player for LYNYRD SKYNYRD, has died at the age of 56 at his northeast Florida home. Powell had called 911 about an hour after midnight this morning, saying he was having trouble breathing. Rescue crews performed CPR, but he was pronounced deat at 1:52am. A heart attack is suspected as the cause of death -- Powell missed an appointment with his doctor on Tuesday for a cardiac evaluation.

Powell's rep issued a statement confirming his death, and adding, "The family and band request your respect and understanding during this difficult time." The rep added that Skynyrd will cancel shows due to Powell's death.

Powell was a founding member of Skynyrd

The BEST Part of My Weekend

Okay--so Tanis and I agreed to do a little volunteer work over the weekend after being asked by a friend of ours that had gone in feet-first to help the cause. It was a party for the BEST Network, and as it was told to me "Once the kids found out there would be a REAL DJ that worked on the radio, they were VERY excited!" THAT made me feel good...but I was really not sure what to expect.

The B.E.S.T. Network is a network of non-profit and for profit programs designed to improve the lives of people with disabilities through participation in performing and visual arts. All programs are designed to bring about social changes and inclusion by bringing people with disabilities together to work on performing arts projects. According to their mission statement,
"We believe in quality of life for all people through inclusion in all areas as dictated by their preferred lifestyle. People with disabilities have been denied access to performing arts due to physical and social barriers. We seek means and methods of creating ways for them to be included and shine on the stage of life."


Because of the ground-breaking nature of the program, the first three years were spent in research and development of a quality program. The program is evolving and meeting the needs of the individuals in more ways than were originally anticipated. What began as an experience in the performing arts has become a vehicle for creating major change and phenomenal growth in the lives of young adults with disabilities in the areas of life skills, job skills, and social skills. These are the three main areas addressed by any transitional program. Three troupe members began practicing in August of 2002 and by October, of the same year, they were performing for the local Down Syndrome Guild Buddy Walk at Arrowhead Stadium, in front 3,500 people.
Since that time they have performed for conferences, conventions, business meetings, schools, churches, special events, and other venues. In December of 2005, they performed at their own concert to an audience of 250. The total number of people that have been impacted through attending a performance through April 2006 is 42,753.

(Some of my new friends...I'm there---somewhere in the middle, with Tanis in the upper left hand corner.)

The gathering they had this past weekend in Overland Park was the first of what will likely be many more fundraisers for this group. I hope that we'll be asked to come back. It was truly one of the most heartwarming things I've done in a long time...and yes--admittedly--I was sort of skeptical going in as to how it would turn out.

(Me and my new Buddy, Austin...)

A Missed Anniversary

Around Christmas, there was an anniversary that passed that I was totally unaware of. I ran across this post from Bob Priddy, a colleague that does some news work for the radio station with Learfield Communications in Jefferson City. I wanted to share a portion of it on my blog

I walked into my kitchen Wednesday night, fatigued and grieved after a long day of work and travel and mourning and found my wife mashing potatoes for our dinner.
Not many potatoes. Just enough for the two of us, in a small pan, using a hand masher.
The telephone rang. It was for her. "Here," she said, "You mash the potatoes." And so while she talked, I mashed, poured in some milk to make the mashing smoother, mashed, added milk, and then some butter. And I thought of the girl who, 14 years earlier, had stood where my wife was standing, learning how to do what I was doing.
Hours earlier, I had said goodbye to her and her wide-eyed wonder about life.
In the Spring of 1984, the Missourinet had a vacancy on its news staff. We received a resume and an audition tape from a young woman about to graduate from Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. I put the cassette into my tape player and pushed "start." Fifteen seconds later I had stopped the tape, extracted it, and was dashing down two flights of stairs to the office of our General Manager, Jeff Smith. "Listen to this," I told him. "This is the person we're going to hire."
Fifteen seconds.
One for each of the years that I knew her, 1984-1998.
Mary Phelan burst into our lives that Spring, all energy and enthusiasm and joy and laughter. And talent. Incredible talent.
At the Missourinet we knew Mary Phelan before she became MARY PHELAN!!!
She started her professional life working at a dark corner desk in the renovated attic of an old house at 216 E. McCarty Street in Jefferson City, a room where the sun stormed through a skylight in the deepest part of summer, increasing the temperatures in the stuffy room to as much as 110 degrees, more even than a St. Louis/San Antonio girl--and the rest of us--could tolerate at times. The building's old and inadequate air conditioning could never push enough cool air into our area. There were days I sent people down to the kitchen to cool off.
She quickly pronounced our ancient Royal manual typewriters unworkable for her and brought in an electric machine.
We constantly had to tell her to slow down when she read her newscasts. She read the way she talked--like a machine gun: rapid and often extended bursts, her words running together as she spoke, rushing to get out.
"Slow......down," we told her.
"Right," she said. And then her next newscast would begin, "ThisisnewsontheMissourinet, I'm MaryPhelan."
Slowing Mary down at anything she did was like trying to stop a train with a marshmallow. She never seemed to move at normal speed, but lived life in long strides.


She had an undeniable presence at the microphone from the beginning. It's a characteristic that separates the kind of person who is only on the radio from the kind of person audiences listen to. Mary's voice, delivery, and obvious enthusiasm all served to grip the listener.
We used to do customized newscasts for the Missourinet affiliate in Kansas City. Before we went on the air for our "live" broadcasts with them, Mary would chat things up with the folks at KMBZ. She so captivated their flying traffic reporter that he flew to Jefferson City after his morning drivetime broadcasts, met Mary at the airport for lunch, and then flew back to Kansas City in time for his evening drivetime reports.
Now, THAT was presence.

I used to have the news staff come to my house at Thanksgiving, since we split up the work shifts and the news staff could not go home to be with their families, if they did not live in Jefferson City.
In 1984, Mary spent Thanksgiving evening with us. Our children, who were then 11 and 13, still remember Mary, wearing a salmon-colored apron over her stylish outfit, watching as the potatoes were placed in a large mixing bowl, and my wife, Nancy, took an electric hand mixer and started to whip the potatoes. Once she had shown Mary how to do it, Mary took over. "Look, They're mashing! They're mashing!" she exclaimed.
It was that excitement about the common things of life, as well as the excitement about the grander and greater things that helped set Mary apart.
She dreamed of working for the legendary KMOX in St. Louis. Even while she was with us, she had her eye on her home city and its great radio station. And so it was no surprise when she told us she was leaving us to reach that dream. We were happy for her. But we knew we would miss her.

I never saw her again. In person, at least. She never returned to Jefferson City.

When a friend called on Sunday afternoon, December 20th, to tell me Mary had died, I was instantly numbed. I turned to my wife. "Mary Phelan's been killed in a car accident."
And I sketched the few details I'd been given. And I learned more in the Post-Dispatch the next day.
And I thought how ironic it had been that Mary died because she had to slow down.

A few hours later, a Post-Dispatch reporter called, asking me to share some memories of Mary. By then I'd had time to assemble some thoughts. The numbness had worn off and I felt myself slipping deeper into mourning. A natural reaction.
"Someone that alive shouldn't die so young," I told her, repeating what I'd said to others at the office earlier that Monday.

I was at the funeral at Our Lady of the Pillar in Creve Coeur, a large, modern Catholic Church, packed with a standing-room-only audience Wednesday morning. I had hoped there might be some kind of a guest register to sign, as there often are at visitations and funerals. I wanted the family to know that some people who knew her when she was making concrete brownies and learning to mash potatoes loved her; that she was a part of our lives as much that sorrowful day as she had been all those years earlier; that we lost someone and something valuable in our lives too.
The music soared, and engulfed us and her, part worship and part tribute to the wonderful voice of our friend. The spoken words were of love and comfort. And when her husband, Al, stood before the audience, I learned in those three minutes of courage and control, compassion and love why Mary could love him so deeply.

As the numbness of mourning passes and the pain of grief abates, memory's celebration of her life will take hold. And those who knew her will relate Phelan stories that are alive with her spirit, her freshness, and her excitement about the daily discovery that is life. Each telling will be a celebration. The celebrating is just beginning.
And for me, something so common as mashed potatoes will always remind me of someone so UNcommon as Mary Phelan.
If anyone should see me smiling as I eat them, and ask me why, I'll just say, "I'm celebrating."

Bob PriddyNews DirectorThe MissourinetDecember 25, 1998

I remembered her well after meeting her once, and admittedly talking to her on the phone a lot more times than that...but Bob really put his feelings into words with this tribute, written so many years ago, that still have a ton of meaning today.

A Little Brush With Greatness Proof

Awhile ago, i was talking about being high on David Cook, winner of the latest "American Idol" and talking about how some brothers in a band I used to "manage," worked alongside one of his old bands, Axiom. Someone told me there were some pics of all of us hanging out, and even one somewhere of Cook standing next to me in a group shot.

I found one of the pics that were supposedly floating around, featuring our bass player, Mike Doss (on the left) some guy I don't remember in the middle, and Mr. American Idol on the right!

Evidently taken BEFORE the eye liner days!