Rock and Roll Never Forgets: Terry Havel’s Legacy on the Airwaves Q&A
By
Dakota Lavota
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- Are you from Racine? If not where? No. I grew up in Southwestern Lake County, Illinois. Wauconda High School.
- What made you get into Radio? I was a radio junkie very early on. I loved scanning the dial and listening to various stations on both am and fm. I was probably one of the few high schoolers to even own an FM radio; let alone listen to it fairly regularly. When top forty radio came to Chicago, I followed the format religiously keeping track of which records were going up and those going down the charts. I loved music at an early age and actually subscribed to Billboard while I was in high school. The only colleges I looked at were those with radio stations and during my junior year wound up recording a weekly jazz program for an fm station in Waterloo, Iowa. My last semester in college, I was hired by the station, KXEL-FM, to work on Sundays-signed the station on at noon and signed it off at midnight.
- How did you come up with the show Rock and Roll Never Forgets? In the mid-eighties I did the 6pm to midnight shift on the old 1250 WEMP in Milwaukee and pitched them the idea of a speciality oldies show from 9 to midnight which became Rock and Roll Never Forgets. I created the various features and was given alot of latitude in choosing which artists and songs I could play.
- What are some of your favorite memories in Radio as well as being a Teacher? Working with some incredibly talented folks at so many different stations and formats. I hosted Radio Chaos on the old WQFM in Milwaukee and introduced a ton of new music, primarily alternative, to a commercial radio audience from 1991 to 1993. Then I wound up basically doing the same type of show on New Rock 102.1 from 1995 to 1999. While there I met the Ramones and talked baseball with them, did stage introductions with Cyndi Lauper, and did a concert at Burlington High School with the Gufs that brought in over 1800 people with all the proceeds being donated to BHS’s FM station WBSD which I put on the air in 1975. It’s WBSD’s 50th year on-the-air and we had an amazing group of young people who worked on the station. In the early years, we had over 60 to 70 students involved with the station. Ted Ehlen, who did mornings here at WRJN was one of those students. We sent over fifty young people into the communication arts-both radio and tv. To have an influence on the careers of many students is an amazing thing and I’m so proud of their accomplishments. But, I think, the most impressive thing working with the student station was the diversity of the students. We had jocks, band kids, theater kids, nerds, greasers, potential dropouts all involved in some way with the station. And so many of them took skills that they could use for the rest of their lives.
- How did it feel to come back to work at WRJN? Well I was here in 1978-79 doing Sundays from 3 until 10pm. Coming back is a real trip especially now that WRJN adopted an oldies format. I am so impressed with our current staff and the sound of the station.
- Favorite musical artist or band? Probably too many to list but I’ve been a Springsteen fan ever since his first album. I really love doo wop as I grew up listening to it on a black radio station out of Chicago.
- Favorite place you have traveled to? New Orleans in the States; Ireland and Estonia in Europe. I love to travel.
