Hi, I'm Tony Gazzana. I'm a previous owner of WRJN. Going back about 25 years ago, it was a great experience. I love being part of the community and meeting such wonderful people at the radio station and and greater recene.
I want to wish the radio station and all of its listeners a happy anniversary.
I think it's here at WRJN 1400 AM, 99.9 FM recene, 98.1 FM Kenosha, it's 607 and this is the first time in a little over nine years.
The four of us are in this studio with me is Janet Hoff, Tom Carco and Kurt Vollman. We were the morning people here back on December 31st, 2014. Welcome people.
Thanks. Good morning. Hello. All right. I'm all very curly. We got it. It's all working. Well, the reason we're here today is because December 6th is the anniversary date of the turning on the transmitter, I guess, at WRJN and except for thunderstorms and so forth. It hasn't been off for what going on 98 years.
Okay. Now, okay. Here's the asterisk. This all conversation. There was a 37 and a half day period when there was an engineer strike.
Oh, really? Yes. And the station was off. And this is the days where it was union. And you had to, if you didn't have the engineers with you, you were not on the air.
I love that you're the historian of the radio station time. You know everything. I never knew that. When was that? Yeah, I never do that either.
Guys, that was back in the 40s, I believe. Wow. I've got a document here. There's so much. Honestly, got in the last five years since we retired, gathering all this information has just been amazing.
It's been overwhelming, but it's been so much fun. I have learned so much about the history of this place that I never knew when I was working here all those years and work with some of the guys that, you know, you, you came to hear about.
I started out with them and learned about them and the station and its beginnings and it's been fascinating.
Well, and to introduce everybody, Kurt, you tell what you were doing. You were here in different incarnations. You were here. Yeah.
Well, I first started. In fact, my 30th anniversary of my first walking into the building was in October. I began working here October 11th, 1993. So it was just over 30 years ago now.
And worked here full time until 2005.
Stuck around when you would go on vacation or when Paul Kern would go on vacation.
You had heart surgery. Yeah, I would come back and, you know, spend a week or a month here. And then I came back full time again in 2011.
And, yeah, and then 2015 is when I walked out the door again.
And Tom, you were here the longest out of the four of us. Yeah. July 8th, 1979. First day on the job.
I know that because it's my brother's birthday's the next day. And then I left along with Jan Hoff, my wife on September 28th.
She weren't supposed to tell anybody it's a secret.
We tried, you know, the mayor didn't even know we were married. Corey Mason, which was fascinating when we went to the council meeting because they said some nice things about us.
But we didn't promote that fact. It was not necessary. Jan had her own reputation, which she brought from Kenosha after 18 years.
And we won't go into that. And kept it going here for 14 more than 14 years, 14 years full time. But did part time work for us for several years.
And there was nobody better to expand our operation for news into Kenosha and bring that little further into our house, if you will.
Then Jan, because she had the background, she had the contact. She, she knew people. So you're too kind.
And Jan, you were here. But don't ask me dates. I don't do dates.
I do what I was here. You came to work in the news department. It's after me. So I was strong for what they cost.
I was a stringer for a while. I didn't actually work here. I just went out, did like covered meetings and got paid for that.
So I wasn't a technically employee for a couple of years.
And then I came in and full time. And I came in in 1991. As a matter of fact, the council were broadcasting from. It came in that week.
We know exactly how well this council that when the engineers from civic media were here, they said, I wonder when the council was here. I said, I'll tell you the exact date.
It was in March. I came in just to work on our FM station, WHKQ and then expanded out. And that's how I got here. And I was here for 24 years.
Then the new owner came in, didn't like my face. And I was out. And then the new owners came in. They said he's not that bad looking, bringing back. And that's how I got.
Okay. And so the last time we were together, as I said, was the end of 2014. Kurt, you were working on doing mornings on WRJ.
Jan, you were doing afternoon news on WRJN. And Tom was doing the morning news. And I was on WZY. And also WRJN, but mainly WZY.
And here we are. Who would have thunk it? Now WRJN. Okay. You can see.
You don't get to do this in many places. Relive some days like that where we were all together. A lot of places just move on.
And thank you to the folks at Civic Media who said, do this. Yeah.
And we have another plan for next year as well, all through the year, which we'll talk about in a few minutes. Let's start off.
How did this place begin? Because a lot of old AM radio stations are celebrating their hundredth anniversary this year, next year, the year after.
And this is what the 90, what is it? It's technically the 97th birthday, because if you go from, I mean, if you do a birthday, you go one year out.
I'm going to hear everything when you have to say, okay. Okay. You think I know that. I forgot in five years.
You take a birthday, you're one year old, a year after you're born, right?
Yeah, I know. That's like the 2000 one. Did the Millennium begin on 2001 or did it begin on 2000?
Well, December 6, 1926 is the date that is listed. There was, there were operations in place to test radio in Racine before that in November of 26.
And that was three gentlemen who really had a lot to do with Frank Levinthal, Harold Whit and Frank Starbuck, who was the editor of the paper, the owner of the paper.
And they got together and a little gathering at Memorial Hall in November of 1926.
They, the guys from Chicago had transmitter equipment, equipment to do radio.
And they brought it up, brought it to this gathering in Racine and the Racine Area Radio Dealers Association, as they were called back then.
They put together a week of radio programming, testing of radio to see how it would go in Racine.
And it went over very well. And there was no doubt from that point on that there was going to be a station in Racine.
And then early December comes the station that was began as WLBG.
I have no idea what those call letters mean. I could not find it.
Somebody's initials, a lot of radio stations with the owners initials.
It could be, but it doesn't connect in any way. A week later, it becomes WRRS, standing for Racine Radio Station.
How clever.
And then in 1928, when the two gentlemen from Chicago sold their interest in the operation to the newspaper into Frank Starbuck, it became WRJN for Racine Journal News.
Did we know the original location of the very first testing of this station?
The very first testing of this station. Well, the testing was really the stuff that happened at Memorial Hall.
The actual on-air beginning of this station is on the Mezzanine level of the arcade building in downtown Racine, which doesn't exist anymore.
The building itself is still there. The Mezzanine is long gone. They took care of that when they changed the building itself.
That's where it began. Then in 1927, the studio shifted over to the hotel Racine, which is the site of the old motor in.
And what is now the Johnson Complex? And for 10 years, they were there. And then one night, they shut this place off.
And they shifted everything over in 1937, over to the third floor of the American Bank Building, which is now the Racine Art Museum.
And there's no semblance of what the station was back then in that building, because I've been through it.
I asked them specifically, is there anything that looks like there was a radio station here? Nothing. It's all gone. That's unfortunate.
So 1937 until 1957, late 1957, they're at the American Bank Building, 57 until present day, Victory Avenue right here.
And keep moving these radio stations around. Have you been in the radio station move before? No, I have.
At 103 seven in Milwaukee, we moved from Capitol Drive in Milwaukee to downtown Milwaukee.
It's not easy. I don't know what it was like then, but we all had to load stuff in our cars.
They didn't have a, I can't believe the, it was a major company that owned us. And they said, yeah, load up your cars with as much stuff as you can and drive it down.
I said, really? Well, I just started with the place already. I'm loading up my car with tapes and records.
I did that with an IT company. I did not do that with a radio station. It was the same thing.
We shut the servers down and moved them across town and fired them back up. We never shut the radio station off.
What they did was they brought some temporary music to downtown in which now the Wells Fargo building.
And they did it that way. But this station was moving all those like they were on the run from the law.
And it was all hands on deck. Everybody helped to move. Yeah, wow.
Okay. So it came in this building in what 1957 and we've seen pictures of the open house right when they first moved in here.
Right. Thousands of people came to look at their new radio station.
There's the guy who built this place and designed it had never done that before, which explains a lot of things around here.
But yeah, I have the architectural drawings in our collection.
And it's a lot of technical stuff. You know, that they do our designers and architects and all that stuff.
But it's fascinating. And I want to tell you that there was something here before the station studios transmitter building where the engineers were.
They moved that from atop the hotel recene before they shifted over to the bank building.
They moved the transmitter out to this site at Victory Avenue and created a building with a garage and a kitchen and the whole line yards and the engineers would be out here from 1936.
And then when they were going to build the new station, they incorporated part of that section of the building, the transmitter building into the complex.
That's the far east side of the building here now.
Because there was a door.
Yep.
And I think it's sealed up now.
I have to go back there and take a look.
But for years, it was open. You just walk in that door back in the transmitter room.
Yeah.
You think back that's kind of dangerous to have an open door.
What?
I was back in the days when I remember vandals broke the glass on it and tried to open the door.
I remember that.
Okay, we've got get it off.
We've got Tom Carco. We've got Kurt Vom.
And I'm Don Rosen.
And we're here celebrating the anniversary of WRJN, which went on the year December 6th, officially December 6th, 1926.
It's 18 minutes after 6 o'clock.
We've got more coming up, including I want to ask about that tower.
We've got in the backyard here that's shooting out of electricity all over the place.
And rating eating our signal out.
When was that put up?
I think we have a picture of everything built though.
A hold on a second.
More coming up here at Civic Media is WRJN 1400 AM, 99.9 and 98.1 FM.
Hi, this is Bill Lawrence.
You may remember me as host of WRJN Newsday from 1998 to 2004.
Had a great run, worked with a lot of great people, lots of great listeners too.
Worked a radio for quite a while and just wanted to say as we head into 2024,
very happy to be proud of the history of WRJN with that in mind.
Happy anniversary WRJN.
Thank you, Bill Lawrence.
After here, he's had been many years in Kenosha, WLIP.
I'm up at 12, 15 years down there.
I had a good run.
Yeah, all of us, you know, when you do anniversary shows,
a lot of people got fired, got left, and quit.
And that's what it is.
Washed out.
What's that?
No, no, no, no.
Of course.
Kurt, you were here.
You did, you sales, you were on the air.
You were everything.
It's kind of interesting how that all began because when I first got married,
my wife and I lived in Iowa, I worked at a little radio station out there.
And I married a good Racine girl.
And actually her mother was instrumental in bringing me here because she saw an ad in the newspaper
that WRJN was looking for a salesperson.
Now I wasn't in sales.
I was a program director and did a morning show and whatever.
But I thought, well, we'd kind of like to get back to Racine.
So I said, what the heck, I'll apply for it.
So I applied for the sales job, you know, selling advertising.
And they didn't want me for that, which was fine.
But when I called to follow up with the sales manager at the time, he says, you know,
we're not going to hire you for that.
But the owner of the radio station, Tony Gazana, wants to talk to you about an on-air position.
Would you be interested in that?
And I said, well, yeah.
And at the time, you all remember Bob Cook.
He was retiring.
And so I took over for him.
So I came in and I did a little bit on air and I did a little bit of sales.
You did afternoons first, huh?
I did afternoons for about, I don't know, two and a half years or something like that.
All right, block that out.
I just remember you on mornings.
Yeah, that happened in 96, I want to say.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
So I have the news.
Yeah.
Man, I don't remember that.
But I'm sure you're telling the truth.
I'm sure I am too.
Which with Ron, didn't you?
It was Ron Richards, yeah.
And the thing, oh, that's right.
Now, remember, you did the switcher.
But Kurt has, he's got the ability to fix things and work with things.
And that's why he was so valuable here.
Besides being on the air, doing a great job there, doing all that hard work.
And being a disc jacket is hard work.
I mean, it's like being a fashion model.
It's very hard work.
Well, they call us dumb jacks for a reason.
Yeah.
But you're not the dumb one, though.
Kurt can fix stuff.
We had a computer monitor problem this morning.
He fixed it.
He plugged it in.
Plugged it out.
It worked.
Unplugged and plug it back in.
That's Bill Gates, the solution to everything.
What a great genius.
But you, we hear from many, many years.
And you're such a good friend.
When I worked mornings on WBCY, you were on WRJN.
My back and forth.
I had my heart surgery.
We brought you into work a month on the radio.
And you did it without gripping without holding me up for money and doing all that kind of stuff.
And that was very much appreciated.
Oh, I had to get paid.
Believe me.
Because you had another job.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And the company I worked for at the time was very gracious.
I said, you know, they want me to come in for several weeks and do this.
And they're like, yeah, do it.
Fine.
And so I would do the morning show for you.
And then I'd hop in my car and go work another job all day.
And we've always stayed friends.
We have our Monday brunch once a month.
Yeah.
There are so many times that he was fixing things internally while he's on the air.
Including my news computers.
That this doesn't work.
Kurt, can you help me?
Yeah.
And the nice thing is that the relaxation of FCC rules over the years allowed him to do that.
Because back in the day, you couldn't do that.
Now you have to pretty much be in the room the whole time.
Right.
No, you had to have the first class license.
Which by the way, Jim Sorenson, who did mornings here for a number of years,
mid-70s.
I will hear from later on there.
He had a first class license.
So he could fix things.
Fortunately.
But we also had an engineer on site at the time who was able to fix things.
Let's talk about the, before we get to Jan here, I want to talk about those towers as well.
It was still in my head here.
This tower we have in the, on the property here, it's called the self-supporting tower.
There's no wires, what they call, guy wires holding it up.
But at one time, we did because the blocks are still there.
And I forgot about them, too, you guys mentioned them.
The blocks that held up the guy wires to hold up the tower are still there.
And Tom reminded me, there's a radio station here in Wisconsin that bought that tower, the stick.
And they're using it to this day and I forgot what city it's in.
But we can find out really easily.
I forgot about that.
Yeah.
What was the self-supporting built, you know?
The, it was back in the 30, well, the 40s, 1947.
And by the way, how tall is the tower?
320 feet, the meters.
Nope.
What?
Was it translated into feet?
I don't know.
337.
337, okay.
Okay, 337.
1947, 48 is one that this tower was built.
No one said there'd be math.
Right.
Yeah, right.
The original tower that was out here was a stick.
Just the monopole.
It was one pole up and guy wires.
Okay.
200 feet tall.
And it blocks are buried 14 feet.
These concrete blocks, if you see them, you drive by.
And they're buried 14 feet in the ground.
That may have sunk over the years because of erosion.
But anyway, mid 1939, March, it had a storm.
Part of the tower, this stick tower collapsed.
So they had to quickly come up with something to fix that.
They did.
And then that lasted until the mid to late 40s when they put up this,
this tripod tower.
Yeah.
And this, you could see from all over Racine.
You could see the beacon lights blinking on there.
That was always fine.
It directs somebody to the radio station, you know, for an interview or something.
When you get close to there, just look for the big tower, unless it's foggy outside.
And there were some towers at radio that airplanes use for the beacons on there.
I don't know if it's this tower, but they use the beacons to guide them along.
I don't know if they do that anymore, but they used to use the lights on the towers.
Radio station had worked at Atlanta.
We were one of the towers that they used to land the planes to, well, I see the stick there.
Because it was like a thousand feet.
It was three times the eye to this one.
And how many of us, when we were coming into work, if it's, you know, dark outside or coming in for something,
making sure the check the tower lights.
Yeah, it's right.
If not, you had to call the FCC and the FAA.
And even if the light goes out today, you still have to call the FAA because you don't want anybody hitting it.
I had to call you.
It was a foggy morning, and I got lost.
And I took, I couldn't see.
It was such a dense, thick fog on the freeway.
And I couldn't see in front of me.
I said, I got to get off the freeway.
I'm going to be a chain collision here because I couldn't see an instant front of me.
And they didn't know where I was.
And I called Tom.
I said, I don't know where I am.
Where am I?
And he kind of said, bring up Google, Google maps.
Which didn't exist.
I'm going to tell him that.
Which didn't exist back then.
Wow.
Okay.
We're going to talk about experiences.
We want to get more of the history of the radio station, the people that worked here.
And we're going to hear from some more of those folks, including.
Coming up next will be a former general manager here.
But he started on as a teenager at this radio station.
And eventually went on to become vice president to the company that curly owns it.
So that's coming up next.
All right.
So we've got Jen Hoff.
We've got Tom Carco.
We've got Kurt Fulman and myself Don Rosen here at WRJN.
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That's back in the year when we turned the importance and notbring things.
My joke was that my local KM logo was much more important there was internet people do.
Hahaha, I know you heard.
And so, this video was short for this kind of hard dismemberment we received just today.
Yes, it has.
It's been great to see some expressed stagnation in this space, since that being more than $60 points,
for many other events.
Yeah, that's all there is to do.
All the political dreamed day reiss spent.
The current owners of WRJN.
What a wish WRJN.
Happy anniversary.
And tell you what, the station has been part of my life since I first heard a radio growing up in Racine in the late 50s and early 60s.
My first tour of a radio station was WRJN.
Probably about 1969 or so.
And when I was all of 16 years old, had the opportunity to come in and work with such great people like Gary Seuer and Don Edmark and
Frenchie Bhutan, names he remember from the great history of the radio station.
And as a 16 year old kid, it was a thrill to be able to learn and what turned out to be my lifelong career from people like that.
Luckily came back 35 years later.
It got to be the general manager for several years around 2010.
And now everything has come full circle after 50 years of working in the industry.
We get to put a little bit of input into this great radio station.
One more time as I wrap up my broadcast career.
But glad that WRJN has been a part of it for so long.
So once again, happy anniversary WRJN.
Here's to many, many more years serving we're seeing.
All the weather outside is frightful, but the fire is so delightful.
And since we've no place to go, let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.
And it's our anniversary show at WRJN.
We also have Tom Carco and we have Kurt Wolman here as well.
I want to make sure Kurt gets in because you got to leave early today.
I have to leave pretty soon.
Yeah, so I want to make sure any great memories you have of this radio station.
Well, you know, Chris Morrill just talked about Gary Sur.
And it brought something to mind.
As I mentioned earlier, I married a good Racine girl.
And I didn't grow up here, but she did.
And I remember going to our first Christmas party, or my first Christmas party here,
and introducing her to Gary Sur for the first time.
And she grew up listening to Gary Sur.
And she got kind of starstruck.
She got a little flustered like, oh, it's Gary Sur.
And to me, Gary was just a cherished colleague that I did the afternoon show.
And he was just, you know, another terrific guy.
But to her, he was a star.
Yeah.
I thought you could say Gary made a passage, your wife.
Which you can't picture Gary Sur doing.
It's such a quiet guy.
Well, the way she reacted to him, I could picture her making a pass at him.
Oh, that's interesting.
We have any more of this story?
Like after the Christmas party?
He was such a cherished gentleman in my life.
I really, really enjoyed him.
And he loved his job.
This Gary Sur was not only the news director here, doing news in the afternoon.
He also did the sports, all the high school sports and the voice of the Racine Raiders.
Right.
And he got all this stuff in.
And he's a quiet guy.
Except when he gets on the radio doing the Raiders and the high school sports, he's very colorful
and lively.
And he loved doing that as a matter of fact, the press box at Horlick Field is the Gary Sur press box.
And his honor.
Yes.
But I think I had a good time at the school.
I've been in the car all the time.
I was in the car.
And I had a good time at the basketball for many years, too.
Oh, did he, I did not.
I could remember being at Parkside as a student listening to Gary calling one of the playoff
games when they were in the NAIA from Kansas City.
That he did everything.
Of course, did he was big into education.
He did inside your schools.
That program as well.
Great guy.
Great guy.
Oh, yes, we did.
We had a run into.
Oh, yes.
I had a run in with you.
Oh, yeah.
And Lou Turner, who left us way too early.
Lou Turner, I was here with you, I think, in the lobby here, this during COVID.
And we said, oh, just to say hello to Lou.
And we all sat at different corners.
And Lou said, you used to yell at us a lot.
And I didn't realize it.
And I said, I yelled at everybody.
He said, no, no, we probably deserved it.
And he said, I yelled at people.
I can't believe I used to yell at everybody.
And it still bothers me because I didn't realize I yelled at everybody.
But I guess I did.
And you didn't defend me.
You yelled at people.
Yeah.
You yelled at people on occasions.
Well, Lou said, we probably deserved it.
To be fair, you took on a lot of responsibilities at this place.
And you helped make this place much better than it was before you got here.
And you should get credit for that.
Well, thank you.
You're here.
12 hour days, 14 hour days, 16 hour days.
That was you.
Phone calls in the middle of the night.
Yeah.
The only thing I didn't like doing was we, Tony Gassana built a brand new FM tower.
The old FM tower, by the way, for WHKQ was on Taylor Avenue.
Yep.
And it was a small tower.
It wasn't.
And the transmitter was kind of old.
Miser already getting old in there.
And, you know, all the critters that were living in there, you know, we get an old.
I started my broadcast career at that station.
Yeah, and a 92.1.
It was WFNY when you started, though.
Yeah.
Anyway, so he built this brand new tower.
And it's still in use.
You can see it on the freeway when you go by.
It's on a giant hill.
And Tony did not pave the hill.
It was dirt.
And when the, the breaker broke, you know, flipped on the upper tower light.
I had to go in there at three o'clock, two o'clock, one o'clock in the morning
and turned the breaker back on.
And I've got stuck one morning in the mud on this hill.
And I said, how am I going to get out of here?
They're going to find my bones up here.
The car was sunk in in the mud.
And I eventually got it out and went down the hill.
And I said, Tony, I will never do that again.
And so he had gravel put in, which was just as bad, because you got stuck in the gravel.
He eventually had to pave it.
And he paved the road with asphalt.
And it made it easier.
But coming in when the alarms go off, because mice were here, or rodents, or humans were here, or whatever.
We had an old automation system.
You know, when, when we all first started, it was all turn tables and, you know,
real to real tapes and, and, you know, car tapes and that sort of thing.
But then eventually, computers came in and all the audio got put in there.
We had at one of these original automation systems in the computer
that would not self-adjust for daylight saving time.
And you would come in here twice a year at two in the morning on a Sunday
to change the, the clocks on these computers.
Because otherwise, everything would be off all day long.
Well, our engineer at the time, Jay Milke said, it's automatic.
Don't worry about it.
I said, it's not automatic.
There's dead silence at two a.m.
It's not automatic. It's not going to work.
And yeah, so yeah, it came in.
And I want to mention one person who worked here who doesn't work.
He's still alive. He's been doing very well.
But Scott Nalovak was our overnight board operator here.
And he was sleeping on the couch. He used to come in Saturday night
and just stayed over through Sunday morning, stopped on the couch.
So when I did the clock change, I made sure I was quiet and didn't wake him up.
And I'm tiptoeing all around the building, trying not to make noise.
I want to mention Scott because he's just finishing up his second tour of duty in the US Air Force.
He is stationed in Italy now.
He got married in the interim and he's, so he is second tour.
He's finishing up and he's going to go to law school.
Good for him when he gets back.
So he's getting real joys.
He was here for a while.
And I got, I talked to him all the time.
He calls me from Italy or we text and we, we stay in contact.
And I'm going to meet his wife.
And you would not recognize him.
They would say the military makes you into a man.
He is not that skinny little kid anymore.
Yeah, he is just, yeah, scrawny little.
No, he is looks like, he looks like a man now.
I remember.
I mean, he looks, you know, because he was a kid when he were a kid.
Real quickly when he was, we joined the Air Force,
I got a call for a reference from him.
And they said, we're, we're checking up on Scott Nalovak.
He said, he worked there these years.
He says, yes, what did he do?
I said, well, he worked the board.
He was an announcer at the radio station.
Well, he's in the Air Force and I say, he's not going to fly any planes, is he?
He gets, oh, no, no, no, he's working on computers.
Oh, good.
You're not letting him fly a jet on you.
So I want to mention him.
And we're going to mention a lot of the people that involved with us.
And when you get a radio station this old with people working this long with people, people die.
Speaking of which, by the way, you mentioned Tom to me earlier about how I would be able to fix things.
What about Tom Kramer?
Oh, my gosh.
And Tom Kramer now needed to fix things.
He had more equipment than the radio station.
We would go on a, we did our anniversary broadcast here.
One of them, a couple of them were 85th here.
Yeah, right there.
We did one here in the building and all the equipment was Tom Kramer's.
The mayoral debate.
All the 11 candidates in the front lobby.
That's Tom Kramer.
Yeah.
Yeah, he was a little tricky to work with, but you wanted him.
Yeah, absolutely.
And I remember he was going to leave.
I said, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Don't leave.
We need your equipment.
And you're right.
He always managed when we did a remote broadcast.
And those are always tricky too, because you're dealing, you're bringing the radio station outside
of where it's supposed to be.
And you want the sound like a radio station on the radio.
And he did it.
He used to bring his stuff.
He used to set it up.
And we had a unit here called radio lotto.
Oh, my goodness.
Everybody, everybody's head went down.
Like we're, let's play our respects.
It was radio lotto.
And this was, we used to bring it on remote broadcast, especially for 11 days at the state fair.
And we had to schlep this thing and we couldn't leave it there.
It was a big computer.
It was a big computer that, and we gave away prices.
And I think the grand price was a million.
It was a million.
Ten thousand, I think it was.
Oh, ten thousand, okay.
Ten thousand dollars.
You had to pick six numbers.
Even though this thing was legal or not.
You had to pick six numbers.
And if you got one number, we gave you Coca-Cola products.
That's what we had.
We had Coke products.
And if you went out, we had jewelry, we had things like that.
And Tom used to schlep this big unit.
It was very heavy.
It was on wheels, but you had to set it up.
And it was very difficult.
And he sat there for hours all day long at the state fair for 11 days, dealing with people online.
Because the lines were long for that thing.
But here's what you'll never understand.
And I don't understand.
Before you can play radio lotto, you had to give us your social security number.
That's right.
Could you imagine that?
Because if you won, we had to have it.
Right.
And there was actually a contest many, many years ago in which not just WRJ and but other stations in the state were using social security numbers.
And the state said, no.
No.
We're going to radio station.
We did a thing with license plates on the air.
And we would call off a license plate.
And the winner would call up and we'd have their name, their address, their license plate.
Yeah, all on the radio.
It was lucky license plate.
Yeah.
But could you imagine giving your social security?
And nobody, nobody squawked at it.
Everybody did it.
Back then.
Well, when I first graduated college, I worked at a little radio station in Missouri.
And our driver's license number on our driver's license was our social security number.
Yeah, right.
In New York, too, when I got my first license.
You would never do that number.
My student idea at Indiana University was my social security number.
And well, today it's so easy to do stuff with the computer systems.
Back then, what are you going to do with it?
You know, it was a very cumbersome thing if you wanted to steal someone's identity.
Wow.
Tom Kramer.
I'm going to talk more about some of the people that left us.
But I felt bad.
Tom was a heavy smoker.
And I have so many pictures.
I have them on my phone with Tom and I at broadcast because he would set them up.
He would set up.
And by the way, the man never wanted any help doing it.
No.
No, no.
He tried to help him get out of my way.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
I don't need your help.
Sit over there.
He set up the tables, the chairs.
He set up all the equipment, the speakers.
He tested it out.
And when we got there, he was all set up ready to go.
Just sit down and you're ready to broadcast.
And on top of that, he didn't want any help taking it down.
Yeah.
Good.
That's all you, buddy.
He drove the station van.
He did everything.
He ran the board.
It would call running the board during hours on the air when you need the board operator.
He did all that.
And I miss him.
And I was a shock to me because I saw him just about a week before he passed away.
He just got over shingles.
And I met him.
I was a pick and save.
And I ran into him.
And just a few days later, I got the word.
I always wondered what happened to all that equipment he had.
He had mic stands, microphones, mixers, speakers.
I mean, what happened to that?
We weren't in his will, so I don't know.
All right.
So what I'm going to talk about after Kirk gets out of here.
We're going to talk behind his back, first of all.
Terrific.
We're going to talk about the staffers here.
The programs.
I just got somebody the other day.
Is civic media going to bring that radio?
We'll talk about it.
I've got a program you won't remember.
Bedtime for Barney.
Yep.
Bedtime with Barney.
Yeah.
I don't know who that was.
Do you remember?
Remember Barney, the dinosaur?
The ad is in our collection.
Did we run that at night?
Yeah.
It was right at bedtime.
I would run it.
It was when I was out in the afternoons.
And we would run it leading up to eight o'clock.
And then when it was over at eight o'clock, it was time for bed kids.
I can tell you that's when I took over his program director.
One of the first things I did was that I got that program on the air.
I don't know why.
Anything to fill space.
Yeah.
We have plenty of space to fill.
We're going to say goodbye to Kirk.
Cheers.
Temporarily.
Good to see you.
Yeah.
He's always going to come back.
He's always welcoming this building.
He knows the coach to the alarm.
You don't have a key yet.
But we'll get you key.
That you know of.
We have a tunneling system under the building.
It comes up in the bathroom under the mirror.
Thank you very much.
Well, Don, you know, I can't believe you're 97.
I mean, you don't look at day over 90 to me.
I feel it.
Trust me.
Thank you very much.
You're such a great guy.
What a great friend to.
We do our Monday lunches all over everywhere.
At least once a month, we try to have a Monday lunch.
And we talk about behind people's backs.
It's very good.
We badmouth them.
Well, cheers y'all.
Thank you, Kirk.
Hold on a second.
I'll walk you out there.
All right.
We're coming up.
Jan Hoff is here.
Tom's here.
Kirk's leaving.
I'm Don Rosenstein.
We are.
It's 649 at WRJN Radio.
hometown radio refresh to civic media station.
Happy Birthday to WRJN.
Happy Birthday to WRJN.
Happy Birthday to WRJN.
My name is Paul Kern.
I hosted the morning show from 2005 to 2011.
My greatest memory was a two-foot snowstorm that hit on Groundhog Day 2011.
They had been predicting it for several days and it hit right on time at about 7 p.m.
Now, if I'd have been smart, I'd have gone to the radio station right then with a sleeping bag.
But I wasn't smart.
Around midnight, it was snowing so hard I figured that any better head in and sack out on the couch.
I thought there'd be snow plows.
There were none.
But I think the snow was so deep that the normal 20-minute drive took me six hours.
It was then that I decided the next time we get one of these kind of storms, I want to watch it for my front window.
My wife and I are enjoying a happy retirement and I'm wishing a happy birthday to WRJN.
All the weather outside is frightful, but the fire is so delightful.
And since we've no place to go...
I'm Don Rosen at 651 at WRJN.
Radio was celebrating our birthday today, anniversary date, 98 years old.
And Janet Hoff is here with me and so is Tom Carco, our news folks here for many, many years.
And we just heard from Paul Kern, who was our morning announcer here for a number of years at WRJN.
And he referenced the snow storm.
Yes.
Hi, yes, the snow storm.
We had two feet of snow.
And in one night.
Right.
And you, did you sleep over here?
You didn't drive in.
No.
I got here before the storm hit.
The Racine Common Council, that was the only governmental meeting that night.
The Department of Public Works told government officials we can get it in.
And they did.
And I knew it was going to be a big storm.
I packed everything I needed and I went right to the radio station afterward and I stayed all night.
And listening to everything that was taking place with the police scanners and the fire rescue operations.
And everybody getting stuck.
And it's just, this is unbelievable.
But I'm putting my stuff together for the morning.
And that, of course, it's not a normal morning.
Because you didn't get here on time.
I left my house.
It takes me 11 minutes to get here.
11 minutes.
I left my house a little after three in the morning and I got here after six.
That's how long it took.
I remember specifically said.
I'll see you in a little bit.
No, you won't.
No.
Well, what I did was I plowed out of my driveway and I live on a main street.
So it gets plop.
But it didn't matter.
It was just coming down so fast.
I was following a police car.
And I got over the bridge.
Okay.
My fear was I couldn't see and I'd go off the end of the bridge or into a railing.
I got on to highway 20 and then his lights disappeared.
I said, uh-oh.
And it was so deep and so snowy.
And I got down to Ohio and I couldn't get down to Victory Avenue.
I couldn't make a turn.
So I went back to Walgreens, which was open.
It was 24 hour Walgreens.
And I asked the manager, can I park my car here?
I worked here and down at the radio station.
And he said, yeah, just pull it in over here.
You can park here all day.
I don't care.
Just pull it in there.
And my wife at the time, not without my current wife.
We'll talk to my wife at the time.
My wife.
She packed the soup, a change of clothing, and like I was going off the war.
And I'm glad she did because I had a walk from Walgreens to the radio station in a blizzard with pre-heart surgery.
Yes.
You had had your issues.
And you did not look good when you came in, by the way.
I walked.
It was nine tenths of a mile because I later timed it.
I did the tracking on it.
And it was just a blizzard.
You couldn't see.
And it was up to my knees.
And I could throw the bag in front of me.
Walk up to it.
And I finally got into the building.
And I'm glad she packed set a clothing because I was soaking wet.
And I got in.
And you rushed me a glass of water.
I said, you did not look good.
I said, you're nine tenths of a mile.
And you know, you always hear these stories.
I walked a mile and a snow to school in the morning.
Well, I did walk a mile to the radio station in a blizzard.
So did I.
I came in in the afternoon.
And they had not plowed our street yet.
And there were four foot drifts that I had to plow through to get to the end of the street,
where they had plowed.
And the plow road was over my head.
And I'm so glad that nobody around had any kind of cell phone video of me getting over that plow.
That plow row because it was probably pretty comical.
I can't think of that Simpson's episode where the police car disappeared.
And the police chief said, it's our ghost car.
And when the police car all of a sudden disappeared, where do they go?
I mean, he was just in front of me.
All of a sudden his light faded in the snow.
It was scary.
But we got here.
I got here at 6.30.
I only took about three hours to get here.
But still it was.
That was amazing.
We had the snow.
The one morning we had skunks.
Okay.
I come in.
Yeah.
And I see movement by the front porch.
And I'm thinking, okay, what's that?
I look closer.
It's a skunk.
And it goes under the porch.
What am I?
I'm not going.
No.
I went home and I called Ron Richards.
He was an operations director at the time.
I said, wow, we got a problem here.
And he came out and he went in the building.
And I'm not going to follow.
No, go up in the back gate.
And it turned out we had a family of skunks.
Right, yeah.
And we had to call in somebody professionally.
And apparently the skunks were not happy to leave.
They euthanized them.
It was, it was sad.
It was.
It felt terrible.
Well, I remember I was going.
It was our day.
It was, I don't know, it was Kurt's day off.
Or we just got off earlier that day.
We were going to go visit WGN Radio in Chicago.
We were going to go tour this.
We had tours set up and everything.
We're leaving the building.
And as we step off, the skunks walk right in front of us.
Like a marching order.
And we go back in the building.
And we put up a sign saying everybody used the back door.
We had a promotional sign to use the back door.
Yeah, the skunks.
The whole family, mommy and little babies were all there.
One morning I go out in the front lobby.
And I see something up in the corner up by the ceiling.
That is it.
It's a bat.
Oh, I remember the bat.
Yeah, we had a bat in the building.
Right right there, right there in the lobby.
Right by the lobby.
It might be, I'm wrapping the ladies from there.
Back in 45.
This was a story that I found that a janitor from the American bank building
where the stations located back in the mid-40s.
He accidentally sets off the tear gas canister in the bank.
They had installed that after the Dylan Jorobri in 1933.
He accidentally sets it off.
The employees in the banker affected the gas, the fumes,
all the way up to the radio station on the third floor.
Lyman Marens was on the air at the time.
We're going to do news.
He's affected by it.
There's a picture of him in the newspaper in the journal Times.
With teary eyes.
One of the many silly things that happened with the radio station.
Of course, we have the big one, the rain.
The rain.
We had a guy who was replacing the roof on this radio station.
Flat roof.
Flat roof.
And he didn't finish.
He put a tarp on there and exposed everything was exposed under the tarp.
And we had a rainstorm the next morning, which I guess he didn't count on.
And it rained in the building.
But I don't mean drizzled or dripped.
I mean monsoon.
And I had a video camera in the car for another reason.
I grabbed my camera.
And this is all going on like six in the morning.
I grabbed my camera and I videotaped everything.
And God was with us that day because it didn't rain in the studios.
Everywhere but the studios.
It was mess.
And I have the video to prove it.
Tom Carcos here.
Janet Hoff is here.
I'm Don Rosen.
Thanks for joining us here on our anniversary show at WRJN.
Radio wave.
CBS News.
Local news coming up at the top of the hour.
So keep it right here.