I had to buy everything online during the pandemic, I started doing a lot more online shopping and I found out whenever you use your credit card online, it always gives you one of these are your robot tests.
Because all done these, it always asks me one of three questions. It always says, choose the pictures that have traffic lights, choose the pictures that have buses, or choose the pictures that have stop signs.
So I have no idea how we're supposed to trust self-driving cars.
Now that I know the three things robots cannot identify.
I'm lonely long, I dream of one.
Living in wonder, thinking of you, still looking for ways to uncover the truth.
You're so young, is all they can say, they don't know.
In 2007 at WRJN, during this year, we're going to do a series called Historical Markers.
And it's the history of WRJN with all the people we can find obviously that are still here because we've lost a bunch of people in the last two or three years that we can never talk to again and get their opinions and everything that went on during their tenure here at WRJN radio.
We just turned, we had our 97th birthday, started their 98th year. I'm still unclear about those numbers.
But in 2026, we'll turn 100. So that's a milestone.
And I got this idea and I mentioned this before last time we did it.
A friend of mine passed away that I worked with for years at WEZW in Milwaukee.
And his wife said, it is funeral. I want you to speak. Do we have any audio of Bill?
This guy was in radio for 30 years on the air, different radio stations. Now one bit of audio exists that we know of.
And I said, I don't want that to happen with WRJN.
Also the first station I worked at WGVB on Long Island is celebrating their 100th this year.
And they don't have audio from a lot of these announcers that we're there. They just don't have it.
And most of the people are gone. They're only like three or four of us left from those days.
So anyway, I decided we're going to do this all year long. And we're going to get all the people.
We can't starting in the oldest and we're going to.
Wow.
We just our first one was Tony Gazana. It was owner of this radio station.
For I think he said nine years, seven, nine years, eight years, something like that.
And it's kind of clouded because he was also owner with Greg Marcus.
So as Tony Gazana by himself, then it was Marcus Gazana.
So 100% sure if you included those years in there.
But that's I got hired under Tony Gazana.
And so this is WRJN historical marker number two.
Today's Kurt Bolman.
Good morning.
Not that you're the next oldest in line.
That's what I was wondering when you said that.
But I don't know. You got a dangerous job.
So you never know.
So you want to get me on before it's too late.
We want to get us.
We go by dangerous jobs and ages out there.
So let's back before you got here, you were in radio when when did you start?
Well, if you include college, I started college radio.
It would have been the what fall of 87, I guess.
So how long is that now?
37 years.
I don't have a calculator.
Something like that.
Okay, so 1987.
So 13 years would have been to 2000 and 24 to that.
So about 37 years.
Yeah.
So that's when you started and you went to what your first commercial job?
Let's see, 1991.
I went to Osage Beach, Missouri.
Beautiful area.
I mean, the hills and the most beautiful autumn I ever spent was in Osage Beach, Missouri.
Like the Ozarks.
And so I was there for a whopping I think three and a half months at KBMX radio.
Because you remember the old Bonneville easy listening format.
There was a beautiful music, beautiful music format.
Beautiful music format.
And that's all music.
Elevator music.
Yeah, it was all of your favorite hits from Michael Jackson and Elton John and Billy Joel,
except they were all instrumental.
Yeah.
Is what it was.
It was music, basically.
And so that was, I started there in the summer of 1991, but the station wasn't making any money.
And so the entire on-air staff got laid off after I was there for about three and a half months.
That was, you know, it's interesting to see the progression of technology in radio.
Because when I was at KBMX in Osage Beach, all the music was on the giant reel to reels.
And we had four reel to reel decks playing all this music.
And it was, you know, nowadays everything's computerized and automated.
But this is what I called semi-automatic radio.
Because you would hit a button and it would play a song from, you know, real to real deck number one.
And then it would automatically play one from real to break number four and then number three.
And Don's holding up and a blank reel to reel.
Oh, we have them with tape on them too, just too heavy.
But this is, this is the reel you're talking about.
Yeah, exactly.
Giant tenage reel is it?
Yeah, I think it's tenage reel, yeah.
And so anyway, it would play like four songs in a row and then stop.
And be sure you were in the studio after four songs or otherwise there'd be dead air.
It was what I called semi-automatic.
It hit one button and you were good for about 15 minutes.
And then you had to be back in the studio to read the commercials and weather and whatever.
So I did midnight to six there, six days a week.
And so hard to believe they needed the human being in midnight to six.
Yeah, well, they needed it, yeah.
Today, you know, need them.
And today, yeah, it's all computerized now.
So yeah, so that was for, I don't know, three and a half, four months in 1991 until everybody got laid off.
And then I went from there, I went to Iowa, Knoxville, Iowa, a little AMFM combo.
Simulcast, it was the same programming on the AM as it was the FM.
That was KNIA, Knoxville, Iowa and KRLS.
And I started there.
I was hired as the assistant news director.
There were two news people.
There was a two person news operation.
And I was hired as the number two guy.
On the first day I showed up there and the number one guy had just quit.
And they said, congratulations, you just got a promotion.
This is day one.
So I was, I was made news director in one day.
And I worked the entire summer basically in 1992 as the only news guy.
I was meant to be a two person operation.
I was the only guy.
And so I was working, you know, 13, 14, 15 hour days, that whole summer,
which turned out pretty good because they realized what kind of work ethic I had.
And after three or four months there, the program director and morning show host left.
And so I got promoted again.
And so now I'm, you know, I'm 22, 23 years old and I'm now the program director of this little radio station out in Iowa.
And I bought a year and a half later.
I came here.
Okay. Now when you came to WRGN, what year was it?
1993.
I was over.
It was two years after I got here.
Yeah.
Okay. And it was, um, it was a WRGN and WHKQ.
At the time.
The FKQ was our FM, which was beautiful music.
Right. It was that old bond of it like I was talking before.
It was that old bond of it easy listening format, beautiful music.
But WRGN was a music station at that time.
It wasn't talk radio yet.
So it was a music station playing like what they called the middle of the road.
M-O-R music.
Right.
It wasn't any top hits.
Yeah. Barbara strives in.
Billy Joel.
And stuff like that.
Yeah. Middle of the road stuff.
Yeah.
Nothing that would jolt you if you got up in the morning.
But you didn't start off as an announcer here.
Did you?
I did actually.
I did start off as an announcer.
The whole reason I came to apply here is because I was, as I said, I was working out in Iowa.
And my wife and I were wanting to come back here.
I married a good rescing gal.
And we wanted to come back to this area.
And my mother-in-law actually called us and said, hey, I just saw in the journal Times
that WRGN is looking for a salesperson.
Somebody's sell advertising.
And I said, well, you know, I don't really want to be in set.
It's not really what I do.
I'm a program director.
I'm, you know, morning show host, whatever.
But I thought, you know, we want to get back to the area.
What's the harm in applying?
So I applied for the job as a salesperson.
Came out and interviewed.
Do you remember Walter Kajnitsky?
Did you do?
He was the sales manager here at the time.
I interviewed with him.
A few days later, I called back just to follow up saying, hey, just calling to follow up.
Wanted, you know, see if there's anything else you need for me at this point.
He says, you know what?
We're not going to hire you for the sales job.
But our owner, Tony Gazana, wants to talk to you about an on-air position.
Is that something you would be interested in?
I said, well, yeah.
And so it turned out Bob Cook, who was the afternoon host on WRJN at the time,
was going to be retiring.
And so they needed somebody to do afternoons.
And so Tony, the owner of the station, says, why, I know you're interested in sales.
Isn't well, yeah, kind of.
So would you be interested in doing kind of a hybrid job?
So I was at the afternoon host, and I did a couple hours a day of telemarketing,
calling on cold, calling advertisers, potential advertisers.
And so I came in around, I don't know, noon, or one o'clock or something,
and I co-called for a couple hours, and then I was on the air from three to eight.
I said earlier today, I don't know if you heard it, but I think in the history of the station,
you had more hats here, more junk.
I had a lot.
Yeah.
I think you had four.
That's what I came up with for.
You were in sales.
Yeah.
You were in continuity.
We'll talk about that later on-air, and you were a program director.
Promotions director, too.
Promotions director, five.
Yeah.
Wow.
We'll talk about, maybe we'll talk about one of my favorite promotions that we did.
You and I did together for our FM station.
I know what it was.
It was a going up.
Yeah.
Okay.
All right.
I'll talk about that later.
Okay.
So you were on air, and doing afternoon drive, and how long did that last?
Afternoons.
I don't know about two, two and a half years, something like that.
I think it was in January of 96.
I took over the morning show.
So, yeah, a little almost two and a half years, I guess, and afternoons.
And then I did the morning show.
And all this time, you're doing telemarketing and you're doing-
Well, I wasn't always telemarketing.
After a while, I also did, I kind of did full-time sales, too.
So I would come in at about 7.30 in the morning.
I would sell advertising until about two in the afternoon.
I'd come here and do a little production, create commercials,
and then I was on the air from three to eight.
So I was working, you know, 12, 13 hour days, first sales, and then-
Well, that makes me sound like a slacker around here during those days.
No, believe me.
You put in your hours.
But I was just dealing with the FM at that time.
I wasn't dealing with the AM.
It was just the FM.
I believe.
I don't- I don't remember.
You- maybe it was both stations, WRJN, and WHKQ.
I would make sure we get this in before the break here.
Okay.
Well, well, we'll start it here now.
So you wouldn't need to take over promotions at the station.
When was that?
Is that much later?
That was in 2000.
It was right after Y2K.
I remember.
But before promotions was continuity traffic.
Okay. Now, you had to explain that to people because people don't know what traffic is.
Yeah.
When you say traffic, you think, you know, the helicopter-
Yeah, the helicopter and talking about the roads and stuff.
No traffic is making sure all the commercials air when they're supposed to air.
If you put together a log for the announcer so he knows when to run the commercials-
You work with the sales staff and get their advertising on the air.
You work with the on-air team to make sure they air at the correct times.
And all this while you're still on the air?
Yes.
Wow.
Yeah.
Kurt Paulman is here.
This is WRJN Historical Marker, number two.
And we'll continue in just a moment.
WRJN hometown radio refresh to Civic Media Station, 1400 AM, 99.9 FM and receive 98.1 FM in Pinotia.
How can we be lovers if we can't be friends?
How can we start over when we find another love thing?
How can we make love if we can't make a mess?
How can we be lovers if we can't be happy friends?
How many celebrity ever to get a three?
I don't know.
Is that good?
No.
10 is the best.
No, okay.
They generally don't give three's, two's and one's.
He got a three.
And they were very nasty to him.
Even commented.
He said, Treat me like that on this show.
You got to came out and said there was a horrible way to treat him.
Wow.
They were very nasty to him and everything.
Because he couldn't dance.
But you know, none of those celebrities can really dance.
This is WRJN historical marker number two.
We're talking about his years at WRJN radio.
So after you're on the air, you did telemarketing.
Yeah.
And when did you go to full blown sales?
Did you actually, you actually made corals going on sales?
Yeah, I don't know.
I don't know exactly.
I was here maybe six months or a year.
And they wanted somebody full time in sales.
And I was doing a decent job, I guess.
And so I kind of did both.
I did full time sales and full time radio.
I guess I wanted a bigger paycheck or something.
And so I did both for a while.
And I was pretty good at sales.
It wasn't really my thing.
I didn't really love it.
Yeah.
And eventually when I took over the morning show and started doing continuity traffic,
that was the end of the sales thing then.
But I did the traffic for, I don't know, seven or eight years, I think.
Yeah.
And again, putting that's putting the other commercials on logs, making sure everything runs.
Right.
And then because we have to build a client based on what I can make sure all the invoices are correct.
It's a lot of work.
There's a lot of work.
And then you still got to do afternoon drive.
Yeah, it's funny.
You know what?
Well, no, at that point I was doing mornings.
Oh, you switched.
Okay.
We didn't know that part.
Yeah.
I did switch the mornings.
I started to do in mornings, I think in 96.
Okay.
Ron registered mornings and he switched to afternoons.
Correct.
Okay.
And then he was on the FM for a while, too.
You switched with Ron Richards and you were doing mornings, you get off the air, when did
you do all your prep work?
Usually come in early, prep work for the morning show.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I would come in early.
Or during the day, you know, if I had to book guests or whatever I would make calls during
the day.
Man, no slouch time for you.
No, there wasn't.
In fact, one of my funny stories is, you know, before I started doing the continuity and traffic,
that was a 40-hour a week job for somebody.
And for me, I had to do it in about 20 hours or less because I had so many other responsibilities.
Well, I know who did it when I came here.
It was a woman named Kathy Kexel.
Okay.
Did it.
And I don't know where she is today, but she did traffic then.
So I don't know if there was somewhere between her and you.
I think you, with the next person.
No, Laura Kazana.
Laura Kazana was here.
Tony's niece.
And then there was.
Okay.
So I'm wrong.
There was another person who was supposed to do it and she didn't last very long and she
just left one day.
And so then they were, they were hung out to dry.
They had nobody to do it.
And so I said, well, I'll do it, but I didn't know how to do it.
And so I called Laura Kazana back who had previously done it and she came and she took basically
in one day taught me how to do it.
We had something at the time.
I don't know if it was better when you got here.
It's something called a Wang computer.
Okay.
Do you remember the Wang computers?
No.
They were simple computers.
They were close that door.
They were very simple computers and they weren't like computers you have today.
And they were very simple.
And I don't know.
Did you have a real computer?
Because these were the early days of, you know, they were.
I mean, it was, you know, it was an old DOS computer.
Yeah.
They didn't want to.
With the green screen.
You had green or blue?
I can't remember.
Yeah.
The green.
Yeah.
For a lot of years, you said, yeah, about seven years, I think.
And you stayed on mornings for how many years?
You were there till the end, didn't you?
Yeah.
Let's see.
96 to 2005, I guess, was the first stint and I left employment here in 2005.
And I changed careers completely and went and built computer networks and that sort
of thing.
I did that for about six and a half years.
But you came back for one month.
No.
I came back for another.
Oh, yeah, I came back for a month.
Well, several months, actually, because when I left here in 2005, Paul Kern took over
the morning show and at one point he had surgery and so I filled in for him for a month.
My other boss was fine with it.
He said, hey, listen, listen, they asked me to do this for a month.
Yeah, go ahead and do it.
So I would come in here and do the morning show for Paul and then go to my other job.
And then you had surgery and you were doing the morning show on the FM radio station and
you were gone for probably a month.
One month, yeah.
And it's I did that.
So it's a matter of fact, I'll tell this story.
When they were putting me out to go for heart surgery as a five hour surgery, they had
to replace a valve in my heart and it's any time maybe with the heart, is it if you
thing?
And you have to sign all these papers saying, you know, you're not holding them responsible
if you croak on the table.
And I signed my wife is getting very, not very happy with this kind of language talk.
So they brought me into the room to give me the IV to put me out and one of the nurses
said to me, oh, you work at that radio station, 92.1 W easy.
Why?
I said, yeah, hey, could you go on the radio now?
And I placed a call to you.
Yeah.
And I was doing your morning show and I was laying on the table.
They had the needles in me trying to put me out and the guy was there, you know, with
his, you know, filling my pulse and everything, making sure I didn't die from that.
And I was talking to you on the radio as I was fading away going into surgery.
Think of that.
I could have been the last person you ever talked to.
Never mind to do that.
Signed failed episode when Jerry doesn't pay attention to the instructions just in case
something goes wrong on the plane.
And all of a sudden they had heavy turbulence and they say brace yourself.
And the guy next to him says, my name is Bill, I may be the last person you ever speak
to.
And that reminds me, yeah, but I could have been the last person.
You could have been the last person I ever spoke to.
And so you filled in for me for a month on that FM radio station and I came back only
because the surgeon, I said, I called him.
I was home for three weeks, actually, I was home for two weeks.
And then after that, I said, I'm bored.
He said, let me do a checkup on you.
I went, I said, I gotta get back to work.
I had to do something.
I can't hang around this house anymore.
So he called the radio station and he said, I'm letting Don come back.
This time I was, I still the program director of WRJN and he said, I'm letting him come
back, but he is not to lift anything and he's not to go down any stairs.
He can't walk the stairs and he can't lift things.
Two things you're going to have to keep an eye on him.
Because if he does that, he's not going to be allowed in the building again.
So they actually had people looking at Lou Turner was going to be my, the guy who looks
out for me and he had to keep an eye on me.
So we were doing a remote broadcast.
I remember my son was going to help me, but he was late.
So I'm carrying some of the equipment out to our van and Lou comes running out, put
that down, put that down, stop, put it down.
Lou was the best.
He would do anything.
He's right.
They yelling at me to put it in there and I remember I had to get something down stairs
and I start to open the door and it could have been Lou or somebody else.
No, what do you want?
I'm going downstairs.
I'll get it for you.
I said, I can walk.
No, don't walk the stairs and they watched me like it was an invalid for a few weeks until
everything was okay.
Now I wish somebody would carry this stuff out to the van and walk downstairs.
But you very nice.
You took off from work and a piece of mind.
No, it didn't take off from work, I mean, but you came in here to work, a ranger schedule.
And a piece of mind because Kurt Balmond I knew was at the controls, running things and
people were doing all my other jobs here and I really was rested.
It really felt good.
Kurt Balmond's here.
QRJ and historical marker number two, we have news, whether in sports coming up right
now at WRJN729.
I've been watching these cooking shows, trying to learn how to cook, haven't learned anything
yet.
Anyone would like to cook if everything was already in pre-measured glass bowls.
It's a very easy recipe, you just pick this up and you dump this in the pot.
I'm going to get my career here to stir this while I drink wine.
I want to see a realistic cooking show and we come back, I'm going to spend 20 minutes
rummaging through all my drawers, trying to find my measuring spoon.
I tune in tomorrow and after 45 minutes of preparation I realize I don't have any eggs.
And on a cooking show there's always a finished one in the oven, check this out, isn't that
beautiful?
Yeah, we should have it in my house, can't find a thing, I got flour all over my face,
there's one in here.
We can eat right now.
We've cooked Ferries, Bargit, and prepared one.
736 at WRGN Radio, hometown radio, refresh, time down rows, and Kurt Bowman is here, not only
a former employee, but a good friend of mine.
We still have our lunches a couple of Mondays every once in a while.
We go on a Monday, have a lunch together and commiserate and talk about eggs and
pains and things that you're getting older.
The day I was on the phone with my sister-in-law, all we talked about for 45 minutes for our doctors,
eggs and pains and our maladies, and I used to make fun of my mother for doing that and
here I am.
You know, it's like the Christmas letters you get at holiday time, it's a very medical
Christmas.
Here's what happened with my family this year, all the eggs and pains.
My father had a pinky toe removed and stuck here and you let all that stuff.
But Kurt was here for many, many years at WRGN, he's an integral part of the history, especially
the modern history of WRGN.
So come in the end of 2014, I leave the station.
Yeah.
Well, first of all, I had said I had left employee here at 20 or 25 and Paul Kern took
over the morning show for me and then I don't know, six, seven years later, Paul was retiring
and I get a phone call from you and he said, you know, Paul's retiring.
What do you think?
I said, okay.
So I came back in 2011, started like, I think the day before Thanksgiving of 2011 and
so another three plus years and like you said, 2014, now you step in here, 2014.
Okay.
So you were doing mornings again.
Yeah.
You gave it up totally right at the, yeah, at the end of 2014, the owner before this
one said, you're fired.
He didn't use that word to you, not to me.
Right to me.
He didn't use that word to me, but he, I was making too much money and he didn't leave
his cheap skate and he didn't want to pay.
So I said, okay.
And he said, can you stay on for another week on the radio, even though which never happens
by the way.
But you know, I wasn't going to do anything wrong.
Because you fire somebody and then you let him open a microphone and talk to everybody.
What are you going to say?
Well, it wasn't what I said is what the journal time said that upset him because Mick
Burke, I didn't tell anybody, Mick Burke found out for somebody else that I was leaving.
And he said, what's the story?
He said, well, I can't, so he came, he said, can I come in and talk to you?
So I told him the whole story.
And he called the previous owner as well for, yeah, and he took him by surprise.
And he said, I didn't fire him.
I let him go because on the journal times online version, it said, rose and fired.
And he said, I didn't, I didn't fire him.
I let him go.
I didn't fire.
He was just let go.
And so they changed it to let go.
And that was the cover of the printed version as well.
And you came in as program director.
Yeah.
Well, let's back up one second for years, for years.
We said something about it through each other.
Yes.
Two things.
For years, you would say, you would point at, you know, the building here in the studios
and everything.
And you said, just think someday, when I get hit by a bus, you said, this will all be
yours, Kurt.
That's what I said.
Because you were the program director for how long?
At 24, 24, almost 24 years.
Okay.
So you were a program director for a long time here.
And you said, just think Kurt, someday, this will all be yours.
And I said to you, no, no.
When you leave, I leave.
I always said that.
Well, it was almost that.
So I left and, yeah, New Year's Eve was your last date, 24 December 26th.
I got a call from the previous owner and he called me and said, well, about a week
before that, he said, how would you feel if you didn't work here anymore?
I was sitting in this very chair when he said, he walked in here, I said, why are you
firing me?
No, no, no, no.
I'm just wondering how you would feel.
Well, I wouldn't be happy about it.
We thought, yeah, I just want to fill you out.
And then a week later, he calls me up and says, we're going to do without you from now
on.
We don't need you anymore.
I said, okay.
He said, well, can you stay on one more week on the radio for us till the end of the
year?
I said, okay.
I mean, I wasn't doing anything.
So I said, okay.
And he trusted me.
I wasn't going to scroll around and bad mouth them on the radio just in the newspaper.
But which I didn't really, I didn't bad mouth them.
It was Nick Perk.
We did all that.
Anyway, so it was announced the day that he let me go in December 26th that you would
be the new program director.
Right.
And so how did that feel?
Well, bittersweet, of course, because you and I are so close and we had a very good working
relationship.
I didn't really have any desire to be the program director.
But he said to me, he says, you know, if Don wasn't here, would that be something you'd
be interested in?
I said, well, if you're asking my permission to fire, I'm no, you know, that's not what
I'm looking for.
And he says, but if he wasn't here, is it something you would consider?
I said, well, I would consider it, I guess, yeah.
And so, you know, when you were let go, so I became program director on January 1st of
2015 until about February 9th.
Because I kept my, it wasn't really a promise, but I meant it when you leave, I leave.
And so when you left, I said, okay, it's time for me to look for something else.
And so I did.
And to be fair and honest, the people, the previous owners, Tony Gazzana, Marcus Gazzana,
there was Greg Marcus and Tony Gazzana, bless communications, let me be program director.
I was, I was able to do whatever I wanted as long as I could justify what I was doing.
Right.
I wanted to spend a ton of money to advertise on cable TV.
And I was brought out to Jamesville and Bliss said, why should we give you all this money?
And I told him why I showed him, he said, do it, produce a commercial, start doing it.
And we did billboards, we did everything because you could just, I justified it.
When I wanted to make program changes on the air, they never questioned me because they
knew I was doing it for a good reason when I used to, we turned to talk at one time.
We dropped music and went to talk.
I talked to Tony Gazzana about it and I said, the future of AM radio is not music.
It's going to be talk radio.
And this was back in the 90s and I said, that's the future.
And he said, let's do it.
And I did it.
And which is, which is when I took over the morning show, by the way, when we just started
talk radio.
Yeah, because I had a plan for the morning show and I think you liked the plan.
Yeah.
And yeah.
So we did that.
We did talk radio.
But when our previous owner took over, the one before civic media, when he bought
the place, he didn't want a program director.
Right.
He, the first thing he did was take me off the FM's program director.
And basically on the AM, a WRJN, I wasn't doing anything because he had all these preconceived
notions and his two sons who are really nice guys, they're, they're, they're really
nice people and they're good radio people, the whole family is good radio people.
They were basically running it.
And so I really wasn't needed anymore.
Which is how I felt when he made me program director is, you know, he came in, was making
all these changes that were contrary to what you and I built up over a very long time.
And so I was very close to it, you know, it's, it's one thing if you bring in an outsider,
but I was very close to it.
And all the changes that you and I made, he was undoing, you know, we spent more than
a decade, what, however long it was, a couple decades, you know, building something and
he came in and was changing it right away.
And I didn't necessarily agree with everything.
And so I thought, okay, he's going to make me program director.
People probably aren't going to like the changes and how I'm going to be blamed for it
because I'm the program director.
Look what Kurt did to that stage.
Exactly.
Don shouldn't have left.
So exactly, exactly.
So you left, you know, December 31st, 2014, month and a half later, I was out the door
too.
Now it just so happened that at the same time that I was thinking, okay, I think it's
time for me to make my ex.
You had a bad event happen in your life at that time.
Well, I did.
But yeah, unexpected death in the family.
But well, that's another story.
But at the same time I was thinking, okay, it's time for me to make my ex at my previous
company, the IT company, was creating a new position.
And without me even really knowing it, they had me in mind for it.
So timing just worked out pretty good.
And I went back to that other company.
So I don't know of you or Ted Aillin as the record for the shortest program director ship
in this company's history.
Yeah, I don't know.
It's pretty close.
Yeah, mine was, I don't know, 40 days, maybe.
Gee, that's like Noah's Ark.
You're reigned for 40 days and 40 nights.
Yeah, that's a long, I don't know how long Ted Aillin was program director.
It may have been shorter.
I have to talk about that.
Well, I think he and Lou Turner were kind of co-programmed directors, weren't they?
After I left.
I was gone at that point.
Yeah, after I left, that's kind of what I heard is Lou and Ted were kind of given the
reins of the station and they were kind of doing it together.
So I don't know.
But Lou stayed on and so he had Ted and left after a while and so he may have had the
shortest one.
I don't know.
Do you or him?
You had the most hats.
Yeah.
Yeah, you also, how many records do you hold that's company?
But I got to tell you something, you're the most versatile person.
At a moment's notice, we were able to ask you to do anything in this building and you
were able to do it.
Well, this morning I came and now how long has it been since I regularly came in this
building, a decade almost, right?
And this morning I was coming in, I was looking for a battery for you and I knew exactly
where all the lights would you know, the rooms are dark at this time of the morning, but
I knew exactly where the lightswitches were, you know, it's so, yeah.
It took me a while to figure that out.
I was gone nine years and that light switch over there wouldn't work when they forgot
there was another light switch behind you.
Yeah.
And now it's where I work fine after a while.
But yeah, you walk around and you know, now there is something here and this isn't going
to mean anything to anybody.
It puts for the history of the radio station, I'll mention it.
Back in the days when we had real to real tapes, we used to do commercials on real to real
tapes and we had to edit them with a razor blade.
It wasn't, they didn't have the computer stuff where you can take it on out.
They can digitally edit things.
You had to take a grease pencil, mark the tape and then slice it there and rejoin it
with the parts you take out and you had to rejoin the tape and that's how you made
commercials.
And there's some of the grease pencil.
And the other thing I used to do with grease pencils, I used to circle the discs with
the grease pencil.
This is what I found the other day.
They found the grease pencil.
I don't know if they even have these radio stations anymore.
Probably not.
I went to an old desk drawer I had here and I looked in there and I found the grease pencil
I left there nine years ago.
How much time do you have before the break?
I'll tell you a story about editing tape.
In college, I was taking radio production classes and one of them was in editing, one
of them was in editing assignment and he gave us a song, I don't know, whatever, three
minutes and 13 seconds and he says you have to make this exactly a minute and a half.
And so we had to go in with the grease pencils and the razor blades and cut the tape and put
it back together and make it exactly a minute and a half.
And so we used to make a game out of it.
We would listen to all of our fellow students assignments and try to count how many edits
were in the song and we came to mine and I came after playing it, everyone's looking
at me like we couldn't hear any edits.
And so my instructor said was there one edit?
I said yeah, there was one edit.
So that became kind, unknowingly to me that kind of became legendary.
I went back for the 40th anniversary of my college radio station and I was walking up and
everyone said there he is.
I said there who is and they said you're the guy that had the one edit and this is a legendary
story after all the years.
And they all started with the grease pencil and a razor blade.
Red and grease pencil.
I found a razor blade but they didn't want to do it, I just left it where I needed the
grease pencil and this is brand new grease pencil and I put it in that drawer behind you
and that room behind you and there it was nine years later and I was going to have it.
I don't want to do with it.
I just have it and I get so excited when I saw it the other day.
It's an nostalgia for us old radio guys.
It's an nostalgia.
Now here's the old cutting blank.
The real to real tape recorders are gone from the radio station but the cutting block
where you put the tape and use the razor blade.
Still here.
We're remembering WRJ and the historical marker number two.
It's 749.
Here we are.
I had a heart and I was a big bass ball player back in high school.
He could build that street ball by it making the blood of food for some of the other night
at this roadside bar I was walking in, he was walking out.
We went back and sat down at a few drinks but all we get is talking about the story.
It's 751 at WRJ and radio I'm Don Rose and Kurt Bolman is here with our WRJ and historical
marker number two we're talking about Kurt's years here at WRJ and he's been here many,
many years or many hats.
We think that's the record five hats that he wore at this radio station.
Talk about some of the fun things we did.
We actually did a promotion where we took listeners up to the Mall of America.
Yeah.
It was an Amtrak promotion.
Yeah.
No.
It wasn't.
That wasn't the Amtrak.
No, no, no.
You did that after I left, I think.
So anyway, I had just become promotions director and we were looking for a promotion to
do for Mother's Day on our FM station and somehow I came up with, you remember the old
movie, Throw Mama off a train?
Mama from the train.
Throw Mama from the train.
And so I came up with a promotion called Throw Mama on a plane.
And so what we did is we had people sign their mother's up.
The whole idea was an adult kid would win a prize for their mother.
And so they would sign up at various sponsor locations across the Racine area.
And we picked a winner and the winner got a trip to the Mall of America.
We went on Sun Country Airlines, if you remember, I don't even know if it still exists.
Sun Country, yeah.
We flew, we got up in the morning the day before Mother's Day, flew up to the Mall of America.
You and I went with the winner and her husband.
You did a live broadcast on WZY.
From the stage they set up for us.
In the middle of the Mall of America, from the stage.
We gave the mother $1,000 in cash and she had whatever it was, three hours or whatever
it was to go spend it.
And then we flew back the same day.
And I remember telling her ahead of time, I said, maybe bring an empty suitcase with you
and she said, that's a great idea, all the stuff I buy at the Mall of America.
And she filled it up and we flew back the same day.
And then that night she won an overnight stay at a whirlpool suite at a local hotel and
then Sunday brunch the next morning.
We had a schlep all our radio equipment up there too and I didn't want to put it in baggage
I remember.
I didn't want leaving my site because it's very expensive equipment.
And so it was that red vector that we had and that's expensive.
We had a hard case for it.
And we didn't leave my hand, I had like handcuffed my hand like they do.
We also did another one later on where we took Amtrak up to the Mall of America because
my daughter went with us then.
And that was just when the floods happened on the western side of the state and the Mississippi
River, Amtrak had canceled all their trains because they couldn't get over the Mississippi,
the floodwaters for two eye.
So just in time for her promotion, they said, okay, we're back running again.
And I remember going over the Mississippi and the water can have been more than two feet
from the railroad tracks.
Remember those big floods they had on the western side of the state.
We raised money here at that radio, there's a radio station for a flood of people who
were damaged in the flood.
We raised $14,000 we raised.
And that was pretty good for a local small town radio station like WRG and to do that.
And by the way, that's one of the things I loved about working here is because I had
other opportunities.
I could have gone to other places and bigger markets, but I liked raising my family here.
And I liked working at a local hometown radio station, yes, where we could do these kinds
of things and be a part of the community.
And you know, some of the other opportunities that I had, I wouldn't have been able to
do things like that.
So we're doing this 4th of July parade broadcast.
This is before we did them on my front lawn.
We actually did them because we live right on Main Street.
Right.
We didn't do, I wasn't living there at the time though.
So we did it from this uncorked, was on 6th Street at the time.
Yes.
It was on 6th.
Yes.
And so we were on the second floor.
We were looking out the window, but we couldn't see everything in the parade so you set
up a video camera.
I did.
And a TV.
And a TV monitor, because we were a good, what, half a block off of Main Street where the parade
was going.
And so yeah, I set up a video camera in a TV and zoomed in.
I used the zoom lens on the video camera and you could zoom in and see everything in
the parade, which you probably could have done from home watching it on TV.
I suppose.
But we did it from the second floor of uncorked.
And later on we actually did it outside of Main Street.
You did it from many years, just outside my house.
We sat on the front lawn, which was great because the parade was right there.
And Paul Ryan, Congressman Paul Ryan used to come by, used to say hello, and we have pictures
of that.
And in case you get people in the parade, run on out my front lawn, walk up to the microphone,
and say hello.
Because you, do you know the last 4th of July parade, the Racine 4th of July parade
I was at was whatever year was the last one I brought, so we would have been 2014, I
guess.
I haven't been back to one sense.
Yeah.
Well, I have because it's right in front of my house.
Yeah.
Well, you can't avoid it.
Well, I did avoid it one year.
We went to my wife is from Union Grove, that's where she was raised and grew up.
And so we went to the Union Grove parade, but you got to get out early if you don't leave
your house.
Right.
You're locked here.
You're locked.
Exactly.
So we left and we went there and we made sure we could we can't get back before noon.
Right.
Because the parade's still going on.
So what we did was we actually had a camera aimed at the street.
So while we're in the Union Grove parade, we can actually watch the Racine parade at the
same time through a window.
And we, you know, we told our friends and neighbors, you know, you're on your own this year.
If you want to use our front lawn, go ahead and do it.
But we're not going to be here for that.
But that was the only time I think we ever missed it.
You can use our front lawn, but not our bathroom.
Well, yeah, I'm not going to, you know, I'm not going to clog up our bathrooms.
So anyway, but you know, when you, when you live on Main Street and for the people expect
you to have food for them and which we did and people brought food and so forth.
So it was very nice.
And I remember we fed you guys at the 4th July.
Now, after you left morning's Paul Kern actually did it from our front lawn with Jan,
Jan and off.
She did it.
And so it was kind of a nice promote.
We always did a lot of nice promotions here at WRJN.
We were always out and about.
We never, you know, just sat around and did nothing.
We had some great equipment to broadcast from different locations, not to drop names
and stuff.
But after the vector, we got another piece of electronic equipment, which was cutting
edge at the time.
That was a steel one called the timeline, it was cutting edge at the time.
I remember we actually did a broadcast at one of the casinos where John Tess was performing.
And he saw some of our equipment and he told Betsy Chase's producer, order one of these
from me.
I want one because he was just amazed at how well it worked.
And it would sound like you were in the studio.
It didn't sound like a phone line.
It sounded beautiful.
I am so glad you're my friend.
Right back at you.
I'm so glad you were here and I'm glad you braved the below zero temperatures to come
here.
And by the way, welcome back.
You know, the civic media is lucky to have you too.
Well, thank you very much.
I would never have thought I'd be in this building again.
And you probably never thought you'd be sitting across the microphone again.
Exactly.
And I'm glad we're here.
It is hometown radio refresh.
This is WRJN historical marker number two, Kurt Walman.
Number three is going to be coming up.
Somebody older than Kurt, though.
Coming up.
I'm Don Rosen.
Stay warm.
I'll catch you tomorrow morning at 6 a.m.
Right, nearly hometown radio refresh.