When you think about a dentist, they don't do the surgery, they don't even clean the teeth.
They're like, you guys do everything and then I'll come in and jab with a sharp object.
I did figure out what type of doctor I would want to be, which is an anesthesiologist.
Because just once, I'd like to walk in a room and go, hi, I'm Dr. Gaffigan, I'm going
to give you some drugs so you can't talk or move, and one of these strangers is going to
cut you open.
Good luck.
What draws someone to anesthesiology?
It's like, I like medicine, but I really enjoy getting people high.
If I can combine the two, I also prefer to sit during surgery.
You ever see the anesthesiologist during surgery?
They're like, I don't know why I have to be here.
Yeah, they're still alive.
Anyone got the Wi-Fi password?
Yeah.
It's 7-0-8 at WRGN Radio, I'm Don Rosen, cracking throat there.
Thanks for joining us.
This is going to be WRGN Historical Marker No. 6 today.
What we're doing is we're actually preserving the history of WRGN, which turns 100 years
old in 2026.
And so many radio stations, they lose their history because they don't talk to the people
who work there.
And occasionally we're all going to pass away.
It's going to happen.
You know, you can't stop that.
So we want to talk about the people while we can.
And we want to preserve their memories forever.
The Racine Public Library has told us they will archive all our WRGN Historical Marker programs.
Also, I talked to Michelle Vetterkind over at the Wisconsin Broadcasters Association.
And she will probably put on the audio museum they have there.
So we're going to preserve this.
So maybe 50 or 60 years from now, somebody could say, really, there was something called Radio.
I really, my grandparents told me they used to listen to radio.
You know, actually, radio has been around for a long time.
WRGN almost 100 years.
And part of that 100 years was a good friend of mine, our engineer Terry Bond.
Terry is no longer with us.
He did pass away.
But Linda Bond, his wife is with us today.
I know a lot about Terry's professional career, but I need you to fill in all the gaps.
Because I, you know, I saw sides of Terry.
People didn't see it.
I'm going to talk about that.
And it always wore a suit and tie a sport coat tie.
Always like a stuff shirt wearing that stuff.
People said, Oh, it's a hot day today.
Why is he wearing a suit?
I saw him when he wasn't wearing the suit when he was a great America.
We'll talk about that later on.
But you, well, let's talk about Terry.
Now, Terry is from where originally Terry Bond, our engineer.
He is from Milwaukee.
Oh, he is a local, okay?
Yes, he is from Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Now, tell us in, do you know how we got into the radio broadcasting industry?
It all started with a socket of, he wanted to see, you know, the where you plug your stuff in.
He wanted to see what was behind that.
So he took a knife and his hand when he was a little boy.
And put it in there, of course, got a horrible shock.
And lost feeling in his arm for a few weeks, actually.
And his mom said he was always interested then in the electrical current.
Most people at that point would say, I'm never going near electricity.
And as long as I live, they went the other way.
Now, he did that and then they got him the old director sets.
That they built things this and he just loved any red constantly on technology.
So he was great in his field.
That is for sure.
And did he go to, he went to high school obviously, but did he go to college at all?
He graduated from Marquette.
Oh, okay.
Yeah, he graduated.
And in journalism, actually, because back then, of course, they didn't have a lot of things.
But he went from journalism to that.
And he always said that an engineer needs to be professional.
And yes, he always wore his suit and tie.
No, man, that he always wore that suit and tie.
I'm going to tell you a story a little while when it was like 200 degrees outside.
And he was in a ditch outside our radio station, splicing wires.
I'll tell you about that later on.
We'll get to that.
Now, he also was, he also liked classical music, I know, because he worked for WFMR,
which later became WKLH in Milwaukee.
When it was classical, he worked for them.
Yes, Terry was, we have a vast library of classical records and CDs.
But he would go and travel because my family is in here in Indiana.
And we would travel back and forth to Wisconsin.
And we would listen to the classical station in Chicago.
And I would get very tickled at Terry, because one of his first things he would do
would be yell at the radio if the announcer mispronounced the composer's name and things.
So he was adamant.
He loved classical music.
He got it.
It was a great genre.
And just never wanted to see it go by the wayside, you know, because it was such a wonderful thing
to listen to the different movements of the classical era.
Well, he did.
He got involved with WFMR, which was on Capitol Drive.
I remember the studios were, because our studios were right across the street.
WFMR with a guy named Doug Crawford.
Remember that name?
I don't.
Yeah, Doug Crawford.
Doug Crawford had a lot of money as family had money.
He ran for US Senator and didn't win in state of Wisconsin, but he owned WFMR.
And that's who Terry worked for Doug Crawford back then.
No, there you go.
And then did he work in radio any stations before WFMR that you remember?
I know he was always involved with station.
I mean, he did a college station, of course.
And he did, he loved just the whole aspect radio.
And when he got the chance, of course, he went out on his own for quite hearing broadcast services.
But Terry's whole philosophy of everything is you have to do it top notch.
And he did not like cutting any kind of corners.
He would try to figure out how to make it work by cutting other areas before he would, you know, cut the quality of the station.
The, you boy, you mentioned that, and that is so true about Terry.
What he was the first person I ever met when I came to Milwaukee.
I was hired from Atlanta.
I used to work for a station, WSB, down in Atlanta.
And Bill Moose.
You remember that name?
Bill Moose.
I remember that one.
Yeah.
Bill was the program director at W E Z W.
That was a 103 seven.
It's not I think kiss FM in Milwaukee.
And he came down to Atlanta to hire me.
And I drove up my wife and my daughter and my little daughter was only three months old.
She stayed, they stayed behind and we're going to fly up.
But I had to drive the car up.
And drove through probably past your home there in Indiana, Indiana,
because I went right through there coming up from Atlanta.
And they put me up at the Fister Hotel where my car was broken into the first night.
It was there.
Yeah.
Chicky the house dick came down to laugh about it.
Anyway, so the next morning I went to the radio station, which really was,
I hate to use the word dump, but it was a little bit of a dump.
And so I went down there and though I opened, you know, knocked on the door and never key yet.
And then knocked on the door and there was Terry.
Nobody was in the building but him introduced himself.
So he was the first person I met when I moved to Wisconsin, except for Chicky the house dick at the Fister Hotel.
I met Terry and he was walking me around showing me everything.
And he was wearing his, you know, sports jacket and tie.
And I was quite underdressed, probably wearing jeans and a, you know, regular shirt.
And I was hiring to do mid days at the station.
And I remember hanging, he took me to his office.
We were talking and I looked up and there was a picture of Thomas Edison hanging in his office.
And I said, boy, this guy's really into engineering.
He was a big fan of Thomas Edison.
He was.
And another big fan he was, though, was actually Walt Disney.
Really?
Okay.
Yeah.
Because he felt that, you know, the technology that Disney put together and his vision and, you know, it was just, yeah.
He was in Thomas Edison and Walt Disney.
So we worked together at WBCW for close to 10 years.
He left before I left.
I didn't hang around long after Terry was there.
But he was such a stickler for perfection on everything.
We had backups for backups at that radio station, backup transmitters, backup, everything.
And then eventually we were going to move to downtown with all new equipment.
And Terry made sure that we were in a soundproof booth.
So we got this special glass surrounding the booth.
And it was glass with in the middle and layers of plastic on the outside of it for sound absorption, because glass doesn't absorb sound.
But the plastic will.
And he had the studio surrounded in that.
And all the equipment was brand new at the time.
And we had something that no other radio station had at that time.
CD players.
I mean, they were brand new.
This was the early 80s.
And we had a CD player in there.
And people looking at it like the monkeys in 2001.
The space Odyssey.
We're looking at the monolith.
They were looking like that.
And we were real to real tapes at the time.
And Terry set this studio up.
And we were like in a glass booth.
And it was wonderful.
And it's just a, he just really built it all himself.
And so that's when we started really at W.E.C.W.
And Milwaukee.
Eventually he will get here.
I'll get to that in just a second.
Plus I want to talk about Linda's background too.
So that's coming up at just a moment.
719 W.R.J.N.
hometown radio refreshed a civic media station.
Today it's W.R.J.N.
Historical marker number six.
Terry Bond.
And we're talking with his wife Linda Bond about Terry's career.
And we'll talk about how he got here.
And some really funny stuff.
They came out of his mouth at this station.
All right.
That's coming up here at W.R.J.N.
hometown radio refreshed.
I walk along the city streets you used to walk along with me.
And every street you used to walk along with me.
And every street I take reminds me of just how used to be.
But how can I forget you girl?
There is always something there to remind me.
Always something there to remind me.
Here at 721 at WRGN, it's WRGN Historical Marker No. 6, Terry Bond.
He was our engineer here at WRGN. His wife is joining me, Linda Bond.
And Linda, you have a background in broadcasting that I wasn't aware of.
I knew you worked for the Wisconsin Broadcast Association.
But there's a whole life of broadcasting before that.
And I didn't know that.
And that's how you got involved.
You got mixed up with Terry.
Yeah, there you go.
That's all background, yeah.
Yes, I do.
But it's lucky enough to do the farm report for a radio station that was owned by a local mom-and-pop.
Here in Noblefilling, Indiana.
And then I also from there went to work in television at WHMB, which was the local channel 40 here in Noblefilling.
And then from there, I was recommended by the director of engineering to go to the Society of Broadcast Engineers,
where I started out as a secretary, but ended up as the director of the SBE certification program.
And worked there many, many years, loved it, and that's how I...
Well, that's one of my love, I guess, for engineers started at WHMB in the engineering department there,
who always have been playing tricks on me.
But then went to the SBE where I got to work nationally with the national office
and helped build the certification program.
And when I became certification director, Carrie, told me and that Wenda, you know,
you have the heart for the engineers, which isn't easy, he said,
and he goes take the certification department and run it as if it were your own company.
And you know, I never forgot those words.
And that's what I did.
And then Carrie gave my resume to Michelle Vetterkine, who was the president of the WBA and a wonderful friend.
And he did it behind my back because she was being promoted to the presidency of the WBA.
And she was, you know, on the heart for Vice President.
And Carrie thought I would be great for that job.
So when she called and we set up interviews, that's when I found out my husband was instrumental and all of that.
So I had the privilege of working beside Carrie for a lot of years.
And it was the joy of my life.
So.
He is such a wonderful human being.
Now he became with the WBA, now he brought it up.
He's in the Wisconsin Broadcast Association Hall of Fame.
He was and he helped young engineers.
He also worked with young people who wanted to get into engineering.
So one of the things with the WBA, other than broadcast,
and you got to be involved in helping and doing other things.
And he did that too, which I was surprised when I heard not surprised that he did it,
but I didn't know he was doing it.
Yes, he was on the forefront of the technology.
And I remember him.
He is also an SBE fellow and he is also lifetime achievement award within the SBE.
But I remember with the SBE, he would tell the engineers, you know, you learn these things.
You take it back to your stations and you have to be credible.
So therefore, you need to work on you too, you know, to present this to your managers.
So and do it in a way that they understand what you're doing.
And he was on the very forefront of all of the technology.
I remember when the engineers were putting the different computer networks together
and Terry explained to them that yes, this was their part of their job.
And if they didn't do it, it would be like a dinosaur because the computers of course were going to be on the forefront.
And most radio stations are plugged in play now.
And so he was credible.
You could trust what he said.
Absolutely, he was credible.
Absolutely.
And that's why he made a great engineer because you believe that if he said it has to be done, it has to be done.
Yeah, and he was the founder of the CB&T, the Certified Broadcast Networking Technologist.
He worked on the certification committee for over, I don't know how many years.
And he was always making sure that the database of questions and everything was up to date.
You know, he said you've got to keep learning.
You can't just put back anything.
You know what?
All you don't.
You know, so he was very good at all of that.
He was educated over a year, a few times within the SBE, and the same thing with the WBA.
He was very involved with some of the conference engineering programming.
He was involved with working on the clinic when it was started.
And he always kept the engineers on the forefront.
When we were at WEZW, the company multimedia broadcasting on the station.
And they wanted to stop using real to real tapes to do this new format.
They were changing from easy listening to more of an adult contemporary format.
And they said, they didn't want to use CDs yet.
So they use something called dat tapes, digital audio tapes.
And they weren't quite perfected for radio.
I don't think I'm going to use them anymore.
But they said all your library is going to be on these digital audio tapes.
So we went out and we got these machines.
They look like VCRs, but they weren't VCRs, but they look like it.
And they didn't work.
They burned out the first day we changed formats.
We were advertised in the paper of the new WEZW.
You wouldn't hear this, you're going to love it.
So we tried with these dat tapes.
We only had half the library on dat tape, by the way.
The other half never arrived.
And they were burning out.
Literally.
By eight, we started at six in the morning.
By eight, the first two machines overheated and burned out and were unusable.
Terry ran out to colders and bought two more.
Actually, he bought four of them.
And he installed them real quick.
And they were the other two burned out.
So he found some lumber next door.
They were constructing something in the downtown office building.
We were located in.
And he grabbed some lumber and he put the machines on stilts.
So the air can go underneath them.
But it was hard to touch the machines because if you touched them,
they would fall over.
And he was working all day.
And this started at six o'clock in the morning, all day long
to try to get these machines so they weren't burning out.
And he constructed this brace with wood that he found next door,
stole from next door.
And he built this brace to hold these machines up.
You know, I would have given up and quit.
He didn't quit on it.
He kept staying with it until multimedia said,
all right, get rid of them.
Get rid of the dat tapes.
They're not going to work.
It was a good try.
But they really weren't meant for radio stations to work with.
But he gave it a try.
And wow.
So that was the big dat tape thing.
There was one more thing that happened at WVZW.
Actually, two more stories I got to tell you.
Before he switched over to WRJN.
Linda Bond, wife of Terry Bond,
who was longtime engineer in Southeast Wisconsin.
And one of the main greatest engineers I ever worked with.
We'll talk more about Terry with Linda coming up at a moment.
729, WRJN, hometown radio refreshed,
a civic media station.
It's 735 at WRJN radio.
This is WRJN's historical marker number six today.
A good friend, great engineer,
just a good human being.
Terry Bond is our topic today.
And Linda Bond, his wife is joining me.
And I got a few more stories about WVZW real quickly
that you probably didn't know about.
But I'd love to hear them.
They're good.
Okay.
With WVZW back when we were on Capitol Drive,
they were our radio station was broadcast from the Channel 6 tower
on Capitol Drive.
That's where our antenna was on Channel 6.
And they were doing some construction in the area on Capitol Drive.
And what happened was it was all connected by wires
and the wires were underground.
And they went just a couple of blocks to the Channel 6 tower.
Well, the guys with the back hose ripped up the wires
and we were off the air because the wires tore it down.
It was hot.
It was during the summer.
And Terry took his sports jacket off.
God in this ditch that the backhoe created on Capitol Drive
with traffic going in there.
We're dirt all over the place.
And he got in and spliced the wires together.
Took a couple of hours because there's a lot of wires on a dirt.
He had to go find them and match up the right wires.
And he got us back on the air.
We're back on the air about a half hour.
The backhoe ripped up another section with all the wires.
And Terry lost it.
He was screaming at these workers because they were told
we're not to dig and they were just dropping this backhoe
wherever they felt like it.
And they ripped up the wires again.
And he had to go back in the ditch.
Now it's like five o'clock in the afternoon
because he's working on this stuff all day.
And he got the wires spliced again.
Screaming at these backhoe people
that watch where they're working.
And so we've only got about that.
First of all, it was like 90 degrees outside.
And you know, who wants to work in a ditch of dirt?
And he did it the first and then he did it again.
Just a few minutes later.
Another good story about WZW.
We moved downtown to seventh Wisconsin Avenue.
We had the rooftop there.
We owned all that stuff.
And there was, you know, these were the, you know, technology.
It gives a little bit different.
And so we decided to get rid of the dad players
and we went on this satellite format
where it was partially live, partially unsatellite.
And we put this, Terry had this dish installed on the roof of the building.
And unfortunately, we had interference.
I mean, big time interference from everybody else downtown
using digital stuff to transfer information, whatever.
So we took turns on the rooftop trying to figure out.
Terry rented this, I forget what it was.
It was some kind of detection machine for $1,000 a week
to figure out where these signals were coming from.
Every time they came from there, we had to call them.
Can you shut off your stuff?
You're interfering with our radio station.
They shut it off another person came on.
And Terry and I were on this rooftop.
And finally, I said, enough already.
I can't keep coming on this rooftop.
I got other stuff to do all day long.
So we worked on that for all until we got it fixed.
And it never worked right.
Because we were downtown.
And this was the days when satellite stuff on radio was just beginning.
So, yeah.
But Terry eventually left WZW.
And we were looking for an engineer or engineer
had just left Gene Butterfield.
And I recommended Terry.
Terry came in.
And he took one look at the equipment here and said,
this is a quote.
One of the, one of the car instacart machines
that they don't have to worry what they are.
People not knowing.
But there were old things at radio stations you used to use.
But we were still using them.
And Terry said, I don't work on museum pieces.
And what happened was the machine broke down.
Terry and I did a road trip up to Beaver Dam.
We found a radio station that had the identical equipment.
There was like two stations in the state of Wisconsin.
And the station in Beaver Dam was getting rid of
their instacart machines.
And Terry and I went up there to Beaver Dam.
He got it. He had a, unhook it from their equipment.
Because their engineer still left it in the rack.
This was heavy too.
We had to carry it out to this car.
Do you remember his green car
with the FM license plate on it?
I've seen it. I've seen pictures of it now.
It was like a lime green car.
And the license plate was FM.
Which other was really nice.
Anyway, so we loaded it into his car.
And we drove all the way back from Beaver Dam.
Now he had to install it in our rack.
And every time it broke, I had to call him up and say,
the broke again.
That's when he came up with that.
I don't want to work on these museum pieces anymore.
But he did. He came down in the middle of the night and fixed it.
Because we were automated at the time.
We were live in the morning.
But automated all day long with this equipment.
There was really old stuff.
And we had these CD players.
We were running the format off of
in the WZYWHKQ.
Whatever the call that is, we're back then.
Our FM and 92.1.
And every time we walked in the room,
we had a little static spark with whatever we touched.
And it started every CD player.
And we had, I think 20 some odd CD players,
each one of six back.
And they all started playing at the same time.
So Terry put in this humidifier in the room,
which took away the sparks.
But it did something else.
It put white powder on everything in the room.
So all the CDs had, so we had a wipe down all these.
And I said, how do you get rid of that?
So then he got a filter.
A humidifier that got rid of the white powder on all CDs.
And I know he was frustrated.
Because he's working.
This is old technology.
And he's trying to, he wanted to upgrade.
And the owners at the time said,
well, we don't have the money to upgrade.
And we're doing fine with this.
And this is the best we have for now.
But Terry saw the future is not going to be in this old automation
equipment we were using with Instacarts and all this other stuff.
Right.
But he, you know, he worked with it.
I mean, he didn't give up on it.
And he could have.
No, Terry.
I'm sorry, go ahead.
No, you go ahead.
I was going to say he was a genius in the way that he would always
incorporate the old technology to make a way for new technology.
If you know what I mean.
Yeah.
He didn't just say, okay, this is going to be it.
We're never going to make a change.
He knew it was going to change.
And he would always try and his journey to make it so that the next generation
of engineers would come along.
And you respect your past, but you've always got to move forward.
And I think that Terry in all of his jobs, I mean, he was the director of engineering
for cumulus broadcasting.
And he would always, he would have a monthly call with all of his engineers.
And they would discuss the issues going on to try to figure out and would figure
out how to make it work in their facility.
And I think that's it.
You respect the past equipment.
But you know, it's going to go away eventually.
He formed his own company called Criterion Broadcasting.
Correct.
That was his own company and they worked with radio stations all over the country, right?
Correct.
So when he was in cumulus, I mean, they did Barbados and everything else as well.
So his goal and I think it's philosophy is the best product that you can.
And you are a part of that product so you have to be the best that you can be as well.
And you know, everything was great egg class with Terry even when I had a column for things
that broke.
We, we had people who know this, but our big tower in our backyard is like 350 feet, 320 feet
tall.
But there's also a tower underneath that on the ground with copper straps that run the
entire length of the property.
And Terry was instrumental in replacing all those.
I mean, he just didn't give up.
I remember when Tom Carco wanted better reception on his police scanner radio.
Terry went out and bought an antenna, which is still hanging on the building, by the way,
to get Tom to get Tom better reception on his police scanner radio.
And he was like, I don't know, I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know, I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know if anybody wants to get any reception on his police scanner radio.
And he went out and he got on the building.
And I remember he was climbing up the building and stuff he was walking on the roof with
it all.
And I said, Oh my goodness.
Be careful up there.
Hang it off the roof, putting this antenna up, he did all that, you know, he just he got
involved in it, he's just assigned it to somebody.
He went down and bought the antenna.
All that's still up there on the roof on the back of the building, it just he did it
so well.
It just stayed there.
I mean, he just didn't, you know, duct tape into the building.
He bolted it and made sure it was never going to come down.
And you know what?
It didn't come down.
It came down exactly.
And Terry was well, so that would never ask somebody else to do something that he wouldn't
do himself.
And I think that philosophy and the quality that he always instilled in everybody is still
prevalent.
And I'm glad to have because, you know, he, without the quality of radio, if it's just
static, if that doesn't help anybody.
So after he left WRJ and radio, I don't know where he went after that.
I don't know if he went to cumulus after us or cumulus, I think he went to cumulus after
he left WRJ and radio, and he worked for them.
What happened after that?
Well, he still was working with criterion broadcast services all along, but then he also
went to work for the Wisconsin Public or ECB, the education communications board, and
he was the director or the administrator for the engineering partnership for the ECB
Yeah.
And you know what?
Go ahead.
Go ahead, Linda.
And that is a part of all of the public radio and television stations in the state of
Wisconsin.
You know, and between the partnership and PBS, yeah.
And one of the reasons he's in the Hall of Fame is, because even though I'm in radio
for 52 years, and a lot of years here in Wisconsin, I'm pretty selfish.
I don't do things like Terry did and help other people, I just helped myself.
And that's it.
But in order to be in the Hall of Fame, you have to do something above and beyond.
And he did that.
He was the president of the Society of Broadcast Engineers.
He did all these programs to help young engineers, you know, in the future and stuff.
And he didn't stop.
And he was never stopped wearing that suit and tie during all those things.
Absolutely not.
Right.
And he did start wearing sweaters and stuff towards the end of his career, but there were
so many ties and dudes, and you always look professional.
That'll be the best you can be, we don't really say.
Now here's what you're going to have to help me.
What did he do toward the end of his career?
What was he involved in?
Because I ran into him at the Wisconsin Broadcasters Convention a few times, but I didn't
get the low down in what he was doing.
So he was with ECB, the Education Communications Board.
He retired right after he had a stroke.
He retired immediately after that.
And he was involved with the Wisconsin still with the WBA in helping.
And he was with me on a lot of the events and stuff as well.
And he always helped me like set up with the awards galah.
And he was still involved in engineering, but WBA had the engineering hotline where you
could call 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and engineers did, if they had issues and
stuff.
So Terry was still providing services, his phone would ring a lot and Terry would help them
with whatever situation was happening at that time.
No.
Now I'm going to share after the break here two fun stories.
You probably know the escalator story in Chicago.
You know, you heard that story.
Oh, yes.
I do.
We're going to talk about the escalator story, which is legendary and some other fun things
I did with Terry.
He wasn't just an engineer with wires and sparks and all like sticking his fingers and sockets.
He did some other stuff, too, what kind of fun and he was a good friend of mine.
We're going to talk about that coming up in just a moment.
Linda Bond is with me, Terry's wife, Terry, an integral part of Milwaukee, Racine radio,
Wisconsin radio, because these were his roots with the Wisconsin Broadcasting Association.
But it was more than just an engineer.
He also had some fun.
And I'm going to share some of that fun with you in just a moment here.
WRJNs, this is our historical marker number six.
Today, it's Terry Bond.
I'm so glad Linda was able to help us out because I can talk about some of Terry's
profession and career, but she has to fill in the facts, you know, the cracks and stuff
that I know about and she's doing a great job of that.
So more coming up with Linda, we're talking Terry Bond and WRJN hometown radio refresh,
a civic media station.
I'm Don Rose and thanks for joining us here.
Stay there.
I've got more to talk about.
I'm a proud of.
It's a curious thing.
Make a one man whip, make another man sing.
Change it.
Change it.
Do it a little way.
Both in the feeling that's power and love.
At 751 at WRJN, we're talking about Terry Bond, WRJN historical marker number six.
If you want to hear the podcast of this or any other WRJN historical marker, we have
six of them now.
You can wherever you get your podcast, you can get them at wwwrjn.com.
Just go to the menu, choose shows, Don Rose and you'll see them there.
Also you can get your podcast at civicmedia.us, download the app if you'd like the civic media
app or you can go to the Apple podcast thingy where we get your Apple podcast.
You can get it also on Spotify.
You can also get it on YouTube.
If you can get a podcast, you can get this one, just type in Don Rose and show and you'll
get this.
Linda Bond is here.
Terry Bond was our engineer for many years here at WRJN and I worked with him at other
stations as well.
And here's the other side of Terry.
Before we get to the escalator story, I'm going to talk about, I asked him once what
I said, you know, my daughter and I are going to Great America.
You want to come along?
And he said, sure.
I was shocked that he said, yeah, I don't picture him a rollercoaster guy, but even some
of the rights I was terrified of, he said, yeah, I'll go on that right.
So we spent the day, we spent the day at Great America.
And it was just, we had a great time there.
We got there in the morning state till late in the day that all the rides, the shows and
everything.
And I was surprised that he cut loose like that.
I never, I never saw him like that.
But yeah, we had a great day, great American.
You know, this is a side people didn't see of Terry.
They saw the suit, the tie and the engineering and the professionalism.
I saw the guy who cut loose at Great America.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And Terry, we have two daughters and Terry would go on any ride and I, of course, would
not.
But they had a wonderful time and the other tradition, Terry always had his mother instilled
in him.
They would do, he would have one martini every night before dinner.
And he was just a regular guy, but yet not so much as far as his profession went.
Right.
Once he got into the radio stations or wherever engineering was, it was, it was all
professional.
Now, my favorite story is the escalator story, which you've heard before, Terry, I and
Bill Moose, who was our program director, WBCW, every year we went to the consumer electronic
show at McCormick Place in Chicago.
And so we'd load up in the car, the three of us and we go down this, have it every year,
we got our press passes and we got into the consumer electronic show.
Bill was in a wheelchair.
So we had a mega lounges with that wheelchair, you know, it wasn't as easy as just
walking in.
We had to find special entrances and most of the exhibits were on floor two at the consumer
electronic show.
How do you get the floor two with a wheelchair, you got to take an elevator.
So we went to the elevator and they were using it for other stuff and they said, no, no,
no, no, no, no, this is a union elevator and we're using it for bringing up equipment
right now.
We have, you can't use the elevator, but how do we get to the second floor?
The guy says, not my problem.
So we went to the escalator and we figured that I'm going to walk in, I'm going to stand
in front of the wheelchair, Terry's going to stay in back and hold up the back of the wheelchair.
So it's even when we're going up the escalator.
So we're taking the escalator up and who is waiting at the top, the safety director
from McCormick Place just happened to be there.
And he said, you cannot use this wheelchair on an escalator.
I said, but the elevator guy said, I don't care what the elevator guy said, you can't
use this wheelchair on an escalator.
All right.
All right.
So we went about our entire day at the Consumer Electronics Show and time to leave.
How did we get down to the main floor?
So we couldn't use the elevator again.
So it was, you got a picture McCormick Place, it was 100,000 people at the Consumer Electronics
Show.
It was wall to wall people on these escalators.
And so Terry said, well, I'll stay at the front.
You hold the chair at the back and we'll just go down the way we came up.
It was nice and smooth.
So I said, well, okay.
So we're getting down.
Now what I'm going to describe took a few seconds, but it seemed like an eternity.
When the escalator goes down to the end of the steps disappear under these claws, you
know how escalators work, they disappear.
And so we're getting down and I said to Terry, just we'll let it wheel off by itself and
I'll give a little push and you pull and we should be fine.
We're wall to wall people on this thing, but what happened was we get down to the end
where the steps disappear and bills front two wheels.
The rubber caught was by the claw, the claw caught it and his chair wouldn't go forward.
It's done.
Now you got a picture of this in slow motion.
What happened was people were starting to, now three seconds at most, but the steps were
still moving, but the chair wasn't.
And people were starting to get onto my back because the steps are still going and Terry's
pulling.
I said, Paul, Paul and bills wheelchair turned around.
And now I'm on his lap and Terry's pulling, pulling, pulling and we finally got loose.
And you could see people were like in a panic because the steps were still going, but
the chair was preventing anybody from going down.
So I am shaking.
Terry pulled will get out of the way who is waiting for us at the bottom, the safety director
from McCormick place.
He said, he said, hand in your press passes.
They're revoked.
I can't get out to use this.
You almost caused a major catastrophe on this escalator.
And they said, but the other way said, I don't care about the escalators.
This guy's red in the face screaming at us.
So we handed over our press passes.
He tore them up.
He said, they're revoked.
Get out of here.
Don't come back.
Now we went back the following year, but we didn't, we used the elevator, but I thought
this was it.
I thought we were going to be on the evening news, you know, 300 people killed on an escalator
today.
And three idiots tried to take a wheelchair, three morons tried to get.
So that was the escalator story.
And I got to tell you Linda, I love Terry.
He was a great engineer, a great friend.
And when did he pass away?
What was the exact date?
Do you remember?
He passed away New Year's Day.
Oh, yeah, he passed away to you.
He's been gone two years.
So.
And he left a lasting mark.
You know, some people die and they never leave a lasting impression.
He left a lasting impression.
And now they'll leave a lasting impression forever because this will be in the Racine
Public Library archives forever.
And we're going to, we put it in such a media form where we hope it will last for a long,
long, long time.
And I'm so bad and I'm thankful done that you did this and remember and so Terry, thank
you so much.
Well, thank you.
Terrence Bond, Terry Bond and Linda Bond.
Thank you, Linda.
Very much for giving up your morning with us.
And I will stay in contact with you.
Okay.
Don't forget.
The podcast is out there, folks.
You can listen to it.
If you missed any part of this, Linda, thank you very much.
Have a great day, my friend.
Thank you, Don.
You're welcome.
Bye, bye.
I love remembering, Terry.
Terrence Bond.
I'm Don Rose in 758th.
This is WRJ An Historical Marker number six in our series remembering all the people that
worked at WRJ and Radio over the past 97 plus years.