And this is our 99th Year Broadcasting. Whoa. Let me explain who's in the studio first of all.
We have Tom Carco here. He is our, we gave him our residence a story and he was a news
director here for like 300 years. And so he's here today. Jan Hoff is here. She was in our news
department as well for many years. We have Deb Thogerson here. She brand party line for a number of
years. And we have a little kid who mowed the lawn at at our 92.1 location on Taylor Avenue.
Mo the lawn. There's this little kid we found him. We searched the internet and he was right down
the hall the whole time. Chris Mara, who's the president of the Southern region of Civic Media
and also our general manager here at WRJN. This your second go round is general manager by the way.
Yeah, I did that's about what 12 15 years ago. Couldn't get it right the first time.
Couldn't get it right. They let me take 15 years to figure it out. And when I convinced to my
did, I was back. Well, Tom's got a whole bunch of historic actualities for us to listen to this
morning. And these are people that I would their historic. They've been here for many many years.
We've had this. And what do you explain who we're going to listen to first? Do you want to do that
first? Okay. Well, first of all, we're going to start out with the fact that this place here on
Victory Avenue came about in 1956, 57. Otherwise, the studios had been downtown in three locations
starting out in the arcade building. Then Hotel Racine. And then atop the American Bank Building,
the one that John Dillinger and his gang robbed. Okay. In the late 50s, then it came out here.
Whole new complex was built. This had been the site of the transmitter building with all the
transmitting equipment, the engineers stayed here, lived here, slept here, did all kinds of things,
cooked meals. And then eventually when Hans Guy or the architect designed this this new complex,
they incorporated the very far east end of that transmitter site that the shack that is part
of this building. And so it's been here since 57. That's when it opened up. So you got a tower.
There was a single tower, a single pole tower. Eventually, it came down to the storm. And then
later on, they built the current tower that is up here. Well, apparently, it wasn't as straight as
it should have been. And this is engineer Bernie Fox talking about the Victory Avenue tower,
initially, not being straight. You drive down a laser up Avenue and you could see that tower was
tilted towards the south. 357 feet high. You know, they got the crew back there and they
came to base on that tower. So then we've got, by the way, the standard those concrete blocks
are still there. Yes, they are. Those are like 14 feet in the ground. We have a picnic cable set
up on it now. So we saw it. Oh, now you've got them. Okay. Anyway, so let's go next to the Danish
program. It was Peter Bach. He was the Danish program staple on RJN from 1928 until 1970 when he
retired. Now he played his own records brought all his records in that played them. Peter Bach
was also and it came across this audio, not necessarily from the station, but from another recording.
Peter Bach instrumental in the Prince of Denmark coming to rescind in 1939 and Peter Bach
used his influence with newspaper publisher Frank Starbuck. The Danish society is both
older than Dania, as well as the Danish choices had decided not to enlighten. So I mean, that
represent all the Danes I didn't like it. So I went down to Mr. Starbuck and said to Starbuck,
oh, and then Mike, the editor of the newspaper, he is the man that makes things go around.
He is the man that starts everything great. So Mr. Starbuck says to me, well, Peter,
what do you want me to do? Well, he might send it to the Danish representative in Washington.
I'll do that anytime on the telewap office and send it. And inside too long if there was a
reply from the minister from Denmark, we'll be very happy to come here.
Chris, you said you remember that show? I do. I was very, very young, of course, in the 70s,
but I remember hearing it on the weekends. Wow, we have a picture of you,
magnet with a huge head of curly hair.
But we know all the kids in school made fun of my curly hair growing up. I'm not laughing now.
And it's still curly. I think it was that bad perm that caused it to
this is the only available piece of audio that I have, I don't know, an answer from the 40s and
50s. His name was Bob Monkman. And this is from his, he narrated the 1952 Racine Goodwill parade.
This is Racine, Racine County, State of Wisconsin, USA, a typical Midwestern city,
population about 75,000.
That's Bob Monkman who later got into television and had a very successful career,
changed his name to Bob March. And he had a program in the San Francisco area, Captain Satellite.
Very successful out there. He passed away just a few years long, okay.
Well, let's move to the, during the 70th anniversary broadcast from Memorial Hall in 1996,
former announcers Dan Ronan, Dick Scott, and Bob Cook, talked about working with Frenchi Poutan,
a news director, Don Edmark. Frenchi's favorite thing was he'd always have one of his own records
chewed up and ready to go. And now ladies and gentlemen on WRJ, and here's my mom's favorite singer.
And he let the thing go. And I don't remember when Edmark used to sing.
Well, yeah, he used to sing when he was off the air, but no, he played them on the air a couple of times.
Did he really? He really? Well, there was a card in the, in the, much to this regret of Bill Gamba.
There was a card in the, in the newsroom that it, it said, you just had a label on it. It didn't,
it wasn't labeled like a news card. And it was Don Edmark with Nelson Roodle in the Orchestra.
Hey, I've got you under my skin. And he was doing what I have to breathe.
This is Tony Gazana, former owner of WRJ and Radio. Well, I'm pretty excited for WRJ and
entering 99 years. I want to make it perfectly clear that I was not there back at the beginning.
However, I did, I was fortunate enough to be a part of the WRJ and family over that length of time.
You know, while I was lucky enough to be involved in an owner of the radio station, the truth is I never
thought of it like that. I thought of it more as being lucky to be a part of the community.
All of the listeners, all of the people that were on the staff. It was a great time in my life.
And for all of the listeners, it's, you're pretty fortunate to have a radio station that is
concerned about you and the community. So congratulations. And I'm looking forward to the next 99
years. If I'm lucky, I might be there towards the end of that. Ciao. Celebrating 99 years on the
air in the studio, Deb Thogerson is here. We've got Chris Marl. We've got Tom Carco and Janet
Hoffall here. We're playing some cuts from the past that I don't even remember because I wasn't even
before yesterday. Yeah, I wasn't born when these were on. So I'm a young guy. All right, so let's
continue. Jam, what do you have for us? Okay, now we'll go to Jim Bradley, who hosted the American
Motor Show mornings and afternoons on WRJN from August 1977 until the end of 1984. And then
became the station's morning show host, the following year. I'm Jim Bradley. This is the American
Motor Show. Starting of the week, the Monday, January 30th, we wind down this first month of 1984,
89 minutes after the hour or six o'clock. Jim Bradley, we've got to step aside with the American
Motor Show. Thank you very much for tuning in. Jim Bradley, legendary. He's out in California,
had a very successful business career out in California. He's retired now. Well, he wants to give
him his money in radio. That's for sure. So I'm glad he had a good business career. So let's
talk. Frenchy Bhutan, legendary announcer, local entertainer in this area. This is a 1986 clip,
along with staffer Ruth Ann Chase, and they're talking about thanksgiving, what you're thankful for,
and also mentioned of the jail and bail fund raising effort to fight cancer.
On this day before thanksgiving, we certainly should get some phone calls today.
Yeah, let me put you on a spot, Frenchy. What are you thankful for? Right off the bat,
the first thing I'm thinking about is WRJN's co-spotorship of the jail and bail last week.
For the American Cancer Society, the people that participated raised in excess of 56,000 dollars,
which is just unbelievable. So we were just thrilled that we could match last year and possibly
sometime go even next year, go even higher than that. So you know, the three-year total has been
very impressive. Oh, about 150,000 dollars for the three years. Frenchy Bhutan. So let's go to
October of 1987. WRJN is at night running the Tom Snyder radio program. It's on the network,
okay? So at the time, announcer, turned board operator Maria Bell speaks to Tom Snyder
about helping Snyder's mother to be able to hear him in Milwaukee. You can turn it off,
just don't move the dial. I got you. That is the secret. I told your mom last night.
She told me to do it, and I think she did it, Tom. I'm sure she heard this so, and she hear you now.
When I get home tonight, Maria, I'm going to hear. Now tell what I did to your schedule. Tom.
Yes, Maria. I'm a displaced worker now because of the great Tom Snyder. I have now turned into a
babysitter of Bhutan's pusher after six years of having this time to play all the greatest music.
I now sit here and listen to Tom Snyder all evening long.
Oh, Maria, what can I do? I thought of something. Okay. We can just get any old robot to do what I do,
and I'll come out there and work with you. Listen, you're a very good sport to do this for me,
and I really appreciate your kindness to my mom on the telephone. I am really glad that I was
nice to her. She didn't tell me she was your mom. Yeah, I think she wanted the power to be
up. I think that's what she, Tom Snyder said, yeah, the mother wanted the power. Turned the power
up because she's in Milwaukee. Can't hear the station because we're in Racine at the time.
And we didn't. There's no FM translators. Well, there isn't any. I'll push the power. Yeah.
So that was that was part of that discussion. The WRJ and news departments. We kind of have
a familiarity with it. It was started by Don Edmark in 1969, then led after that by Gary Suhr,
and then me, and now it's Stuart J. Wattles, who's in charge. And, but there is so many other
talented reporters that we had. This particular clip is Steve Grohl. He was here from 1989 to 1992.
This is his final day with announcer Bob Cook. That's AM 14 news. I'm Steve Grohl.
And see, we just want to say goodbye and good luck. We know this is your last day on WRJ,
Bob, you know, it's so hard to believe that it's been three years and two weeks to the date that
I started here at WRJ and to believe it's all over. It's just incredible. And the greatest people
I ever worked with, my friends for life. And I love you guys. And I'll miss you dearly.
In late 1989, party line host Debbie Thorgerson will have the chance to talk in studio with two
of the munchkins from the Wizard of Oz.
That, of course, is a clip from the Wizard of Oz's Dorothy leaves munchkin land. Now,
that stirred up some memories for you. You can imagine how much more that means for a very special
guest today. We have Margaret Pellegrini with us and Fern Formica, two of the original players
of the munchkins from the fabulous 1939 classic, the Wizard of Oz. And also Pat Boulder for
St. Luke's Hospital, who, of course, is responsible for coordinating their visit in conjunction with
the Christmas House. Big welcome to you. Thank you so very much. It's an honor to have you here.
Really is. Thank you for having us. And Pat, welcome back again to you too. Is the Wizard of Oz
one of your favorite topics? Oh, not you. I've learned more about the Wizard of Oz this year
than I've ever knew before. Oh, really? Yeah. Since it's a 50th anniversary race,
pulls it just a really big time of your life right now again. Yes, it is. Wow, sounds like a roll
on helium. And we'd like to listen to me. Yeah, I'm sorry. Yeah, that's historic to have the
munchkins in here. As a matter of fact, you took a picture with that sign that's right over here.
Right. Yeah. I remember that very well. Yeah. So those were they the only living munchkins at that time?
There may have been a few others, but those were the two that they hired through the hospital
to come in and be at the Christmas House that year. I hate to call them the munchkins because they
actually are, you know, human beings, the munchkins. Right. It's like those little donuts. They sell
like the Dunkin Donuts, the munchkins. Well, especially with the movie out now wicked for good.
I mean, the whole talk about munchkins again is big and you interviewed. That's that's pretty historic.
I know. Because I don't think any of your left now. No, I think you're right. I think they're all
they're all deceased. There was one cherry Marin, I think was his name. He was on like the odd
couple TV series. He was on a few of them, but I think he was the final munchkin. Yeah. Well,
that's a story. Yeah. You did interview them. Yeah. It was precious. It was right in that studio
behind you. I think I sure do remember that. Yes. Hi. This is Skip Bliss. I am the former president
CEO of the Gazette Printing Company. And we were proud owners at one point of a number of
radio stations and newspapers around the state of Wisconsin, including WRJN. And I I'm here to wish
WRJN a happy 99th year. This is their anniversary and a wonderful group of people in the great
project at station. And we're doing our 99th anniversary show today 99 years on the air. Whoa.
In the studio is Depth Ferguson, former host of party line for centuries, decades, whatever it
was. Well, we did what I forgot. You were originally hired as a receptionist, a secretary,
the radio station. And then party line, you were brought into host party line.
Actually, I was hired to write copy, copy, copy. Okay. That's why I was hired. And then they figured,
well, she sounds good. So you were what number host of party line? Oh, let's see. Well,
Helen Thomas, and then there's the seat probably about the fifth. Fifth, I'm getting six,
though, six, six, six, okay. You followed Kathy Larson and there's been a number of hosts of
party line. Helen Thomas started party line of 57. Sandy St. John, K bus, Sue Paulson,
then it was Kathy, then it's you. And then we tried to keep it going after that. We that's
means you, Carolyn Peacock, Carolyn Peacock, and it just didn't work out. And then times changed.
Google came around and kind of put party line out of business. Yeah. Speaking of
Sue Paulson, I just want to mention this. We want to give best wishes to Sue, uh,
Sue Paulson, the fourth host of party line. She was 1972 and 1974. So shout out to Sue Paulson,
best wishes to her. And Chris, what number general manager were you? Oh, I would 72, 40, 40,
or 50. Yeah, but you're one of these people that has two numbers because you came back.
True. Uh, well, I worked for Bill gum as a 16 year old kid here. And Bill gum had been
here for many years. Right. Bill gum came here in the early 50s. He succeeded. Uh, Harold
Nukem is general manager because Nukem passed away in 1969. In fact, Bill gum, uh, asked about,
it was, it was sentry insurance at own the station. Right. And he pitched to himself for the job.
He told me that. Okay. And yeah, he was here in 75 ish when I was a kid working here and stayed
for many years. He stayed until 1986. In fact, he retired the same day date, you know, not the
year, but date, uh, that he had been hired here. All right. And then I came back in 2008, maybe
2009 and spent four or five years. And then back again, uh, two years ago. Wow. I mean, during
the next break, we're going to add up all the years amongst the five of us who work here.
We'll probably receive the one hundred. Oh, you know, you're going to exceed one hundred. I can do
that up top of my head. We're going to find out the exact, Jan, what do we have next here on the
list? Okay, this is a 1996 clip with Ralph Schoenlapen, the host of the Sunday evening concert program
for about 50 years. He mentions a special visitor after one of his shows. Okay. Let me, uh,
that is being the fine D drink that I am. Okay. There we go. Okay. This is Ralph. Here we go.
On Sunday night, I was leaving and there was a policeman at the door. And I said, what in the
world was the matter? And he said, nothing, I didn't enjoy your program. Just thought I'd
to escort you safely to your car until you all enjoy the programs. I loved working with Ralph.
I really did. He was such a nice guy, friendly guy. And I got to do one of the, um,
eulogies at his funeral. And it was great talking about him because he had such a great life.
Well, and I worked Sunday afternoons as a kid when Ralph would come in at what seven or eight o'clock
at night to do a show. And he was probably 95 then. He was older than me, obviously. And I used
to put on long records to go out and help him carry in his stack of classical music records.
And he would sit here an hour before he went on and just, it wasn't a lecture. He would educate
this kid on the classical music. He was going to play that night. And I'm my way home. I would
listen. And actually that's where I started to appreciate. I mean, he, he was a, he was an
educator, not just a guy who played it. And, uh, I wouldn't say I became a connoisseur of classical
music. But to this day, I will hear things on classical channels. And remember Ralph teaching me
about it before he went out here. It was that big of an impact. Yeah. In October 1999, then morning
show host Kurt Vollman got a rare opportunity to work with a special guest co-hosting the program
with me this morning is my dad. Hey, dad. Yeah. So what, what do I call it? See, you're like, um,
I'm like your superior this morning. And that's an unusual situation for me to be in. So do I call
you dad? Or do I call you a friend? What do I call you? Whatever you want to. Just don't call
you late for donuts. Yes, they're right. Kurt Vollman. I worked with him for a number of years. We had
a lot of interesting mornings. I see still works here. He's, he does. Afternoon the
announcer. And I listened to him then. I just had lunch with him the other day. Every month we do one
lunch, every month, no matter what who pays. We split it. Oh, okay. All right. Let's go to 2001.
Announce your bill. Lawrence and promotions director Lou Turner are talking about a contest
prize package, which includes an inside tour of then Miller Park, home of the Milwaukee Brewers.
I haven't had a professional tour of Miller Park. I mean, I've gone there like three or four times
this year and you see it for myself, but the professional tour that's what you want to see because
you get to go in the clubhouse and the dugouts and all that fun stuff. Yeah, now it is going to be
a game day. So you may not be able to actually go in the locker rooms and stuff. Well, they'll take
you around. I'll show you the good stuff. They'll be changing in that in there. They like to keep
that pride. Oh, sorry, Mr. Jenkins. Oh, Mr. Burnett. And I don't think he actually ride the roof for
anything like that spectacular. Now that would be fun. Now, historically, the very first broadcast ever
done from Miller Park was Kurt Bowman before the stadium opened. We went down there. I went with
him to, you know, scope it out. And we were given a complete tour. Wasn't fit even the locker rooms
weren't finished totally yet. But we set up the broadcast. He sat in the special, you know, media
area. And he did the whole morning show from there. So the very first broadcast from Miller Park,
a K and fan field was done by Kurt Bowman on WRJM. Yeah, there we go. I think Laurel Prebe gave us
the tour. Probably yes. That would be that time. Okay. So staffers at the station occasionally did
other jobs in time of need, you know, somebody couldn't do something and say, I mean,
I can do it. Okay. So sales manager Leo Edelstein volunteered to broadcast a high school football
game in place of John Weiser. John Weiser had another commitment, family commitment. But Leo Edelstein
didn't forget his bread and butter. We'd like to thank our great WRJN sports boosters. We could
not do it without them. And if you're a run of business, it would like to become a sports sponsor
in WRJN. Just give us a call next week at the radio station. Don Rosen, thanks very much for
helping out here at the ballpark and the Bill Lawrence back at the radio station for spinning the
dials. And our final thanks to our loyal WRJN listeners for tuning in to high school sports all
year long on your exclusive high school sports station WRJN. Once again, the final score tonight
from Union Grove. It's Union Grove 28 and St. Catherine 13. This is Leo Edelstein,
subbing for John Weiser. Thank you for tuning in. Good day, Mrs. Calabash, wherever you are.
By the way, I don't remember helping anybody at this building ever. You helped a lot of people.
I don't think so. I think that was a mistake. I don't Union Grove. I don't think so.
Yeah, as I said in the past, you helped raise the profile of this place exponentially over the years
and you deserve a lot of credit for that. So let's do, Jan, you want to do this?
No. That one. Okay. Well rehearsed. May 12th of 2023 was the final WRJN morning show for Mike Clemens.
It was joined by news director Stuart J. Bottles. Today's my last day doing this show.
I'm still going to be with WRJN. I've been doing it for the last eight years.
I greatly appreciate the feedback we've had from you folks, the listeners and everything.
Hang in there. We got more good stuff coming up for you along with Stuart J. Bottles from the WRJN
new center. How are you, sir? Morning, Mike. How you doing, bud? One of my favorite moments was
pulling the van up to the generator and then jump starting the generator from the van because
there's a problem. We'll go get a radio station back on the other station back on.
Drive the van into the lot. I appreciate all the good work you've done. Oh, thank you. So I
continue to work here, right? Yeah. That's what the memo said. Yeah, right? Let me check this.
Okay, yeah. I'll be covering sports. And he still works here. What do you know about that?
He does a great job covering all our sports travels all over the country doing it, by the way.
He does a great job. He does a very good job. He does our sports reports and he gets us
exclusive interviews with some of the big newsmakers in sports too. That's very good.
Hi, folks. Dave Magnum. Along with my two sons Reed and Ty, we had the privilege of WRJN being
part of our group from 2014 to 2023. We were able to add two FM signals, 98.1 Kenosha,
and 99.9 Racine. Also, during our ownership period, we invested in reinforcing the infrastructure
of the famous office and studio building. And we're delighted that Sage Wilde's civic media has
taken the technical facility to the next level. Happy 99th anniversary to one of America's
truly heritage radio stations, WRJN. We are celebrating 99 years on the air today, 99 years.
Next year's our hundredth. We'll talk about that later on. Depth Ogerson is here, host of
party line for how many years? 12 years. 12 years. 12 years doing party line. And you were so
polite to people, you know, when they were correct to you, well, I can't get this to work.
Well, maybe you're doing it incorrectly. I would just get off my radio station. You don't like it,
go to Google. Debbie, tell the story about the infamous rain on the roof. We had a lot of
rain one morning, and we were having roofing done at the time. And it apparently was not as
secure as it should have been. And water came into the building. Don has video of this,
but you were affected by this tremendously because you didn't have any phones.
Yes, it seems to me that whenever you punched one of the lines to talk to someone, you couldn't
get rid of it. So we only had two lines. And it was it was a tough situation. I mean,
in this whole building, it was bad, but trying to be on the air when your program depends on callers.
Yeah, it was. Well, what handled the roofer who was putting a new roof on this building
ended early for the day before put on a tarp. And we had a big storm and a blue the tarp off.
And of course, the water came right into the building. Right. It was a flat roof. And people
can't understand if I describe it, you wanted it was raining in the building. And there were
three rooms that weren't affected the studios. Yeah, we were lucky that day. And it was just flooded.
All the computers got flooded. Everything got flooded. And our owner was in Dallas, Texas. I think
if the National Association of Broadcasters and we said to him, he got wet.
It was it was little. There was an inch of water in the in the main office there. And
everything covered in plastic. So the roofer came in and he took one look and I got a picture.
I got a video of him with that look on his face like my life is over. Yeah. And
due to that video, we have the insurance company paid right off like that. When that happens
and you can't take calls, did you have to come up with ideas to fill the time? And what did you do?
Did you have to think yesterday we had a call about a stain on the carpet? Or what did you do?
You have to buy a lot of time. Yeah. Did you just kind of rehash other people's calls or
questions? Or did you just have enough stories in your head to fill for the next hour of party
like? Well, we always I always had to have a stack of fill material.
You had a hard catalog here. We had a wheel this card catalog out every day because there
were no Google or computers at the time. And you did everything off of cards.
And what did you can you remember any weird calls people got? Like I can't get the the blood stains
out of my carpet. You know, we always had the the typical around the holidays, you know,
candle wax on the tablecloth. We had stains on the carpet. Someone spilled wine on the carpet.
How do I get that off? Those are classics. And do you still have dreams about those? Like,
you can't find the card in the file. I don't know. You're stuck with candle wax. I still have
nightmares about records ending and I'm not in the room. Right. Right. Well, I do too. Occasionally,
I have I have nightmares where there are no calls. There are no commercials. Or there there's
you know, and I have to keep talking. But I think one of the the problems with all of us in radio
and I know Donu and I've talked about this is anytime you're with people, you can't have dead air.
So it's it's something that's ingrained in us. So we want to keep talking. We we can't have space.
Remember Don, we've talked this over. Yeah, you yeah, every time something doesn't work. Well,
I got to keep babbling until we can fix it and you're babbling trying to fix stuff here. And it
happens all the time. And looking back over the years, I probably should have turned the mic off
and just gone home instead of babbling for 40 minutes about nothing because it would have been more
more entertaining to the audience. Luckily here, we have a staff of engineers. Yes. We'll get things
fixed right away. We wake them up at 5 30 in the morning and they're great at it. Yeah,
get to our next cut here. This is this is a 1998 clip of Kurt Walman Tom Mountain in myself. And we
were just after the news. We're just we're talking about dogs. Dogs, when you want to play,
they want to play. When you want to be alone, they want to play. I love playing with my dog.
They will love you forever. If you rub their tummy, my legs are butt scratched.
What they do. I just got this picture in my mind that well, that's what dogs do because they can't
reach there. Try that. Any friendly dog you know. Try it and you know, you've got you've got a
friend for life. Try that with any friendly dogs. Don't try it with one you don't like or
doesn't like you. I'm talking from experience here. Why is this so funny? Oh, just try it with any
friendly dog. You know, I don't think so. Well, would you? I think we should just end this right
here. That was a good place then. Kurt and I had a lot of fun. There was one morning when he did
marine style pushups on the air. Tom Mountain counted them off. We have audio of that.
So let's talk about the fact that next year is going to be 100. We're just getting a
99 next year. The planning is going to be starting for the 100th anniversary. Chris will be talking
about that in a second. But I wanted to bring this up that I mentioned earlier. The victory
avenue complex is built in 5657. And it's designed by famed local architect Hans Geier.
This is his only radio station, according to announcer norb drier. Norb worked here for different
times between the 50s and 2000s. So the front lobby, the first of all, the front of the building
was all glass. Okay. Then you came in and then that's the office area, the main office, to keep
the office area climate controlled if you will. They had gigantic sliding heavy sliding glass
doors, floor ceiling on a track. And it was on an angle. Okay. So you could close the sliding
doors and it would be comfortable in there. So norb drier told me this story about just one day
that the movement of the sliding glass doors affected what was going on in this studio.
Well, at that time when we used the old 78 RPM records, Joe Cooper I remember was on the board.
And all of he was sitting there and we had a record program on the air. It wasn't mine. I wasn't
working that at that time. And all of a sudden the pickup went skittering right across the record.
And it made a terrible noise. Good heavens. What was that? And that happened a few more times.
And then they found out that every time somebody would move one of those glass panels,
the vibration would come through the floor and just blow up the broadcast.
And you can still see where they are in the wall. Yep. You can see there's a little
yes, a little marker there, which is this whole thing is astounding because the floors are solid
concrete. And for that to happen, it's just just weird. Well, for our hundredth, Jan
Tom and I went to the Racine Historical Society and we had a little confab with them and they said
yes, we can do an exhibit for a hundredth anniversary. So they already gave us the go ahead for it.
Now this year we're going to plan out what we're going to do because Tom's got all the stuff.
So don't take them off or anything because you won't give them to us. So we're going to get that
stuff set up an exhibit for our hundredth anniversary. And it should be nice. We're going to plan
some other stuff for the hundredth anniversary. Yeah, I mean, we're going to work with long time
customers and clients. I think we will invite listeners into the building. And it's a historic
plant here. I said, beautiful place that you know, we figured out or we shouldn't figure out. We
found out a few weeks ago when our tower light burnt out got hit by lightning that's tower light
doesn't work. I don't know how many calls we got from people who were telling your tower lights
out. When's it coming back? Channel four did a story on it. So I mean, people depend not only on
the tower light to find their way home after a night of party, but they depend on the station.
So we're going to invite people in. Hopefully Tom and Jan could put together some displays in here
to go with the museum and make it a big deal. A hundred years is something that most stations,
especially AM stations in industrial towns simply don't get to. So we're going to be one of a
handful across the country to get to that Centennial mark. And we're going to make it a big deal and
really thank Racine for doing it for keeping us here. A couple of final thoughts. Jen, Jen off.
Put beyond the spot here. Yeah, it is pretty amazing for a place to go 100 years. I worked at
three different radio stations. One of them comes close. And the other one when I put it on the air
in 1976 in a small industrial town and it's hardly anything anymore. So yeah, it's quite the
quite the milestone. Yeah. It was wonderful to be here. Really, it was. I think I was here during
a wonderful time. Branchi Bhutan Bob Cook. Tom, you were here, Bill Gum. So many people that were
legendary. Actually, I was really thrilled to be able to have worked with them. And Chris,
same as Deb. I got here. I was all of 16. And friendship with Tom was one of the guys, you know,
you look up to as a local listener. But Bob Cook, Jim Sorenson, Dave Armstrong, the guy who did
nights and eventually moved up to Steven's point, Don Edmark and Gary Suer. I mean, all people who
influence me and to come back 50 years later to actually get to kind of take the helm.
For me, it's been a full circle deal. So I simply love being here. Tom, I just want to do a shout
out to Pacific Media for reenergizing this historic broadcast outlet. It's going great and it
sounds good and great kudos to the company and to Chris for making it sound like it's
recines radio station again. And thank you for putting this together. Yeah.
Great to do a great job on it. It takes a lot of work to find this stuff and get it to me. And
I do appreciate it. Very appreciative. Okay. We want to mention some of the people we lost
this last year or so. Gary Suer, our legendary news director passed away. Not a long go.
And one of my favorite people here, Ron Richards, who's been here for, he was there over 20 years.
Yeah. And we miss Ron and all the people. I went over the list over the phone with you of all
these people that have gone. Also Lou Turner. Oh, Lou Jard, Tom Kramer and Scott Bozak. Yeah.
Yeah. A lot of good people. Yeah. We're going to end the program today on a 99th anniversary.
And by the way, before we ended here, I want to remind everybody, we've done interviews as part of
our historical marker series. And they're all podcast wherever you get your podcast, apple podcast,
w r jn.com, civic media.us spotify where we get your podcasts. You can look them up. They're
all there. And you'll hear interviews with people that work here over the years.
And we're going to read, we're going to put this on a podcast too, so you can hear it as well.
Yeah. Chris Tom. Yeah. Thank you very much for coming in. Thank you. Let's wrap it up with our
current owner of the radio station. Hello, everyone. My name is Sage Wow. I'm the
founder and CEO of civic media and the proud owner of WRJN here in Racine. I don't know if I should
say this, but I'm not sure we fully appreciated what we were getting when we bought WRJN a couple
years ago, both in terms of the challenges that we would chase and also the rich heritage and
history of the station. But I just like to say that I'm incredibly proud of the work that
that Don Rosen and Chris Morrow and all the other folks have done in rebuilding a station
into a state where it's truly serving the community with local news and information.
And I'd just like to wish a happy beginning to our 99th year broadcast. Thank you, everyone.
And WZTI Greenfield.
