Bill Elder's Career Page (FM99)

	AUDIO

So, now I was at the Big X. I had listened to this radio station since I could remember. To a kid interested in radio it was bigger than life. I remember two things when I first saw it. 1.) What a dump. 2.) what a dump.

But this would be the place to which I would return. It would be a radio "safe haven" for me. I would work here three times before settling at WAYS. My age was 16-18, and I was "the kid." To those who have a radio career beginning in this era, this is not an unusual story. In fact, it's pretty boring.

In the next two years I would work with interesting people like Ted Clark, Tom Healey, Terry Taylor, Greg Rice, Sid Ingram, Jerry Walker, Frank "Boom Boom" Cannon, Jim Pryor, Aaron Bowers, Aubrey Hammock and more. The main thing was what I would learn. The programming wasn't as strictly enforced as it was at WMAZ, so I could experiment and find my own style. Actually, that's a joke. You usually impersonate someone and then you find yourself in there somewhere. School's in session!

It was a music lovers dream. That's really why I got into broadcasting. You got to hear the latest music and you got to play with the equipment. You also got to meet a lot of pretty girls. One thing we did was to MC concerts. This was a real bonus because you got to meet a lot of popular bands. For some reason, in the 70's it was cool to have a local DJ to be at the concert. I was lucky to have gotten my fair share of the gigs. It was really fun and sometimes funny to meet these aritsts. The concerts were also fun too.

True story: Our station tower was across a lake (that's what they liked to call it...but I think it was a cesspool) from the studios. One Saturday night I was working and the contest line rings. The man says, "there's a man climbing up your tower." I thought it was a joke, so I said, "yeah and there's an elephant in your refrigerator, too!" It was no joke. There was never a dull moment there. I had everything from drug addicts trying to get in, to the afternoon guy's pet monkey attacking my head, to a loaded gun held to my head. For a 16 year old, this as was close to the front line as I wanted to be.