The Passing of WJNF-FM

88.3 FM, WJNF The Rock, is shutting down in January of 2008 and transferring their signal to Way-FM, a national broadcaster. For those of you who have known me long enough, WJNF was the first station ever to take on my show in February of 2006. I remember spending an entire month calling every single radio station, state by state, with no takers for the program. I got to Florida and called Rene, and she took the show right there. I was so excited that when we went to the chess tournament that weekend, I told people I didn’t even know about it. It was the first time anybody else thought I was famous .

After one station took me on, just being on the air acted as a catalyst for other stations to sign on. Gradually, I learned how to host a show (ahem…perhaps I should have learned that before I went on the air…) and then I got to interview bands, go backstage and do all the stuff I had always wanted. Now I’m in 20 states and 5 countries, on all the types of radio there are- even satellite in Africa! I think I will always be indebted to the station who believed in that teenager who wanted to be a DJ.

That’s me, around the time I first went on the air with them. Like all perfectionists, I shudder when I hear myself back then. How could they have let me go on! I bemoan. The low whisper voice! The static in the mic! Those terribly cheesy jokes! But I know without that initial boost of confidence of getting on the air, I never would have learned how to do it. So here’s me today:

I can’t say that they were the first station that let me on the air (KNLE had the honor of a 13-year-old DJ with a squeaky voice all to themselves…another story for another time). But WJNF and I have both come a long way, and I wish them well wherever they choose to broadcast their airwaves.