WJPZ at 50

Beth (Russell) Gorab, Class of 1993

Episode Notes

Beth (Russell) Gorab from the Class of 1993 was a key part of the leadership team that helped Z89 make huge waves in the Syracuse market during the "flamethrower era."   She joins us today to talk about her time at WJPZ and her career since.

Believe it or not, she almost didn't go to SU, she had her heart set on another school, as she explains.  And it wasn't until sophomore year at Syracuse that she found the radio station,.  She was working diligently at UUTV and seeing how much fun they were having across the hall!   Soon she was part of a group that included Dave Roberts, Hal Rood, Dana Dieterle, Jeff Donaldson, Matt Friedman, and more.   Even though she was doing news and on air, Beth soon took over a promotions department that was at the height of its power - giving away cars, cash, and kicking 93Q's....um...butt.

She was hired by Y94 and WSYR before graduation, and worked on air for a year after getting her diploma.  But when her position was eliminated, she decided she no longer wanted to pursue the on-air route.  She worked in the non-profit space for some wonderful organizations before landing at Caldwell College, now Caldwell University.

She did leave for a time to work in the baseball world. which has always been a true passion for Beth.  We spend some time discussing baseball's rule changes, and her informed perspective on them.

Beth also takes this opportunity to set the record straight on two stories previously told in the podcast - her being placed in a trash can, and her allegedly cracking up the station van.   You'll want to hear her side of things.

More: Beth's blog, Dirt on My Diamonds, Bringing Light to the Complex Side of Youth Baseball: https://www.dirtonmydiamonds.com/

The WJPZ at 50 Podcast Series is produced by Jon Gay, Class of 2002, and his podcast production agency, JAG in Detroit Podcasts.

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Want to be a guest on the pod or know someone else who would? Email Jag:  jag@jagindetroit.com.

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Episode Transcription

JAG: Welcome to WJPZ at 50. I am Jon Jag Gay. Really excited for today's guest, one of the early leaders in the early nineties of the radio station, formerly Beth Russell. Now, Beth Gorab, welcome to the show. 

Beth: Thank you for having me.

JAG: So tell me, Beth, how you found Syracuse and eventually Z89. 

Beth: I found Syracuse accidentally on purpose.

I was all in at Penn State. I had been accepted to the main campus. Really the summer before my senior year in high school. It was the only place I applied. I was all in. I'm like, this is easy. I'm done. We're going there. Had never seen the school. Went to visit it fall of my senior year. It was quite large.

I come from a very small town. We had one traffic light, we have more than one now, but we had one traffic light. 

JAG: Where are you from for those who don't know? 

Beth: New Fairfield, Connecticut. So Penn State was big and we were a little bit late to our tour, and so I thought we could just join the tour and the admissions rep said no.

You have to take the bus to catch up with the tour. There was some bus. So right off the bat I was like, the only great thing about that tour was the football stadium. Unmatched. It was amazing. And I drove home with my dad and I said, I don't, I think I have to look at other places cuz I'm not so sure now.

So I found Syracuse and the rest was history. 

JAG: Small little Syracuse. 

Beth: Small little Syracuse, perfect size Syracuse.

JAG: And correct me if I'm wrong, but when you got to campus, you had sports on your mind, right? 

Beth: Always. Yes. Yes. Naivete perhaps. I wanted to be the very first, not the first, cuz there, there were one or two women actually in sports at that time.

But that was my goal. I wanted to break the barriers. I thought it was possible. So I came in with that mindset and quickly learned that was not the way it was gonna go. 

JAG: So how did you end up finding Z89? 

Beth: Z 89 was my sophomore year. I, was all about tv. I went to UUTV. And I said, I'm gonna do sports here.

And they said, okay, sure you are, no problem. And my audition process was less than stellar and they gave me a shot. I did get to cover a men's basketball game once, which was amazing. I got to go in the press room, I got yelled at for being on the court in my stilettos. That was a problem.

That was fun. But at the time, UUTV was across the hall from Z 89. And I kept looking over there and it was just fun. It was, We were at UUTV. It was very professional, it was very work oriented and it was, there were hierarchies in the whole thing and it was just whatever.

Everybody across the hall was always having fun and it was, would walk in the door and be like, Hey, how's it going? And I'm like, oh, I wanna be there instead. So my sophomore year I said, you know what, I'm gonna okay, give it a shot. And I just went all in. I left UUTV, I did a very brief stint at the DO. I, I left all of it and I, I went all in at Z 89 and I never turned back.

JAG: So you walk into the Z89 atmosphere, which many guests on this podcast have talked about just instantly walking in and knowing how fun and warm and welcoming the whole area is. What did you start doing when you got there? Take me through your time at the station. 

Beth: I started with news, I chose to abandon sports right off the bat. I knew it was gonna be an uphill battle. So I just said, you know what? I wanna learn how to do it. So I'm gonna jump in and I'm gonna volunteer. I'm sure I volunteered for every department, but I started in news. Dave Roberts was the news director. Hal Rood was the PD. We had Dana Dieterle, we had Jeff Donaldson, like all of these news guys there.

And Matt Friedman came in a year behind.. We came in at the same time because he was a year behind me. The news group there was really very impressive and I don't remember now if we had to do air checks, Like you did as a did, as a jock. Yeah. We had news magazine shows. Matt Friedman was the producer of one of them.

It's called Weekend Magazine. So it was more of a long form news thing. It was just, it was great. So everybody took, the, we did newscasts. I guess it was, what was it, twice an hour? 20 and 50, yeah. And so there were plenty of opportunities to get on the air. So that's how I started there.

And then I just steamrolled through everything else.

JAG: Before we get to what else you did at the station, I do have a confession to make. Whenever I interview anybody from the early nineties, my show prep is I text Friedman, so I said anything in particular I should ask Beth about this morning?

And he mentioned, let's see here. He mentions you running a kick ass promotions department, which we'll get to in a second. And then he also says, in my opinion, she was also really good on the air. One of the best of the era. 

Beth: Aw, thanks Matt. Listen, he's the GOAT. He's the goat. I learned from Matt and from Dave Roberts and Dana Dieterle too.

I just learned more from them. peers, that I did from my classes. No offense to. Most of my professors take that part out. 

JAG: No. I feel the same way. And so many people on the podcast, Beth have said, my classes were great, it was good for what it was, but we call it the world's greatest media classroom for a reason.

We all learned, I feel so much more at the radio station than we did in class. Yep. All right. So Matt mentioned promotions. Tell me about how you became involved with promotions and ran the quote unquote kick ass promotions department. 

Beth: I love to call it that. That's great. So I applied for the role of promotions director.

I don't remember who else I was up against, but I wanted to do it. I, and I didn't wanna do party planning. I wanted to assist the programming department with. All of the things that they needed to do programming wise from a promotion standpoint to help the programming, to help the numbers, because it was all about, oh, the Birch ratings.

The birth ratings! See, I've been out so long, I don't remember it, but it was all about the ratings, and so the more listeners we could get, the more engagement we could get. The better the ratings were gonna be.

JAG: It's easy to see why you won. 

Beth: We did things that we shouldn't have been doing as a college station, and I applaud everybody for just saying, let's do it.

Let's just do it. Let's just do it. Such as we gave away the car, we gave away trips. We went toe to toe with 93 Q. Everything they would do, we would say, okay, they did a, an event. At XYZ restaurant, we're gonna do the same thing at a different restaurant. But add this. And we would just annoy them and annoy them.

And part of it was the pleasure of just annoying them and it started to get back to us that they noticed that we were inching up on them. And it's insanity because we were a hundred watts and they were, I don't even know how many. 

JAG: A hundred thousand. If I believe. 

Beth: Insane. 

JAG: If I remember right.

Beth: Yeah. So it became a game, and Hal Rood was at the forefront of that game. And we had even our liners were anti 93Q. Hal had the 93Q ball. 

JAG: Yeah. The Q ball was made outta the bumper stickers.

Beth: And that just went everywhere with us. It came to promotions with us and you could touch the Q ball and it was insane. It's insane. Giving away a car, giving away cash, we gave away cash, I believe at some point too. We actually had a prize closet leaning on the radio reps, I'm sorry, the record reps, to give us CDs and concert tickets and access into these, events that again, we had no business, on paper, as a college station doing. We just didn't let that stop us. What harm is it in trying? And that was the motto, what harm is it in trying? Let's just go for it. 

JAG: We'll circle back to this when I ask you about what you learned at the radio station, but right off the bat, you're telling me those two things. Fake it so you make it in beg for forgiveness instead of asking for permission. 

Beth: Yep. Don't overthink it. 

JAG: So you have had a wonderful career since graduating Syracuse. Walk me through it. I know you got the last laugh and you got back involved with sports where you are now. But before we jump ahead, tell me what you did after graduation, Beth. 

Beth: I worked full-time at Y94 on the morning Show as the news girl and part of the morning show team with Gomez for about a year and a half. I actually got the job my senior year, August before my senior year. They offered me the full-time position. It was a, okay, it was a bit of a hard decision because I was up at 3:30.

I still had classes, your senior year you finally can legally go into bars and things like that. And I couldn't really do any of that because I was in bed at eight o'clock at night and I was, up at the crack of dawn at 3:30. 

JAG: Beth, did they make you choose between Y and Z or were you able to do both?

Beth: I was able to do both. It was, we laugh about this all the time. They made me change my name on Z. So dumb. I was obviously Beth Russell. They made me be Beth Ryan, like no one's gonna know. 

JAG: So you kept be you kept Beth Russell on Y and changed it on Z

Beth: Beth Ryan on Z. But I've listened to air checks and I was still Beth Russell on Z, so I, I'm not, I don't really know, I don't think anybody cared.

They didn't really care. I didn't have a lot of time senior year to do a lot of on-air stuff. It was mostly promotion stuff. It wasn't a terrible conflict. There really, I wasn't, I didn't have time. I had class. And then there was just, and then I had to go to bed. So I worked at Y94 for about a year and a half before they brought in a new morning show and exited the existing morning show.

And that was the end of my radio career because I was in a rock and a hard place at that point. I went back home to Connecticut, where I lived, we were an hour or more from everything. So I wasn't near Hartford, I wasn't near New Haven, I wasn't near Westchester, I wasn't near New York. So where am I gonna go?

So I got two offers actually to do sales, radio sales for New Haven stations. And I just, I didn't wanna do it. It was too much driving and it wasn't sales, was not my passion. So I left and I ended up, using my transferrable skills, which is another thing I learned a lot about and I story tell, right?

That was what I did as a news person. So I ended up in the nonprofit world by default. Telling stories and doing events and really taking the promotions piece of what I did at Z89, and then the news piece and combining it into a nonprofit career from two plus decades. 

JAG: What are some of the places you worked at in the nonprofit world, Beth?

Beth: I started at the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation in Philly. And that was super fun. It was just, it was great. It was a lot of work. It was a young person's job, but it was a lot of small, young adult events in Philadelphia. So it was just, it was great for the time.

JAG: As a side note, I have a client locally here in Detroit who has two daughters with cystic fibrosis.

She has a foundation for it, and I've learned so much about that disease and working with her for a few years now and the amazing, inspiring stories that come out of working in that field. 

Beth: It's unbelievable. I really was touched by, and, this was 25 plus years ago, and I I pray that.

Medical advancements have changed in those 25 years, but listening to those parents who are volunteers for all of the events and things like that, it was very touching. And I was not a parent myself at the time, and I often think I was only there for a year and a half. And I often think of those families and those kids, and. hopefully where they are today and it's just a, I don't know. It was a very moving, moving job, of course. And then we moved back up to the New York City area and I looked for work. I had worked for a very short stint at a nonprofit in the City doing public relations. It was a mental health organization, but it was very fledgling.

It wasn't a long-term job and I don't think they're around anymore. And so it was a good transition. And then I found my home at Caldwell College, now Caldwell University, and I was at Caldwell for 20 plus years doing a little bit of everything. Mostly fundraising, some event management, some trustee relations.

Some PR, little bit of everything there. So I was there for 20 plus years and then, the sports bug never quite left me. And I had the opportunity after working a side hustle for a few years to make that a full-time position for myself and some people, some investors. And I got together and we opened up a baseball training facility.

36,000 square feet where we just we did teams and we did training, and we had pro guys coming in and out of there. And it was, love it. It was great. And I moved on from there. And now I am back at Caldwell University as the executive director of Board of Trustee Relations and the annual fund. 

JAG: Definitely speaks to you and your abilities that after leaving, they would have you come back in an elevated role if they wanted you back that badly.

Beth: It was, It was nice to get that call. I'm not gonna lie. 

JAG: So look, I wanna dovetail here for a second and talk about baseball, because baseball has certainly been in the news a lot this year. You are a passionate baseball person, obviously from the story you're telling, and also just from knowing you, let me ask you, as someone who's been around the game for so long, what's your opinion on the changes they've made to baseball this year?

Beth: The pitch clock and stuff like that? 

JAG: Yeah. 

Beth: It seems to be working. I think people get their hands in too much stuff. Personally, I think I, I'm a fan of just letting things play out. I do understand as a business owner, I understand baseball is a business and there are implications to that, so I understand the reasoning behind it.

I was actually at a college game last night. I went to a Rutgers Marist game. They too had the pitch clock. Everybody was fine. It's it was almost distracting to the attendance to watch it ticking down. Like you get nervous. I don't think the pitchers even notice it because 20 seconds is plenty of time to set and go.

So I don't think that's, impacted anything too much. I haven't been to a professional game yet this year, but, 

JAG: I'll bring up Friedman one more time because before the weekend before this podcast, he and I went to a Red Sox Tigers game. So I liked it. I thought the pace was great.

I thought that it didn't really drag and a couple games I've watched on tv. And one more baseball question for you, because I have you, so I have to ask this cuz you have dealt with a training facility up and coming players, high school, college level. One of the arguments I've heard for the pitch clock and the changes in baseball is that young people are not as interested in baseball as they were a generation or two ago.

I'd imagine you see that from the opposite side of things. Would you agree, disagree with that? Where do you sit on that?

Beth: I think at ebbs and flows. Okay. We were having a discussion this past week about high school baseball. The numbers, at least, where I live, are way down in the public schools.

They can barely, these are major schools, towns of 50, 60,000 people that can't field a freshman team. And the debate was are they going private? Are they playing lacrosse? And I feel like we had this conversation 15 years ago. And then it ebbed again and there was an influx of kids interested in baseball.

So I think like most things in life, it's cyclical. I think that you, are you talking about playing or watching? 

JAG: Both actually. I'll ask you both.

Beth: I will say the casual baseball fan not saying that you're a casual baseball fan, I know you are not, but they do like the pitch box, the pace.

Ryan and I were watching, my son and I were watching a game the other night and it was over in two hours and 45 minutes, and all of a sudden, it's 10 o'clock. We're like, now what we do? I will say people will, I hope that more people will get to know the game better, and actually participate in watching it.

Cuz it is a wonderful, it is the greatest pastime. It's our national pastime and I love it. But from a playing standpoint, I think that's just cyclical. 

JAG: Okay. Because I think about, us having the attention span of goldfish now that we have a computer in our hands 24 7 and full disclosure, I'm a football fan first, and I find myself even during football, I find myself looking down at my phone all the time instead of the screen. And I feel like, there's so much distraction that shortening the game is probably a good idea. But then also, if the World Series starts at nine o'clock, 8:30, 9 o'clock eastern, how is a little kid on the East coast gonna stay up and watch it when the school night?

Beth: Yeah, very true. Very true. 

JAG: So I feel like we've covered a lot of my usual question, Beth, of things you've learned at the radio station, and you've talked about just, doing everything, getting your hands in a little bit of everything and how that served you so well in so many different roles throughout your career since Syracuse.

Beth: I have to ask you about any funny stories that you remember from your time at the station. You and I talked offline about one of 'em, and I wonder if this is where you're gonna go first. 

I'm gonna take this platform, first of all to clear my name on the big incident that I believe has been mentioned in Rocket Ross's podcast.

JAG: Please.

Beth: I did crash the prize van. I own it. I did crash it. But it was not my fault. 

JAG: Do tell here is you have the platform. Beth, please go right ahead. 

Beth: I've been waiting 30 years to tell this story, so we, I don't remember what year it was. It was 92, I believe. We arranged again, things college students shouldn't do.

We arranged with and I can't remember the name of the dealer now. I should, but we got a prize van for the summer. It was trade. They gave us the van, we gave them a lot of sponsorship time on air. We got big magnets. It was the Z 89 prize van. The insurance, the way the insurance worked out, they allowed four drivers of the van and I was one of the four.

And the big joke, which was not very nice, but the big joke was, oh the girl. The girl's gonna crash the van.

JAG: Oh geez. 

Beth: That's not very nice. So here I go. I'm driving to Pepsi, another one of our major sponsors to pick up hundreds of cases of Pepsi for the state fair because we used to give away Pepsi.

Mike Rock was in the van with me cuz I needed help like lifting all these things. Oh no. And I got hit and the first thing I thought was, Oh my God. I crashed the prize van.

JAG: Oh my God. 

Beth: So it was a guy, he came outta nowhere. He, it was, he clipped my corner to the point where I'm like, wait, did we just hit something? It wasn't even.

His car careens outta control. I think he's dead. I'm hysterical. I get out of the car. He climbs out through the window and he's the first thing out of his mouth. I effin hate your radio station! 

JAG: Oh my God. 

Beth: And I said, Hey, you're alive. I'm so happy you're alive. He just starts spewing obscenities at me.

Wow. And now there's no cell phones. There's no nothing. You can't call the police. So a neighbor, we were in a residential area and a neighbor called the police, and the police came. This kid had no driver's license, no insurance no, nothing. And so the officer said to me, he's like, all right, just go away. I got your info, you're good.

And my car was totally, it had a little dent in it. That was it. By the time we got back to the station, I'm like, oh, I'll just pull the dent out. It's fine. But I had to call the station and let them know that it happened. And, there were certain people there I didn't want to talk to.

I didn't wanna get a lecture, so I asked for Rocket or Scott Taylor, because I knew that they would be a little bit softer.

JAG: I think the way Rocket told the story was that you asked for him. 

Beth: Yeah, exactly. But I, the funny piece of that is that about a year and a half later, because I was still living in Syracuse after graduation, working at Y94, I received, I don't know how they found me, but I received a subpoena. We were sued. And I had to appear in court. This kid had sued us. He had sued the station thinking we had millions of dollars, and he was gonna get some kind of settlement out of us. So it went to arbitration. And I won obviously. And it was, but it was crazy because I'm like, this was the, I crashed a prize van. And here we are 18 months later and I'm sitting in court in Syracuse, cuz this kid thinks he's gonna get money out of us.

JAG: The chutzpah on that kid to have what? No license, no insurance, and then come after you when he clipped you. Wow. 

Beth: And his father was his lawyer. 

JAG: Ah. 

Beth: So it just, I don't know. They didn't do their homework. We had no money. There's no money. 

JAG: Yeah. But you had the big prize van. You had Pepsi, you had you, you're giving away cash, you're doing all this stuff. You're bigger than 93Q! Of course you've got deep pockets. 

Beth: Yeah. I've cleared my name though. I did crash the van, but it was not my fault. 

JAG: See the way the story was told, I thought you totally cracked the thing up. A little dent and you suction cupped out. 

Beth: Tiny little dent in the front, driver's side front. That was it. Popped it right out. 

JAG: I'm glad we have set the record straight on that story, Beth. 

Beth: Me too. 

JAG: The other thing that I believe you took issue with, we were talking offline in prep for the podcast, is the trash can incident, or incidents plural. 

Beth: Yes. And I, if you think about that in today's world, I mean it would be like front page news that they're picking up women and throwing them in the trash.

That's really what it was. God, I dunno why they did it. All I can say is the environment there was so family oriented in the sense that like they, these were my brothers. They were literally like my brothers and brothers pick on their sisters. And if I said something they didn't like, in a funny way, they would throw me. That idea is garbage. And then they would throw me in the garbage and, but it got to be this thing. I'm like, can we stop with the stop. It's gross. Yeah. It happened for two years. 

JAG: So I'm just going back. You're sitting there at UUTV looking wow. Look at all the fun they're having across the hall there. Little do you know, you're gonna get there and end up in the garbage can. 

Beth: I know. And I made it. I still made it. 

JAG: You had the last laugh. 

Beth: And I'm so very close with all of those people who threw me away every day. Yes. 

JAG: Before I let you go, Beth, any other memories from JPZ significant things that happened while you were there at the station, maybe in your time in the news department or anything like that?

Beth: There was a very special time as a newsperson in, I believe it was January of 1991 when the first Gulf War launched. It was big news for, thankfully, at that time my generation had not experienced anything like that. So for us, hearing that this was happening and it was gonna be, we were bombing people and it was big news.

I happened to be in the middle of hell week for my sorority. And I had heard that Z89 had gone all news 24x7, which obviously had never happened before, especially at a CHR station. And they were covering nonstop. We had the AP wire, we had all of the tools that we had at the time were nothing in comparison to now, but we had all of the tools we needed.

And I wanted to be there and I'm not sure, I'm not sure how I found out that they had gone all news cuz you're very cocooned in your hell week. And I remember saying my sorority was amazing. I remember saying to the people that were running the week, I said, I have to go. And they said, "What? You can't go."

I'm like, I have to go. I said, this is my moment. I am at Syracuse to learn how to do this. This is my moment I have to go. And they let me go. They let me go and I was gone for about 24 hours. I cheated and I took a long nap because it was hell week and I hadn't gotten much sleep.

So I did go on the air and then I went back up to my dorm room and I slept, and then I went back to my sorority house. But kudos to them for understanding that everybody was at the University for their professional endeavors and not just for their sorority. But it was wonderful because, that crazy, fun environment that we've been talking about this whole time became extraordinarily serious and newsworthy and everybody in there was professional and there were no garbage cans.

And it was none of that. It was straight business. And it was really special. It was really special. 

JAG: And you were allowed to stay in the sorority? 

Beth: I got booted out my senior year for something else, but. 

JAG: Oh, I'd be a bad news person if I didn't ask you what it was. 

Beth: So it was radio related. It was radio related. So my particular sorority required you to meet certain metrics. You had to attend X amount of events, X amount of meetings. I lived in the house, so I thought that would cover me for most of it. I worked at WSYR, I worked at Y 94. Obviously I worked at Z89, but I had paid jobs and my SYR job was weekends. I was a weekend reporter at SYR and chapter meetings were always on the weekends and I was always working and I was not going to not go to work for a chapter meeting. And so they kept fining me, sure, you miss a chapter meeting, you get fined, you miss a frat party, you get fined. And I'm like, really? This is what we're doing? And finally they came to me and they said, you're not really part of this organization the way we want you to be. And I said, no, I'm not. And they said, it's, you gotta make a choice. 

JAG: Wow. 

Beth: And I said, whoa, that's an easy choice. See ya. No hard feelings. Everybody was very nice about it, but, I just, I guess I wasn't a very good sister. 

JAG: It's funny, so many on the podcasts have talked about whether they did the Greek system or not, about Z89 being their frat or their sorority. Exactly. That was their brotherhood and their sisterhood.

Were you also president of the Alumni Association at one point?

Beth: I was, yes. That's a funny story too, because I had no intention of being the president of the alumni association We went to, it was, I don't even remember what year it was. It was a banquet year. There was some a heated alumni meeting, and I forget exactly about what it was, but I spoke up and said my piece about whatever it was, and then I don't know if it was Scott Meach or Henry Ferri nominated me, and I'm like, oh no.

Because that's how we used to work back then. We used to have the meeting and it would say, okay, now we're gonna vote on our exec board. For the Alumni Association Nominations, please. Yeah. And people would just nominate people and then they'd get voted in. So I got voted in and I'm like, oh no! I wasn't prepared for that. And so I think the term was maybe a year or two. Yeah. But I got to work with Jeff Wade during that time. He was the GM and that was during that whole, I don't know if it was during the transition to the Pulse or right before it. I think it might have been right before it.

JAG: That's really interesting that you're the Alumni Association president in that significant moment in the station's history. So I'm curious what that looked like from your perspective. 

Beth: I think, and again, my dates are off. I don't think I was the president when they actually flipped the switch, but I think the term might have only been a year.

So it really wasn't a lot of time. But I was on the phone with Jeff weekly and we were talking about, all this, the struggles he was seeing and how we were gonna fix that. And, I know that they've both, they've talked a lot about that. How, you've got the, I don't know, how do you wanna say it?

The boom of the nineties era that I was a part of. And then it transitioned a little bit, and they were like what do we do with all of this? And so, Jeff and I spoke on the phone weekly for probably that full year.

JAG: Wow. And it is, that is a pretty good place to leave because we've talked in this podcast, there are many years of the station where things were booming. Like when you were there. There are times in the station where things were not so great and we were getting by, by the skin of our teeth, like when I was there. And so many other times. So it's been really great to look at 50 years of this radio station and see all the history for it, the good, the bad, the ugly, and everything in between.

So I really wanna thank you for coming on today and sharing your perspective from your time there and your career since. And just thank you for spending some time with us today, Beth. 

Beth: This has been a wonderful series to listen to. I'm honored to be part of it today, and I just think that you've been doing a great job with telling the story.

Again, we are storytellers at heart. That's what we do. And I'm thrilled that this story is getting out to people that don't know it. 

JAG: I appreciate the kind words. Take care, Beth. 

Beth: Thank you.