Today we visit with Krista LePard, Class of 2012. She's a Cleveland native who loves getting paid to watch sports. And her and her husband Clay's career paths brough them back to her hometown.
Krista was more focused on TV when she got to campus, but always looked across the hall and saw how much fun Alex Brewer and the crew were having at WJPZ. She knew she didn't want to do sports at Z89, she just wanted to have fun. This turned into airshifts and the morning show.
She started dating her now husband Clay just before he graduated in December, and they had to navigate a long distance relationship that included much of the first year of their marriage, as they worked in various markets.
As Fate would have it, Clay, a Massachusetts native, landed a reporter job in Cleveland, so it was time for them to be together in Northeast Ohio. Krista was able to associate direct Indians/Guardians and Cavaliers games for what is currently Bally Sports Ohio. She did that before and after their daughter was born. We spend a few minutes talking about not only the changes to baseball, but the precarious financial situation that these Regional Sports Networks (RSN's) find themselves in currently.
After the pandemic, Krista learned that a show she interned for, Father Dave's Busted Halo show on Sirius XM, was looking for a fully remote producer. The work-from-home flexibility was ideal for her. And she was the perfect fit for our most recent WJPZ Hall of Famer - as a former intern and fan of the show. Krista tells us about the show, and puts some misconceptions about it to bed. One thing that is true though, is the talent and relatability of Father Dave.
Link to Father Dave's Episode: https://wjpzat50.simplecast.com/episodes/dave-dwyer
Urgent: The University did NOT approve funding for this year's WJPZ sports staff to travel to away games, and they need your help. You can donate here: just scroll down to WJPZ. https://bit.ly/helpz89sports
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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JAG: Welcome to WJPZ at 50. I am Jon Jag Gay. Today's guest is a name that I've been hearing for quite some time, but I've only gotten to know better in the last several months since our Banquet, since we coordinated some Hall of Fame induction stuff for Happy slash Father Dave Dwyer. But I'm excited to learn about her time at Syracuse and her amazing career in the time in between Syracuse and Sirius.
Managed not get tongue-tied when I said that. Krista LePard from the class of 2012. Welcome to the podcast.
Krista: Hey, Jag. Thank you.
JAG: So you're a Cleveland native, correct?
Krista: Yes. So I'm a Cleveland native. I grew up here. And then I went to Syracuse because I like everyone else, I wanted to be on air. I wanted to be a sideline reporter in sports.
We were always diehard Cleveland sports fans, and then went a bunch of different places, which I'm sure we'll get into, and then ended up back here in Cleveland, which I'm really excited about.
JAG: There's always something about being back in your hometown, and we have a number of Cleveland alumni in the podcast from Danno Wolkoff to TJ Basalla to so many others, and Cleveland is such a great sports town with great sports fans, and we're gonna cover a lot of sports today.
Yeah. So I'm gonna put one more tote, on the board here. For a person who wanted to get into sports, and that's why they went to Syracuse, tell me about getting to Syracuse and then finding WJPZ.
Krista: As I've heard from a lot of the stories that it took me a little while to get to WJPZ. I remember going to an interest meeting my freshman year and wanting to do sports, but because it was, and it's natural that it is this way. Because it is radio, that it is very much play-by-play.
And I knew I didn't really wanna do play by play, so I focused more on Citrus TV and it wasn't until my junior year. Because Citrus TV and Z89 are in the same building, there's a lot of overlap. And one of my close friends, Alex Brewer, who was general manager of Z89 at the time, we were good friends and we were talking about just normal ZJ shifts and Z morning zoos and we were talking about it and I said, that actually like that sounds great, just for fun just to develop, being on air and being around my friends.
What's the protocol? How can I get started? And so that was how I got involved. And then we did a Z morning zoo together. Him, myself, and Craig Hoffman. And so the three of us woke up and it was always fun of who wouldn't show up because they overslept or whatever, of getting the three of us in an actual room was always funny.
But that was how I got involved and. It's a testament of course to the robust alumni that I've made so many friends and so many connections after the fact. TJ Basalla is a great example that we've connected because we were both involved in Z89 at different totally different years. And we both had a Cleveland connection.
And that was all it took to then start a friendship. That is one of my most valued from Syracuse to this day.
JAG: So even though you were not in school at the same time
Krista: No. Which is the amazing thing about the alumni association. So were you one of those, Krista, where you walked into Z89 and just the energy and the camaraderie and just the feeling there having, started mainly on the TV side, but come over and just gotten the.
JAG: I guess the je ne sais quoi of Z 89?
Krista: The vibes, as the kids say now, the vibes and, yeah definitely. Again, it was because we all I feel like when we're in school, we put a lot of pressure on ourselves. Like I want to do, I wanna be in sports and I gotta do all the things to make sure I'm doing the right stuff and Z89 was like that breath of fresh air of why I enjoyed, my work. And I wasn't so stressed about, oh, did I ask the right question in that presser or whatever at that softball game I was covering for Z89 or whatever. Honestly, I really didn't think I was going to end up in radio. Really. And now I'm a radio producer. So here we are. Who knew?
JAG: A lot of stuff. As I said, we'll get to. So what was the extent of your involvement at Z? And now you talked about the morning show. Did you do sports at Z as well?
Krista: I didn't. Which is funny. But again, that was on purpose. It was on purpose because I didn't wanna do play by play.
And I had other avenues between Citrus TV that I felt like this was a different opportunity, a different way to develop skillset on air and talking live and running your own board and things that now I use all the time for our Sirius XM show that's live, that I run out of my basement here, that I have the board, everything's in front of me.
And so in addition to being the producer and talking to Father Dave sometimes on air and I'm like sending us to break, adjusting the levels, bringing on guests, doing all of that technical stuff. That I got from Z89. So I had, I did the zoo and then I had a shift later in the day. That was just me.
That was great for, and it was funny cuz by the time I started working more with Z 89, I actually knew I wasn't necessarily gonna go on air. That I wanted to stay behind the scenes. But again, Z 89 was something that, it was fun. It was fun for me. And it's ended up serving me in way more ways than I ever expected.
JAG: It's funny you talked about World's greatest media classroom. We've talked about it on the podcast. You're learning things that at the time you may not realize our lessons at the time that are gonna take care of you later on down the road.
Krista: Definitely. Definitely.
JAG: So let's go after Syracuse. You've worked in a ton of different places. You really did follow the sports dream and do a lot of stuff. So let's go through your journey after Syracuse.
Krista: So I can really start with the internships while I was in Syracuse. Cuz they all come back around, which is wild. So I interned two summers at SiriusXM, one of those for Father Dave Dwyer.
Happy Dave Dwyer, because I enjoyed the shows on SiriusXM's Catholic Channel. I was just a listener and I said, hey, I wonder if they need an intern. And so I just emailed them and said, Hey, do you want an intern? And they said, yeah, sure. Come to New York.
JAG: Never know unless you ask.
Krista: Exactly. So I did that for two summers.
I didn't really think that much other than I got to be in New York City. I got to experience it. It was an amazing experience. Then I interned through Syracuse with NBC for the Olympics. And so that sports aspect of things.
JAG: Was that London 2012?
Krista: It was London 2012, but they split the interns. So I was based out of New York City. I was at 30 Rock. We were in SNL's Studio 8H. They cleared a lot for the summer and put in work stations and I was like cutting highlights on the set where they like do skits and stuff. It was very sweet. It was really cool. So then after graduation, one of my friends from Syracuse, I think we've discussed her a couple times of Bettina Shore, so Bettina Shore and Doug Whitehorn, they were at Syracuse at my time, involved in the student media. They went on to work at ESPN, and there were people before them that had worked at ESPN. There's a wonderful Syracuse, ESPN pipeline.
So I kinda jumped right on there and I was a production assistant and content associate, which is just their fancy name for doing a little bit more work. But at ESPN. So I was there for five years and I worked on SportsCenter and Baseball Tonight, and I got to travel for some things. They paid me to watch sports at the highest level. And it was incredible.
The whole time during all of this, my husband also went to Syracuse. His name is Clay LePard. He's a news reporter. So we were doing the long-distance thing through all of this. And he got a job opportunity in Orlando, Florida. And so I was like, okay. Because we were trying to get him to Connecticut at the time.
He was in Scranton, Pennsylvania. We actually got married while having a long distance, like we had a long-distance marriage for seven months. So that was not something I expected, but just the ways like the contracts worked out and it was like I wasn't gonna move to Scranton and he wasn't finding anything in Connecticut.
And so then he got an opportunity in Orlando and Golf Channel is based out of Orlando and I love golf. And so it was okay, we're gonna make this decision. Not necessarily like it should work with my career, but we're gonna take a little leap of faith that this works best for your career right now.
It was for the CBS affiliate for him. We're gonna go down there. I'm gonna figure out how to get a job at Golf Channel, which then I did. And so I was an associate producer there for three years. And so that coincided with then the beginning of 2020. So it was like January 20th. So January of 2020, we kinda looked at each other.
My husband Clay's contract was up that year and we were assessing, are we gonna stay in Florida? What do we wanna do? And we said, you know what? I think we could stay. I have a good thing going at Golf Channel. You have a good thing going here. We could do this, we could stay for, another contract. The next month, not even the pandemic, Golf Channel comes in and says, hey, we're moving our headquarters up to Connecticut.
This year where NBC Sports is located. We don't really know what that means for you yet. It ended up meaning that like we all got laid off and if we wanted to reapply for our jobs in Connecticut, we could, but we decided we didn't wanna make that move. We had already been in Connecticut.
JAG: Yeah. You spent that time at ESPN.
Krista: Yeah. So that was like February, like 28th. Oh geez. And then, of course, You know what happens next?
JAG: The banquet! That's what happened next.
Krista: The banquet! I was at that banquet, which was very funny.
JAG: Was that the banquet we were all singing karaoke. Was that 2020 or was that 2019?
Krista: That was the banquet. We were all singing 2020 and sharing wings together in a shared space at the beginning of the pandemic.
JAG: Hindsight being 2020, no pun intended. Yeah. Maybe not the best situation. I wanna come back to the long-distance thing for a second because my wife and I were long distance when we were dating and I quit my job and moved back to Michigan and moved in with her.
And then we got engaged and then we got married. You were married long distance. And that's a common thing I think in this industry, but I think my opinion on long distance relationships is, in most cases it only works if there's a light at the end of the tunnel. If there's like a plan to like, somehow we're gonna be in the same city, same place, same time, because if it's long distance indefinitely, I feel like that's just so much harder.
You've gotta have that goal at the end of okay, we're gonna make this work and that's where you like live under the same roof.
Krista: Right? And so we had that goal That was always the plan. And then, so this was in 2016 that we got married and 2016 was actually a crazy year. I went to Cuba for ESPN. So I went to Cuba, the Cavs won the NBA finals, we got married, and then we were going to live in the same place.
And then it didn't happen because his contract was up like probably a month before our wedding. So we figured, okay, either we'll be able to negotiate and hey, all right, my next start date will be after our wedding, and then we'll figure out where we're gonna go or what's going on. Or he will be between jobs, which we have navigated many a job hunt together.
Okay. That'll either be the case, either we will know where he's going or he will be unemployed and be, staying at his parents in Massachusetts slash you know, coming between there in Connecticut where I was.
And something different happened, which was they let him stay on month to month. They didn't make him sign a new contract. Which is like a big thing when you're a news reporter because.
JAG: It's a unicorn deal.
Krista: And so it was a lot easier. It's a lot easier to get your next job while you're still working. And they were just kinda letting him hang out month to month.
And it was a such a strange situation because it didn't make sense for me to pack everything up and leave and go to Scranton when we knew. It was a wonderful station. He worked at WNEP. It was a wonderful place. We just knew that wasn't where our future was going to be. So it didn't make sense for me to up and leave ESPN when we didn't know where we were gonna go, and it didn't make sense for him to leave this month-to-month deal in Scranton and come move in with me, unemployed for more or less no reason. So we just stuck it out. We got married in Cleveland and then went back to our respective homes. I was mad. I remember just being really mad for the first like seven months because logically I knew we were doing the best logical thing, but it also just does not make any sense with living long distance and being married.
JAG: Yeah. Your heart is somewhere else. Is it easier when you're both in the business that you understand it better, do you think, and how this all works as opposed to one person being in the business and the other spouse is not?
Krista: I definitely think so. I know there's differing opinions and situations on that, but we can understand each other's schedules and issues way better, I think, than if I weren't in the business or vice versa because there's a shoot, suddenly, at night that he has to be at. Or, hey, I have to pre-tape an interview. I need someone to watch our daughter. Like that sort of thing. So from the start, we've had a great understanding of each other's needs and like how to be the best partner for that, because it takes a lot of understanding to have, these weird nights, weekends, holidays, that you're not gonna be able to make all the things that you would normally make if you worked a nine to five job.
JAG: Not to pry into your marriage, but I feel like you've probably talked about your marriage on the air a bunch at this point. And you guys met at Syracuse?
Krista: We did. We did. So we actually met our freshman year, but we didn't start dating until senior year.
Right before he graduated early. So we were friends all through school. I actually dated someone else at Syracuse. It's just how it goes. And I think we both needed to go, grow through college, do all of that.
JAG: Yeah, grew up a little.
Krista: And then we found each other. Yeah. Grew up a little, he graduated early, so he graduated the winter of 2011, and we started dating like November, like it was ridiculous. We started dating, we were like, this is a silly idea, but we wanna do this. This is what we're doing. And I think once you make that decision, I'm like, this is what we're doing and we're gonna figure it out, that was our viewpoint on it.
And his first job was on the border of Illinois and Iowa in the Quad Cities. Rock Island, Illinois. And then Scranton. And then Florida and that time I was in Connecticut and then Florida, and then he got a job opportunity back in Cleveland in 2020. This was when I was pregnant and everything else was going on that we talked about with the layoffs and everything else that it made all the sense in the world.
My family's all still here and I always wanted to come back home. I really did. It was quite something that we actually made it happen.
JAG: And he's from Massachusetts originally?
Krista: He's from Massachusetts. But he knew, okay. He knew what he was signing up for when we got together.
JAG: As a fellow Massachusetts native. I love living in the Midwest. My wife grew up in New Hampshire, and we just like the vibe of the Midwest. With no offense to our East Coast friends, it's just the Midwest is just much more our speed. People are just friendly and nice and warm and all that. All right, so 2020, he gets the job at Cleveland and you're like, Woohoo. Let's go back to the 216.
Krista: Yes. So at this point there have been multiple times where one of us takes on the job hunt role while the other one has the job intact. With being on air and being a reporter, it's just a little bit harder to find those roles and to find the right situations. So he gets the job in Cleveland, I'm beside myself and I'm like, I'll figure it out.
I don't really know what I'm gonna figure out, but I'm gonna figure it out. And it made it harder because I was pregnant, and so I wasn't sure exactly how much I wanted to be working. So what ended up happening, I had a connection from my time at ESPN, where I ended up working for the RSN, the Regional Sports Network, which is Bally Sports, in Cleveland. So basically, I knew the communications director with the Indians, now Guardians, and he opened the right doors. Then I could take on some freelance work.
JAG: Worth noting. We're recording this on April 25th, so as of right now, these RSNs haven't all filed for bankruptcy, but by the time this airs, that is a possibility.
Krista: Definitely. We can get into that, but yeah. So I'm working for Bally Sports in Cleveland. I, am balancing this fine line of how many games do I wanna be working, how many games am I being offered? At this point, I'm like eight months pregnant in a production truck.
JAG: What are you doing in that role, Krista?
Krista: In that role? I was an associate director. I still am. So associate director for local sports broadcast. Basically means that you are keeping track of going to commercial break and coming out and communicating with their master control and keeping track of all of the different paid sales elements that are in a broadcast so that everyone gets what they paid for.
It's kind of procedural, like it's not a very content role, but it's very important and it's fun cuz you just are very much watching the games. Going back to, I still get paid to watch sports and I'm in the production truck in the thick of it. And that's what I always loved the most about just being in that live event atmosphere and getting to do it now at home was really neat for me and is still.
So I was doing that and they were wonderful. They're like, look, just tell us, when are you due? I was due at the end of June in 2021. So I stopped working. I think when I went into my ninth month, we decided like, all right we'll take a pause.
And they said, just let us know when you wanna come back. Just let us know when you wanna come back into the rotation. And we'll put you back on. And that is what happened.
JAG: Out in Orlando from Golf Channel in early 2020. And then it was 2021 that you were pregnant and go move out to Cleveland?
Krista: So beginning of 2020, they tell us that Golf Channel's gonna move. It took them until I wasn't formally laid off until I. December 31st. 2020. So we had the whole year.
JAG: Oh. Cause everything was so crazy in 2020. Yeah, that makes sense. Okay.
Krista: Yes, they did a couple different waves, I think, but I ended up staying until the last day, like closing things down so then we moved back to Ohio.
By this point, my husband Clay knew that he had the job in Cleveland and he started, I think at the end of February or the end of January. Okay. So it all Floated into each other. I started working for Bally probably March or April, so it wasn't too much of a downtime, but we were also like house hunting and it was crazy. It was a crazy time.
JAG: So you're working all these games up until the end of your pregnancy, you had your daughter and then you go on maternity leave I assume. And then what happens after that?
Krista: So pick up more games, came back in the fall. We're still going along, balancing things. And then this was probably March or April of last year, of 2021.
JAG: 2022?
Krista: Sorry, 22 yeah.
JAG: They all blur together. Yeah.
Krista: What year is it? One of my friends says, hey, did you hear that Father Dave and the busted Halo show on SiriusXM, which I interned for. Did you hear that they need a producer and it's entirely remote? And I said, oh, that's really interesting, because the show airs weeknights from 6:0PM to 8:00 PM.
So my husband Clay kinda gets home. He has some weird hours, but it's not as bad. Now, he's a special projects reporter in Cleveland. So he has a little more flexibility than he would if he was like general assignment day-to-day. And so my parents are here, so they already were helping out a lot with our daughter and it's entirely remote, so I could, in theory, do it from my house and my basement.
And so that's what ended up happening. I reached out to Father Dave and to people I used to intern with. The program director was a producer when I interned there, so he climbed the ranks and was now in charge. So he remembered me. And it was such like a kismet fate kind of thing of this makes sense for everyone.
This makes sense for them, because they were a little worried. This is the first remote producer they were hiring. So yeah, the fact that they knew me already and had experience working with me and vice versa, and that I had all the experience from ESPN and Golf Channel and you know that I knew them.
Plus having the flexibility to work from home so that I could be more present for my daughter since as much as I love the Bally work, it is a lot of time out of the house.
JAG: Sure, yeah.
Krista: Yeah, so it all just came together and I never expected that and that was honestly as terrible as the pandemic was in many ways. That wouldn't have happened without it because I don't think they would've gone remote.
JAG: And Dave Gorab talked about that in his episode, the technology and all the stuff that's now done remotely for all these different shows and all these different channels on Sirius, and it goes back to JPZ and networking and making all those connections. And they drilled that into our heads at Syracuse, that you had done a good job in your role as an intern there and you had the resume at that point. That I'm sure it was an easy decision for them to, so yeah, let's bring Krista on, she's the perfect fit for this job.
Krista: So it's been almost a year now that we've been so then I still freelance on the weekends for Bally sports because then they encouraged that from the start.
They're like, you love sports. Okay. Keep freelancing, keep doing, what you're doing. Obviously, I prioritize my Sirius XM work, but I'm able to do that because the way that freelancing is that you can turn down dates. And I don't really need it. I just love it.
JAG: What kind of stuff are you doing for ballet at this point?
Krista: So same thing. So I'm an associate director on, I would say two to four games a month for either baseball or basketball. So either for the Guardians or the Cavs. And I actually ended up, last year, I worked, even while I was still at Sirius XM, doing some playoff games for MLB network because you're crewed in an interesting way when you're freelance, that it's like a separate company that crews you. So I crewed for Bally sports, but sometimes if it's like a national game, they'll ask us if we can work a national game because they need the people and we're the ones that are here in the local areas that know what to do.
JAG: So I mentioned this a moment ago, Krista, there's a lot going on with baseball and these regional sports networks that carry the games and some of the parent companies are in financial trouble, and I thought it was a headline every week. Can you give me the casual sports fan's explanation as to what the heck is going on again as we sit here on April 25th?
Krista: So as we sit here, on April 25th, and again, the good thing is I'm not in charge of any of these things. I'm a contracted worker as freelance, so I'm not speaking on behalf of any company or anything, but as just a casual fan, if you are watching a local sports game in your town, it is owned by one of a couple different companies. One of those companies is Bally sports. They basically got into a position where like sports rights right now are really expensive and the long and short of it is now that they can't pay for it.
So what happens next is still really to be determined because every team, there's not a blanket answer because every team has somewhat of a different contractor relationship where some of them have more ownership of the station than others. All I know from a worker's perspective is that the producers and directors and technical directors, the ones that are doing the work now technically under the Bally Sports umbrella, at least in Cleveland, they also were still working the games when it was Fox Sports Ohio, which is what it was before, and before that it was Sports Time Ohio. So these particular workers, it's just who's writing the check and that's what ends up happening. They don't tend to clean house and bring in a whole new group of people.
It is interesting that the Commissioner of Baseball, Rob Manfred, said that like basically there will be no interruption of service. That Major League baseball will take over and step in if needed, but I don't really know if we know what that looks like yet. I don't think Major League Baseball necessarily wants to come in and staff it with all people that aren't from the areas.
I don't think that they necessarily have an interest in doing that, but I don't know. So it is interesting. I'm not necessarily worried about it, but it's like it is a very interesting time, especially because it really wasn't that long ago that Bally sports acquired these networks, these Fox Regional networks.
JAG: And if you're Rob Manfred and you're sitting there we finally have, at least in my opinion, you might disagree, but improved the game and made it move along a lot faster this year with the pitch clock and all these rules and we're hopefully putting butts back in seats and eyeballs back on TVs. And then to have this looming over him, I'm sure he would like to put this issue to bed as efficiently as possible.
Krista: It's gonna be an interesting year, of what happens next and how much does whoever steps in have to pay or what, when I was at ESPN and you just see the numbers of how much you have to pay for sports rights, just keep climbing and climbing.
And in my light opinion, slightly educated opinion, it can't keep going like this. So is there gonna be a bubble? Is it gonna burst? What does that mean? Because part of the reason that companies like ESPN and so on, struggle is because they aren't getting the cable revenue that they were once getting right with people cutting the cord. So it's gonna be an interesting time. All I know is that people will be watching the games and hopefully I will be working them.
JAG: Last sports question. Do you like the changes in baseball?
Krista: I do. It's weird. It's a little weird. I don't know if we slightly overcorrected in terms of speed, but if you don't evolve, you die.
So I appreciate the efforts. It was funny, like the first couple games that I've watched that you're used to a certain, like languid, pace. And then like you look up and you're like, oh, we're already in the commercial break, the half inning's over.
JAG: Oh yeah. Matt Friedman and I went to a Tigers Red Sox game here early in the season, and I'm like, oh, okay. It's two and a half hours. Fun game. But that was it.
Krista: That's it.
JAG: Done. All right. Let's come back to father Dave and Busted Halo on the Catholic Channel. Tell me if I've never listened to the show. What the show is, because I feel, and Dave and I got into this a little bit in his episode of the podcast, but I feel like there's some stereotypes or misnomers, people that haven't heard the show or unfamiliar with the channel or the show might think, oh, it's all about, Catholicism or religion or whatever. Let's put those rumors to bed.
Krista: So it is on the Catholic Channel. And Father Dave is a Catholic priest. He's a Paulist father, which is a religious order that their main focus is media. So they have this umbrella called Busted Halo Ministries. And part of that is the Busted Halo show with Father Dave Dwyer.
And so the show's on every night, and basically, it's an intersection of faith, of pop culture, of questions, of faith about Catholicism or otherwise. Sometimes it could be as silly as just what's going on in our lives. Sometimes we like look for faith connections and Father Dave will remind us like, I'm the faith connection, I'm the priest.
So there's always gonna be a faith connection. We don't have to, make too many reaches, but yeah, sometimes it's silly of, oh, he's going to Washington DC and was in the quiet car that wasn't quiet at all. And sometimes it's just life situations and sometimes it's people calling us with some really heavy things they're going through of trying to forgive someone or that is harm them or hurt them or they just lost someone close to them and they're wrestling with those kind of things. We take prayer requests on Mondays so that a lot of that comes up then, but we take questions of faith at any time.
And then it's just guests in the Catholic community or just the faith community in general that we find interesting. We had Sister Jean of Loyola Chicago.
JAG: Oh, when they had their tournament run.
Krista: Yeah. So sometimes it's, it's like that. So it's Father Dave and then his co-host, his name is Brett, and he's like just a comedian friend who has a really big heart and just is that great bridge between a priest and lay people, so to speak.
Just normal people. Then I'm the producer and I'm a Catholic mom and in the media, and we have a great time. We have a great time every night. It's like hanging out with, like my like friends or my, I have a brother, but my like family brothers. It's like we're this great little team and we just happen to broadcast on Sirius XM.
It's very funny that we do the show on Zoom, so it's like we feel like we're just having a Zoom call that's being recorded.
JAG: So you can all see each other as you're talking to each other. That's the reason for Zoom.
Krista: Exactly.
JAG: Got it. Okay. And you know a lot of Dave's classmates for his Hall of Fame induction talked about, what an engaging great guy he was on and off the air in Syracuse and obviously and all his time since. I've gotta imagine that was part of the appeal that drew you to the show before you even enter him there, that you said you liked the show. And I gotta imagine that some of Dave's charisma, but then also it sounds like your faith has been a big part of your life forever. Huh?
Krista: Definitely. So I sing and I play the piano. So I've been involved in church choirs for pretty much my whole life. And I worked on an event that's in Cleveland. It's a big Catholic family festival that brings in, I don't know, tens of thousands of people. It's a whole thing every year and basically, it's like a team of seminarians. So people that are studying to be priests and like just a couple priests and random people.
And so I was in college and working on this group of people to create this festival event in a field out of nothing, which was a really great experience for just learning how to problem solve and, work in life at a young age. And one of the seminarians was listening to the Catholic Channel and I was like, okay, that's, I don't know if I'm at that level. Like I'm Catholic, but okay. We're gonna listen to this and there are two shows that we were listening to and one of them was the Busted Halo show with Father Dave and it's not what you're expecting. It's not dry, it's not boring. He's extremely relatable just as a person and he just happens to be a priest and has these wonderful, beautiful insights into life and faith and those connections.
But he also worked, at MTV and Comedy Central. And he knows more about tech stuff than I do like of the technological. And he's so good with all of the remote aspects of what we do and troubleshooting. He's so good at it. He's so connected with what people are talking about in culture and in life, and he's not disconnected and he's such a great voice of both, like inspiration, consolation. It's what drew me to the show to begin with, and now working for him. It's just so fun. He's just a wonderful person to work with. That is amazing.
JAG: You've come full circle from being a fan of the show to an intern to now producer of the show, and I'll link to Dave's episode as well in the show notes for anybody who hasn't heard it, which is one of our most popular downloaded episodes.
Thanks to you and Father Dave promoting it on social media and on the show. So thank you for that. I think that is a great place to leave it. Krista LePard from the class of 2012. And tell us when they can listen to you on the Busted Halo show.
Krista: Busted Halo shows live every weeknight Monday through Thursday. We do from six to 8:00 PM and then on Fridays we do like a flashback episode because the show's been on for 16 years.
Which is crazy that he's been at this for so long. So basically, we air like the best questions, his best homilies, the best guests we've had. So that's on Fridays at six. So 6:00 PM Eastern on Sirius XM 129. I'm not normally talking this much normally, it's just it's Father Dave and Brett. And I chime in from time to time. I'm the Roz.
JAG: And I'm sure they are thrilled every time that you do and he spoke so highly of you in his episode as well. So thank you for spending some time with us today, Krista. Look forward to hopefully seeing you next March.
Krista: Yes, definitely. Thanks Jag.