Hall of Famer Rob, aka Rusty the Bailiff, Berrell hopped in his truck to spend a few minutes with us today.
Doing his research on the best communications schools in the country, this Fargo kid soon found himself at Syracuse, and then WJPZ just in time for the move to FM. During his time at the station, Rusty did a little bit of everything, as Chief Announcer and eventually station and general manager.
There's now quite the Berrell family legacy at Syracuse. Not only did Rusty meet his wife Karen on campus, both of their kids went to school at SU, following in their parents' and uncle's footsteps. We spend some time talking about the unique experience of sharing a similar college experience with your children.
Following graduation, Rusty worked on air in North Dakota and Maine, before heading back west to Minnesota. Eventually, Rob made the transition to radio sales, where he worked for several major radio station in Minneapolis, including the legendary KDWB.
After a long run in radio, Rusty saw that the industry is changing, and he joined Ron Schara productions, an outdoor television production company. We talk about how his experiences at WJPZ and in commercial radio come into play every day in his current role. He's been there for nine years.
(Thanks to WJPZ Alum and Newhouse Professor Tina Perkins for editing this episode.)
Rusty was gracious and willing to talk about the bombing of Pan Am 103 in 1988. 35 Syracuse University students were killed on that flight, including Rusty's brother, WJPZ staffer Steven Berrell. When it happened, Rusty was a morning show host in Augusta, Maine. He told us how he found out, and we gives credit to the US government and Syracuse University for pursuing justice and honoring the victims' memories, 34 years later.
When I asked Rusty to wrap up with a funny story, he talked about someone in station management who really wanted to be on the air, but didn't necessarily have the chops.
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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, joined by a hall of famer today from the class of 87. That'll be Rob or Rusty, the Bailiff. Burrell. Thanks so much for sending some time with us today.
Rusty: Absolutely. Thanks for having me, JAG.
JAG: So how does a kid from Fargo end up at Syracuse? And of course you didn't have the shock that all of us had with weather, but how does that start?
Rusty: Actually, I wanted to get into communications. At least I thought I did in high school. My mom helped research some colleges and as she actually found Syracuse and we applied and I got in, so I'm off East, jumped on the stagecoach, headed the train station. No, it wasn't quite that long ago, but yeah, I was pretty cool.
I was one of the very few kids from North Dakota that's ever gone to school there, so I'm actually surprised.
JAG: You said kids, plural. All right, there you go. Did you get a chance to see the campus before you went, or was it like show up at the end of August and good luck?
Rusty: My mom and I went out and we did a tour and did the whole deal. Yeah, it was great. Went to a basketball game, sat in the nosebleeds. And it was fun. Yeah.
JAG: So how did you find WJPZ once you got to campus?
Rusty: I'm trying to remember. I knew you were gonna ask me that. I believe I discovered it in my second semester freshman year. I don't remember exactly how, but.
It sounded cool to me. I'd done some announcing for high school, PA stuff for my high school basketball games back in Fargo, and so I was into the announcing thing and thought radio would be cool. So bumped into it and it was right around the time where not long after that we went live on FM, so I got to be there for that experience, which was pretty cool.
JAG: What are your memories of that big moment in the station's history?
Rusty: I just, I remember being in the studio and on the other side of the glass and I was pretty young. I was still a freshman or early sophomore and I just remember Mossman, Chris Mossman, going on the mic and flipping to FM and being able to, I could see it in my mind right now.
The stage that was set that day. It was pretty cool. Lot of celebrating some I believe some champagne corks popped and it was a lot of fun.
JAG: Excellent. So what was your involvement with the station? What are the roles you held there? For those who don't know you?
Rusty: So I started out my first shift was an overnight, like most people start. And I moved into a daytime or evening shift, and then I got the chief announcer job was my first kind of major job with the station, so I ran the schedule of all the jocks. Which as you know is like putting a jigsaw puzzle together. Cuz there's so many On-Air people, which is great.
JAG: I was the chief announcer myself. You're preaching to the choir? Yep.
Rusty: Yeah. Part of why we were there, right? Yeah. And then I moved from there into station manager and so I worked as station manager when Mark Bokoff was general manager. And then my senior year, second semester, I took over as general manager for my last semester at school. So I got to do a few different things, which was pretty cool.
JAG: And you worked on the programming and the sales side? Do I have that right?
Rusty: No, I never was in programming. I did on air, but I was never into programming or I never did music or anything like that. On air. Yeah. And I did not technically do sales, although that's what I ended up getting into eventually in my radio career.
JAG: Oh, that's right. Because I pinged Matt Friedman before we sat down and he was like, ask him how a radio guy on air guy became so great at sales.
Rusty: It did happen.
JAG: What are some of the names of the folks that you remember working with at the station that you haven't mentioned already that come to mind that you learned from or became lifelong friends with, folks that really stick out to you?
Rusty: Yeah, the people I've stayed most in contact with over the years at least in my generation, are, Scotty Bergstein, Carl Weinstein, Scotty Meach, Kevin's a little bit younger, but Kevin Rich. I've stayed in touch with Danny Corsun. Those are the guys that, you know, that I guess maybe I was probably tightest with.
I go way back with, E double R and Diamond Jimmy Ryan and some really talented DJs. Benny Green and Reggie Rouse and some others that were, really good back then. Oh gosh, Bruce I can't remember his last name, but he did the love flight on Sunday nights.
He was awesome. But those are the guys I'd probably stay in touch with the most. We try to get back to Banquets so we can see each other. It's been fun. Carl and I both had kids go through Syracuse. That's been fun to share those experiences and be able to have our kids come to the Banquets with us and experience, what we went through and that was fun.
JAG: And not only did you have one kid go to Syracuse, you had two kids go to Syracuse, your daughter previously, and your son currently.
Rusty: Yes, correct. So we just moved him back right before Christmas. He's out of his house and off to LA and just he's in orientation this week. He starts classes in an internship on next week.
JAG: Worth mentioning as a timestamp recording this and of course in January. What's that like for you? Where I imagine you want them to go to the place that's right for them, but you got a little bit of orange in your heart and then you get two kids going to school and get to share that same experience?
Rusty: It was pretty special for my wife and I, cuz you know, we met there, so we both obviously both went there as well.
And they had gotten to go back to the school, a few times over the years when they were younger and when we, my wife and I would go back for different events or JPZ banquets or whatever it might be. And so they got a taste for it early on and, at the end of the day it was their decision.
So there was no pressure on our part. We had made sure they applied to other schools and look at their opportunities, but at the end of the day, they both wanted to go to Syracuse and they both got in on their own merits. And yeah, we were pretty excited. This is actually the last year actually.
My son Andy, is in the Syracuse LA program this semester, so he's off campus. But we had pretty much eight years in a row where we had a student there, which is pretty cool.
JAG: I've gotta imagine you've had some interesting conversations with both your kids about what it was then versus now.
Rusty: Oh, for sure. Just the physical nature of the campus has changed so much. Not the core. The core buildings and but there's so many new cool buildings. Academics and, Marshall Streets change so much. So it's it's been amazing to watch, the property get built around there, new housing, things going up everywhere.
And it's different that way just to see the changes on campus. The Greek system is a lot smaller than it was back then when I was there, especially on the fraternity side, which is too bad. But yeah, it's definitely different. But there's still that cool Syracuse vibe when you're on campus that continues, which is great.
JAG: Let's turn to your career now, Rusty, or I don't whether to call you Rusty or Rob. I feel like we all have so many different names that we go by.
Rusty: You can call me Rusty. That's fine.
JAG: Rusty, take me through your career since graduating, cuz you've done some pretty incredible things in the time since you've been out.
Rusty: Yeah. I jumped right into radio after college. I stayed in it. I got a more an after late afternoon gig was my first gig up in Grand Forks, North Dakota of all places, which is even farther away than Fargo and Colder I spent about 11 months there and then I got an offer to do a morning show on a station called 92 Moose in Augusta, Maine.
JAG: I've heard of that station. I grew up in New England. Okay.
Rusty: Yeah, the moose is loose. I did a morning show there. It was actually, it was over a pretty brief time. I was there and the bombing of Pan Am 103 happened while I was in Maine doing that gig, and which I know you wanted to maybe chat a little bit about.
We can do that. But I had an opportunity arise after that horrible incident happened. Late 89 and to come back to Minnesota and do a programming gig program director at a couple smaller markets just south of Minneapolis. So the company that I worked for in Grand Forks owned these stations in southern Minnesota.
Of course. I wanted to be a program director, so I'm like, I'm coming back to Minnesota and I did that for seven and a half years, and then I dabbled a little bit in sales while I was there just to try to make some extra money. And then I got an offer. A friend of mine told me about a job opening at the legendary KDWB top 40 contemporary hit station in Minneapolis that she worked at.
And so I applied and I got the job. Hung up my headphones, which was a little weird at the time cuz I'd been on air and doing programming for, gosh, 11, 12 years I think at that point. Counting JPZ. And got into sales, was still around the whole radio vibe and got to have fun with all the events and things going on and sell promotions and so I, I never really, never looked back. As far as that goes.
JAG: Let me stop you there for a second, rusty, because I gotta imagine that's a bit of a conflict or a trade off. Anybody who's worked in CHR knows KDWB is one of the most legendary top 40 stations in the country, and here it is, you get to go to this big station in the closest big city to where you grew up.
But it's on the sales side, so I gotta imagine that was a little bit weird for you.
Rusty: Yeah, it was weird. Took some getting used to, but I got to be around some pretty cool air talent. Tony Fly. Yeah. Yeah. Still one of the top guys. Dave Ryan who came when I was there. He is still doing the morning show today after, I don't know how many years now. 25, 30 years. He's been around forever. And I got to work with some really talented salespeople and managers and promotions people. Just being around it all. I made the adjustment pretty quickly. It didn't take long. And once you start making a little money, it's oh, okay.
This is good. I like this. So I did that for six years. Then I moved into sales management. I took a local sales manager job at our country station, which is also one of the top country stations in the United States. K102, KEE Y in Minneapolis. I did that for six years. Dabbled a little bit with our sports station, KFAN.
Yep. And then I my boss took off and then moved over to CBS radio, still CBS at the time in Minneapolis that had WCCO, Jack FM and W Light was a light station that eventually flipped to a country format called Buzzin. So I got the director of sales job there, so I got to oversee three stations, couple sales staffs.
I had six managers at one point, and I did that for five. And then I guess I got to the point where I was a little bit done with the big corporate radio world at that time. It wasn't as much fun as it used to be.
JAG: Understood.
Rusty: And an old radio boss of mine actually, who hired me at KDWB, had bought the company I'm at now, Ron Schara Productions, which is an outdoor television production company. And he asked me if I wanted to join the team and run the sales organization. And we danced for about six, eight months and all of a sudden, we got it figured out. So I've been here now, gosh, it'll be nine years in April.
So it's been cool experience to do this. And I've gotten to do, actually gotten into a lot of voiceover work here. I voice over quite a few commercials that we produce and some other video projects, so I've gotten to get back into that a little bit, which has been. I get to utilize my headphones every once in a while too.
JAG: Outdoor production, I've gotta imagine that comes with its own set of challenges, particularly where you are now in Minnesota.
Rusty: Yeah, but we shoot, we have we have seven different shows that we produce that run on, local networks here in Minnesota, regional sports networks and some national networks and in Canada as well, along with Amazon Prime, YouTube, et cetera.
So we shoot a lot of different outdoor content, not just hunting and fishing, but all sorts of different activities. We do a lot of storytelling in our shows. So it's it's pretty fun. And we produce some pretty cool, amazing content. We got some really talented people.
JAG: With the production that you're talking about. That leads me to my next obvious question, which is, how did what you learned at WJPZ inform and help you to where you are now?
Rusty: I go back to the basics of working at a radio station like that. Everybody works hard. See, you learn work ethic really early. Yeah. And you're not getting paid.
You're doing it for passion and you get to wear a lot of hats in that job and. When you get into the real world, and jobs that I've been in, especially the one I'm in now I wear a lot of hats and you're, you gotta be able to multitask and cover off on different fronts and you learn a lot of that.
And just, being in the media business and learning how that works, it's a big advantage. And everybody on my sales staff came from a radio background, including my boss and my four salespeople that work for me, are all former radio sellers and it's the learning, the sales process and working at some great stations and, you learn a lot and it's applicable in a lot of other industries and especially this one cuz it's still tied to media in some respects.
JAG: And you all come in speaking the same languages. It's gotta be great. Exactly. All right, I appreciate you willing to talk about this topic. It's obviously a big, significant part of the history of WJPZ and that is, of course, the bombing of Pan Am 103, and of course, your brother on that flight. I don't really know how to start asking you this question, so I guess I'll just ask you to take me through those events as best you're able to and comfortable doing.
Rusty: No, I'm happy to do that. We just came up on the 34th anniversary here back on December 21st. And obviously there was some news around that with an arrest and extradition to the US which is pretty significant milestone. And typically when an event pops up, whether it was when Kadafi was killed or usually I get some of the news outlets in town between Fargo and Minneapolis know me and know I'm here.
So I usually get calls and I usually end up doing a few interviews. I'm always happy to talk about it and keep it top of mind. It happened so long ago and I really like what the University has done over the years. They've done a really good job of that with the Remembrance Scholarship Program, which my daughter was fortunate enough to be involved in that and be awarded one which was pretty cool a few years ago.
We all went back for Remembrance week, which was pretty neat. It obviously it was a, a horrible event. I was in Maine at the time, I was outta school. I wasn't at the radio station, but I know that the station did an amazing job of covering it and in the news, and it's yeah, it's a horrible thing, but the fact that they've continued to pursue it, government and Bill Barr and the presidential administrations continue to bring people to justice is pretty remarkable. The country of Scotland and the Scottish authorities have been nothing but remarkable over the years from the beginning, from the day it happened until now. And it's good that it, that stays in the news and people understand what happened so long ago and how significant it of a tragedy it was in, in the history of our country and still the largest loss of life in the UK, on UK soil to date.
JAG: Wow, I did not know that. And it's interesting perspective as we talk to so many different generations of folks from WJPZ. You think about things that are, that you experience. I know for me, I had just turned eight when Pan Am 1 0 3 was blown up, and so I got to Syracuse and I had read it in a history book.
I wasn't super familiar with it. And then learning about the events and then learning that if you become one of these Remembrance scholars at Syracuse, it is one of the absolute most sacred high honors that you can achieve as a student at the University. And so your point is well taken about what a great job Syracuse has done in that regard.
So you're in Maine and. Is it family you're talking to at that point? Is it the staff at the station you're having any contact with? How does this play out for you?
Rusty: I found out about it. I was working out at the YMCA and I passed by a television outside of the locker room when I was heading out late afternoon, or mid-afternoon.
I did the morning show at that time, and I saw something on the TV that looked weird. I saw flames and something had blown up. I didn't really, it didn't put two and two together. I walked upstairs to the front door to leave and my morning show partner was standing there and I'm like, eh, she had a weird look in her face, said something's, something's wrong here. Okay. She just basically said, we gotta go back to your apartment. You gotta call your parents.
JAG: Ugh.
Rusty: And I kept thinking, maybe they're calling to tell me my brother's not on that plane, because I was trying to figure the timing out in my head. I knew he was flying back that day and he was coming through New York.
And anyway, so obviously it didn't go that way, went the other direction. But I I do recall people from the station reaching out to me, probably that same group I just mentioned a while ago that I worked closely with. Yeah. And still stay in contact with and, yeah, I was on a plane the next day back, I was just back in Fargo.
I was actually back there for a wedding before Christmas the week before it happened, I was back in Fargo with my family pretty quickly and, got through all the, everything we had to get through the funeral and all the stuff you don't wanna do. But yeah, then I forged back to Maine and rode out that job till I got the offer to come back to Minnesota.
So it was nice to be back a little closer to my parents cuz we were, my sister and I were both so far away. My sister lived out of town as well. I believe she was in Chicago at the time. And so it was nice to be a little closer to home, which was good for them too.
JAG: Again, it was, it's the JPZ family and it literally was family for you in that instance. So I appreciate you just taking a few minutes to recall that story for us.
Rusty: Yeah.
JAG: Let me turn it back around before we wrap up.
Rusty: Absolutely.
JAG: Are there any stories that you remember from your time at the radio station that still crack you up to this day? Any funny moments that you can still laugh at over a beer, and you're already laughing so you've, you got me optimistic here.
Rusty: We had a lot of fun with Mark Bokoff. He was the GM at the time, and he wanted to be on air. And God bless Mark. I love him to death, and he, I stay in touch with him on social media and he wanted an air shift and he wasn't that good on air. So I think I was still the chief announcer when he either was station manager, became general manager.
And so I scheduled him, 4:00 AM to 7:00 AM. And I remember him calling me or coming in the station. He's there's no way I'm gonna be working that 4:00 AM to 7:00 AM shift. And he was grumbling about it. And I'm like that's the only slot I got. Yeah, it was pretty funny.
JAG: Did he end up doing the shift?
Rusty: I think he did a few shifts and then he realized that maybe that wasn't for him. And I'm gonna stick to the business side.
JAG: It's funny, we see over the years the folks that worked at the station and did tremendous things contributed to the radio station, but were not on the air. And I feel like there are some who were like, Nope, not my thing.
Not touching it with a 10-foot pole. And then there are some who are like, oh, let me try this and find out for myself if I'm cut out for it or not.
Rusty: Yeah. Yeah. I also, I got to watch some really good jocks, do the afternoon drive shift and the five o'clock party deal., Zappy Hour whatever we used to call it, watching Hot Shot Scott, do a show. Watching E Double R do a show. Just their gyrations and the movements and, the way that, just the whole physical part of it, not just what they were saying, but to actually watch 'em do it through the glass would really crack me up.
JAG: You are a radio veteran because on an audio podcast you are painting quite the picture. Well done sir.
Rusty: You bet.
JAG: Thank you so much for spending a few minutes with us today, Rusty. Appreciate you. Always enjoy seeing you in Syracuse and we'll talk soon.
Rusty: Thanks Jag, appreciate it. I'll see you in March.