I was eight-and-three-quarters years old in 1985 when my family moved from West Palm Beach, FL to Kansas City, MO. My Dad had accepted a job with Bott Broadcasting. All I knew was that my grandparents lived in Kansas City. So, I packed up my GI Joes, Star Wars figures, my brown Fisher Price tape player, my Thriller cassette, and said good-bye to my childhood best friend, Tommy Hahn. Two months to the day that my Dad started Dick Bott, himself, fired my Dad. He gave him no severance and told him he didn’t have what it took to be in radio.

We had left behind a brand new house in Florida that wasn’t selling. The mortgage was quickly depleting what savings my Mom and Dad had. For the next year Dad did odd jobs to make ends meet. I remember delivering phone books with him one weekend for what I assume earned less than $25. Pretty soon, boxes of food and clothes started appearing on our front stoop every Saturday morning. I put it all together. We had nothing.

We rented a duplex from a Hindu family. Early one evening they showed up at our door with their children who were my age. I heard them tell my parents they had decided we should stay in their duplex for as long as we needed because they knew we were “good and Christian people.” That moment constantly challenges my faith and learned belief that Heaven is reserved for Christians. It was in that duplex that I remember my Dad bounding up the stairs after a day of job hunting laughing and exclaiming in relief and disbelief, “I got the job! I got the job!”

Dad got a job selling home alarm systems. He had a demo kit that I was fascinated by, and taught me how to use it. I memorized his pitch, and on the weekends I took it door-to-door trying to sell systems for him. He hadn’t asked me to, I thought I was helping. After a while he moved in to a PR job with a big firm on the Country Club Plaza that required him to travel.

During this time Dad got a part-time radio shift on Saturday mornings. He made the most of it. It was four hours a week from 6am to 10am, but that didn’t discourage him from doing show prep all week. He quickly racked up faithful listeners and his ratings started to catch the attention of his bosses. When the afternoon drive shift opened up, Dad let the decision makers know he wanted to be considered. They recognized his work ethic and ratings and gave him a shot. When his first ratings book was released he was on top. Number one. He beat out all the established afternoon DJs. His bosses looked like genius’s.

The guy that didn’t have what it took to be in radio spent the next 25 years consistently in the top four overall for his time period, but most of that time he was #1. He made his employers millions. He created Kansas City traditions such as Christmas in the Sky, and championed causes like Adopt A Family that help needy families all over the KC area. Dad was so wildly successful because on the air he was the same as he was off the air. He didn’t even change his name. He was Dan Hurst on and off the air.

Yesterday, Dad’s employer exercised an option in his contract that freed them up to fire him. And that was that. No recognition of a stellar career. No memo to the rest of the company thanking him for 18 years given to this particular company. Nothing.

My Dad spent 25 years on the air in one market. A feat unheard of anymore. David Lawrence did it. Noel Heckerson did it. Johnny Dare and Dick Wilson are doing it. It just doesn’t happen anymore; not in radio, not in any industry.

I’m pretty sure I won’t be with my current company for 18 years. I don’t even think I want to. Dad was lucky, though. He found an industry and a company that he loved, and he worked his ass off to make sure it never got away from him.

I think Dick Bott firing him set something off inside him, and I think I picked it up from him. It’s a violent determination to never stay down when beat up. A determination that no matter what I will make things work, dammit. The belief that if what I’m dreaming of doesn’t exist, then it’s up to me to make it a reality.

Here’s to 25 years well spent, and well lived. I can’t wait to see what he does with next 25.

Tags: "Kansas City", family, radio

I wrote this on Wednesday, February 4th, 2009 at 2:38 pm and filed it under Lifelike. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site. How's that for detail?