Madison

From my first day in kindergarten until my last day of high school, it was not just my mother who got my brothers and me up and out of the house every morning. Stan Neuberger helped. When he began to read the 7:25 local news on WEKZ, we knew we'd better be getting dressed by then. At 7:35, when he started reading the sports, we'd better be having breakfast. And at 7:40, he'd introduce Earl Nightingale's five-minute commentary "Our Changing World," and we'd better be ready to catch the bus by the time it was over. The routine was so precise and regular that there was no need to look at the clock - a lesson I never forgot after I went into radio myself. After I had worked in radio for a few years, and after I had abandoned the fantasy of working in a big market, I began to think that the best of all possible radio jobs might be "21st Century Stan" - to be the morning guy on WEKZ myself, waking up the farmers and the school kids, thereby completing the circle that had begun when I was a kid. What an honorable calling, to be such an integral part of so many lives. They aren't making radio men like Stan anymore, but their impact is forever. Those of us still in the business, who try each day to do our best, who try to have a positive impact on the people who tune in, are standing on the shoulders of radio men like Stan.