The Fredösphere

This is the first in a series of posts that look at the history of WUOM, Ann Arbor's public radio station.  It's from the point of view of Alan Young, who worked at the station for 12 years and was a casualty of the Great Massacre of '96, when the focus of the station was changed from classical music to talk.  In those years, WUOM was part of a trend that Garrison Keillor described in his novel Wobegon Boy, about public radio station manager who's devotion to classical music programming (and off-color jokes told to female staffers) gets him fired.  Which isn't exactly Alan's story ... but here, let him tell you.

I was hired in late August or early September 1984. I started work on September 17,1984.  I was hired by Ray Klatt who was the Operations Director at the time and served in other capacities as well including a brief handcuffed stint as Program Director in the lat 80's or early nineties.  Ray met me earlier in 1983 when I worked at Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp. I was the Classical Music Director at WBLV-FM, -what an exalted title! for such little authority or influence. Ray was interviewing there for the job of Station Manager.  He didn't get the job and went back to Ann Arbor.  I apparently impressed him enough though that when George Cacciopo died Ray hired me for George's shift- W-Sun  5:30pm-1:00am   ugh! ugh! The beginning of never ending graveyard and weekend shifts. 12 long years of working the fringes. I suppose I should mention more about George Cacciopo- Ann Arbor composer who had a show on WUOM called "New Music" He died in 1984 and I was hired to replace him.

When I arrived at WUOM Stephen Skelley was the Acting Station Manager and "Afternoon Musicale" host, Ray Klatt was operations director. Frind Hindley was News Director and Noon Show Host, Tom Hemmingway was Sports Director, Bob Whitman was News reporter and host of  the evening news program "News Final". Peter Greenequist was host of "the Morning Show" and Marian Stolar hosted the evening music shift- "Music of the Masters".  Over the course of the first year I filled in for everyone of the those hosts on their respective programs except for Tom Hemmingway-I did how ever over the years attend a number of hockey tournaments at Joe Louis Arena and filed reports from there. Mostly however I was miserable-working a board shift from 5 in the evening till 1 in the morning Wednesday through Sunday Nights.

Coming up:  The early years.