Possibly, I am the last person to admit that I worked there. Not only will I admit to having worked there, I will admit to having loved it. I grew up in Two Harbors idolizing KDAL. After all, with both the Mickey Mouse Show and Edward R Murrow, why would a kid want to work anywhere else?

When Marsh Nelson did our high school games in the late 1960s, I would attach myself to him as a gopher, keep score and run for Cokes for him. I wrote fan letters to Earl Henton. I applied for jobs there on a regular basis as a high school kid, but it was never to be. Fate had a much different course for me.

To the best of my memory, WDTH-FM 103 signed on full time in June of 1971. There had been transmitter tests in May and a tower collapse reported in the (Duluth) Herald-Tribune.

The idea of a FM rock station was even more appealing than working at KDAL. As WGGR-Beautiful Music was the only commercial FM station on the air at that time, it did not take much convincing to tune my FM to 103 and just wait for the transmitter tests.

The first thing I heard over the air was Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young "Wooden Ships". After spending years listening to Clyde Clifford's "Beaker Street" on KAAY from Little Rock, local non-Top 40 music was going to be great.

Regular broadcasts started the week leading up to my graduation from high school. Car radios did not have FM bands then, so I wore out a lot of batteries on my big Motorola portable in the car. FM car converters were being sold, but I couldn't afford one.

I was enrolled in Superior State University (now UW-S) for the Fall of 1971 as a Theatre Major with a Radio-TV Minor. During the summer of 1971, I tested for and received the 3rd Class Radio Operator's License (with Element 9 endorsement) which would allow me to take remote transmitter readings and thus work as a DJ anywhere but WEBC which required a 1st Class License. WSSU-FM's faculty graciously allowed me to train in on the board before school started. It was there that I met Jim Diulio, who was the roommate of Scott Bennett, PD of WDTH.

Bennett offered me a weekend gig at WDTH as early as October of 1971, after only a few months on the air at WSSU. I was set on getting a degree and becoming a TV anchor man, so I declined.

Dick Dailey hired me in the newsroom at WDSM in December of 1971. My first radio news broadcast there was on my mother’s birthday, 17 December. I worked at WDSM AM/TV for over a year as a radio news reporter, DJ, film camera man, film editor and news crew dispatcher. Working with Dailey, George Couture, Dick Anthony, Roy Harnish, Bob Junkert, Rocky Teller, Dennis Soar, "Mr. Toot" Ray Paulson, Walt Kramer, Don Savage, Lew Martin and others was a great education.

I was not the first Two Harborite to work at WDTH. Lee Olsen (Class of 1969) apparently also worked there as a part-timer for a while. He had a band with Ray Pirranen in the 1960s. I welcome anyone who can tell me what the name was.

WDTH-FM seemed to change formats monthly. The "underground" music vanished to be replaced by Top 40, then beautiful music, then a Bonneville format. You never knew what would happen next. Bob Hansen was the manager then.

There were rumors that the station would fold.

In late 1972, I received my first industrial film contract from the DM&IR Railroad. (Now Canadian National). It had only taken a year to convince me that I wanted to own my own ad agency, so at age 19, I struck out on my own. And fell flat on my face.

Scott Bennett called me one snowy day in December of 1972, while I was listening to Fred Scott on WDTH. He offered me the morning show. I tried hard not to seem too excited "We have decided to start a news department and we would like you to be the news director. You will also have to do the morning DJ show for a while until we get another DJ,” said Bennett, knowing that he had covered all the bases."

"When do you want me to start?"

"Tomorrow. I will meet you there at 5 AM."

I was there at 4:30. They were no longer 24 hours. The place was sealed up tight. No Bennett at 4:45, 5:00 or 5:15. I called his place in Superior. Diulio answered. Bennet was still asleep.

"Come over and get the keys. Scott forgot."

I flogged my aging Saab 96 over the bridge, grabbed the keys and made it back by 6AM.

I called Bennett and he walked me through the transmitter reading procedures and signing on. There was no teletype, no news, so I did a rip, rewrite and read live from the Duluth Herald and News Tribune. I made up the weather.

About 9:30 other staff members rolled in. Bob Hansen was on his way out as GM. Bennet was on his way out as PD.

Jerry Karkinen, a sales guy from some country station I have since forgotten the name of, was to be sales manager and the GM. Fred Scott was going to be the PD. Karkinen never missed an opportunity to tell us that he never listened to the
station. For the hour a day he was there, he would sit with the door closed and listen to country.

Fred reoriented us to Top-40 Glitter Rock and we seemed to find out feet for a while.

Ad sales went up. I did mornings, Fred did afternoons, Scott Ingram (son of Bill Ingram) did evenings and Chet and Uncle Wally came back to do the overnights. Vance Vietenen (sp) (Jason W. Vance) and a few others filled in on weekends. We worked 7 days a week. No vacations no leave time, no overtime. We loved it, even with the Top 40 format. When the Miller Hill Mall opened, we were on in most of the stores. WEBC with their AM signal would not penetrate the building. Only FM would get through. From Monkey Wards to Suns of Britches, we were on the "street".

We got an AP teletype. We started doing news. Ben Boo stopped in to do live interviews. We went to press conferences. When Wounded Knee happened, Indians on the US/Canadian Border closed it to traffic. Don Savage had alerted me about it and I raced up there between two Minnesota State Patrol cars. By the time WCCO TV got there, ABC FM Contemporary News had been running my beepers for four hours.