CEO/Founder
Twin Ports Broadcasting, Corp.

One late October day in 2006 I received the following email from former WDTH dee jay Dave "Dave North" Shogren. It read as follows:

 "Hi, Thanks for the great website (referring to the "History of Twin Ports Broadcasting" website). I found it when I googled WDTH. I worked there from 1972 until the day we went off the air. David North at WDTH, while I used my own name at WDSM, David Shogren from 1971-1972 and again in 1976-1977. I also produced commercials at WDIO 1974-1975. I left Duluth in 1978 after a few years of independent production, went to the Cities (WCCO FM/WAYL FM) and then LA. I anchored the Armed Forces Network TV News in Germany through the middle 1980s-1990. I have since retired and am living in Thailand. Thanks for your efforts. I was out searching for other WDTH staff. Has anyone contacted you?

Thanks, David."

I had heard of WDTH before but knew nothing about it really. I was in junior high when it started and a freshman in high school when it "died." I remembered the older high school students were soliciting a petition to try and keep the station on the air. Yet at that age I couldn't figure out what all the excitement was about. It was just some radio station. 

I hadn't even considered WDTH as a possible "add" to the growing list of local Twin Ports stations I needed to get history and images for. A year earlier, a friend of mine had asked that I include whatever I could find about WDTH. I told him "it was on the list, but further down." What I didn't want to tell him was that I hadn't given it a thought because I had KDAL and WEBC on the top of the list first. After all, I had plenty of historical data to get a page going and generate plenty of curiosity not to mention more contributions of photos and data just on those two stations alone.

But it would be Dave Shogren  who would be the inspiration for this project and subsequent website. Litttle did I know I would be building a separate web site for it, not to mention, building a streaming internet radio station as a "re-creation" of what would be know as "The Twin Ports' FIRST Album Rock Station." I also didn't expect to lose Dave in death just a year or so later.

Like me, Dave was a Two Harborite. A graduate of Two Harbors High School nearly a decade before me. I heard rumors when I was in junior high that some Two Harbors guy named Shogren was a dee jay on some radio station. A bunch of us kind of oo'd and aww'd over it. More me than the rest because I, too, was now getting the radio bug myself. I figured if someone from Two Harbors of all places could get into radio so could I. Later on, my same friend who suggested I include WDTH in our history site, was now in the business himself. Another Two Harborite behind a microphone I thought later.

I decided to send Dave an email reply asking for more details about WDTH and to see if we had something worthy of spending time poking around the history of this "unknown" station.

Later in the evening I received this reply to my request:

 "Dave, Thanks for the response. I would be glad to write up a WDTH history. Or, more likely, to rewrite it according to my memory. I sat here last nights. trying to remember names and dates. 35 years ago is a bit foggy. I also worked for Lew (Latto of WDSM and WAKX AM-FM) for a few months when WDTH folded. Roger Johnson (WAKX P.D. at the time) hired me for nights as I was working days for WDIO. That was a bit much to do for any great length of time, especially with Lew's format that required all spoken material to be taken from his 3x5 note cards. KPIR was no more and Lew was trying to fill the rock void left by WDTH folding. I will shoot something off to you in a few days. I am also writing a novel, under contract to a company in Bangkok. David."

 I was a bit surprised to be hearing back from him so soon. I kind of got this feeling he was excited about telling his side of the story to someone who was willing to read it. Afterall, this was another good source of information about other stations like WDSM, WAKX, WDIO, and KPIR. It's always good to have plenty of sources for information about things like that.

"Dave, Here is the edited version, 2.0, that is more polished. (His first one needed a lot of "tweaking") I am "Cc-ing" Scott Roen and Glen Backman as they may also have some facts I have forgotten. I am searching for pictures. I have no air checks, at least here in Thailand. If I find anything I will let you know. Also, if you need anything rewritten or clarified, please do not hesitate to ask. Thanks, David."

 Attached to this was a Word document file and a photo of Dave and his new wife taken on shore along River Kwai, the same river that inspired the movie "Bridge Over The River Kwai." Now I had work to do and delved into his recollections of his time at WDTH and in the world of all things broadcasting in the Twin Ports.

Dave called his essay "WDTH: The Lost Station." Odd I thought when I first saw it, but once I had finished reading it, I understood why WDTH was in fact "The Lost Station."

The station got off on the wrong footing, meaning that its owners and managers had no clue what this new format called "Album Oriented Rock" (or AOR) was and second they didn't have a total grasp of this new radio medium call "FM".

I have said this before that it is easy to perform a post mortem on what killed the station well after the fact. Had they had better guidance it would have been an awesome "power house" for the music that was considered AOR back then.

I feel kind of sad that Dave has left us. I still have many questions about WDTH that need answers from his prospective.

Since we first published Dave's "The Lost Station" essay I have heard from several other people who either strongly agreed with Dave's recollection of events or disputed them.

Someday I would like to open up the question on a forum page and let "Court of Public Opinion" preside and debate all the facts as people remember them. But for now, our goal is re-create and portray WDTH as a successful station that could have been on top of the FM dial in the Twin Ports for many years before the world of consolidation smashed the Twin Ports' market into a fine mush.

Local radio and television have never been the same since. I would have loved to ask Dave what he thought WDTH could have been 10, 20, or 30 into the future from its first day on the air in 1971.

I am sure Dave is looking down on all of this wondering what the heck we have started here. Hopefully I'll get most of it right if those of you who remember reach out and help us. WDTH will never return as a terrestrial radio station, but it has as a internet radio station. All it needs is some volunteers, more music and plenty of memories to add from the past and to make in the future.