COVERING RURAL NEVADA ALONE BECAUSE NOBODY WANTS TO GO WITH YOU.

            I’m often asked how an ol’ cowboy and peace officer like me ended up in television news. It was not be design. It sort of evolved because I didn’t want to work outside in the dead of winter.

            It began back on December 18^th, 1982. My wife and the time and I rolled into Virginia City from South Dakota where I had been working on the railroad. Prior to that I was buckarooing on the Grayson Ranch in Paradise Valley on my way back from Arkansas where I had a two year tour as a police chief.

            When we breezed into town on that cold December day, I had no idea what I was going to do for a living.

We had $400.00 between us, a roping horse and a one-eyed dog. We sat in the Sazarac Saloon with Mike and Annette Daniels over Strawberry Daiquiris that afternoon discussing what I was going to do for a living. I didn’t want to go back to law enforcement, and I didn’t want to be breaking horses in the middle of winter.

Enter Jack Slothhower, program director at KSRN radio in Meadowood Mall.

            With a little radio experience under my belt from my Arkansas days, I started pounding the pavement thinking that radio announcing might be a good idea. One of the places I visited was the KSRN studios above a bank building in Meadowood Mall.

            Jack Slothhower was the program director, and after chatting for a few minutes, and learning my background, he hired me on the spot because he liked my voice.

            I went to work the very next day, but I also learned that I would be an account executive too, which meant that most of my salary would be commission from the radio ads I could sell. It seemed promising enough. I was promised 25 percent of everything I could sell, and was told I could make a bundle.

            Wait to hear what happened next. I often say I had to get out of radio because of my health. The reason is, I was sick of starving.