As I cruise the 'net, looking for more information to plug holes in KAAY's history, I occasionally come upon a nugget that becomes fruitful! I found a closed blog that had airchecks (no longer available, drat!) that listed "Mitch Michaels/John King". I'd not heard of the former, so I contacted Jonny King, who mentioned that he knew "Mitch" as Nick Markel and gave me contact information on him...by the way, Jonny said he NEVER used "John"! We supposed that was the notes of the logger....
Inquiring of Nick, he was gracious enough to send along some notes:
"I first worked at KAAY in the summer of 1968. I was 17 at the time and had been in radio 4 years. George Jennings was PD and he had me audition in the production room and Eddie Graham ran the controls. I did vacation shifts that summer but ended up working well into the school semester due to the death of Richard Weithan ("Buddy Carr" bs). They continued to call me to do vacation and fill-in work until I went to work full time in Feb, 1969. My first full time gig was middays, from 10am to 3pm. I moved to news in the fall of 1970 and was named News Director (at age 20) in January, 1971. I remained at KAAY until July 1978.
I left broadcasting in 1988 and haven't looked back. For the past twenty years, I've been leading healthcare IT departments and currently serve as CIO of a group that owns and operates rural hospitals. I have designed and managed computer networks all over the country and have lived in Arkansas, Florida, Virginia, and Puerto Rico. At this point, I'm currently residing again in Arkansas.
Best wishes,
Nick Markel"
Nick, thanks for sharing information with us! Please stop by and give us a look-see from time to time.
Bud S. (staceys4@hotmail.com)
NICK, MY MAN!!!
ReplyDeleteI have been wondering about you for YEARS--and here you finally show up with a REAL job, an actual CAREER, contributions to Society! This ain't nothin' but good news on a rainy day. Thanks to The King and The Blog for finding you, thank you for catching us up!
Your Fan,
David B. Treadway
Doc Holiday 1971-72
Nick and I went fishing on Lake Conway a few times. Lake Conway is a stump infested puddle about a half hour outside of Little Rock. There are small cabins dotting the shoreline, and if you can find the right hole, you can catch a nice mess of Crappie.
ReplyDeleteNick and I headed out one hot summer day and rented a flat bottom boat at the bait shop. After a couple of hours we were out of crickets, and our 6-pack was gone, so it was time to head for shore.
On the way in, we hit a stob that poked a hole in the bottom of the boat. We were stuck on the stob and couldn't get off it. We were also down a few IQ points because of the 6-pack, and didn't think to climb out of the boat into 3 Ft water and just lift it off.
Somehow (perhaps divine intervention?) we got the boat off the stob and made it back to shore before she sank. We quickly offloaded our gear into the pickup and sneaked out of the parking lot before the bait shop owner found out he had a boat with a hole in it.
Those were great days, eh Nick? I don't remember if we even caught any fish, but that wasn't important anyway. We were having some fun!
Best regards to ya! Dave M//
Looking to talk to Nick Markel. My Dad worked with him back in 1969-1971 and before that at KBBA. At KBBA, my Dad was Bill Summers and in the KAAY News Department he was Bill Edwards.
ReplyDelete