Knicely and Sadlemyer

Two legends of their respective mediums join me in the studio:  TV's John Knicely and radio's Gary Sadlemyer.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Scott Vordiez.

Speaker 2 (00:01):
He's been on TV in this town for fifty years
and joins us now on the radio from WOWT First
Alert six, John nicely, welcome back here to eleven ten kfab.

Speaker 3 (00:16):
I appreciate the first Alert six. You picked up on
that our brand has changed a little bit.

Speaker 1 (00:21):
I know.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
On top of it, well, I'll try and be a
media professional. We had our news director welcome on to
the television one time as being a part of radio
station one one one oh kfab, I try and get
things right, I see, not be like Nancy Grace. But John,

(00:43):
first of all, when you announced your retirement here recently
and that takes effect here in just two three weeks time, Yes,
I immediately, based on your suggestion, went through a barrage
of plastic surgery because I think we both agreed that
I would be the person to take over and be
the next reigning TV anchor star in this town. And

(01:05):
you said, Scott, I know you can do it. Yes,
I know, I know that got the number of a
good doctor, and so I immediately started plastic surgery. And
now I look, I look great, and then I come out,
you know, they take the bandages off and I find
out it's mastery.

Speaker 1 (01:21):
Are you kidding me? What happened?

Speaker 3 (01:24):
Well, that's a good question. I remember saying all those
things to you, and you brought it up, and Brian
is just right there, his chairs right by my desk,
and I think convenience sake, they thought, well, it's instead
of Scott, let's get you know Brian.

Speaker 2 (01:44):
So what am I supposed to do with these new
chiseled good looks. I'm on radio, it's just going to
waste Well.

Speaker 3 (01:50):
Actually, I thought you had him beforehand, and so I
think you're doing well with them, and they're going to
help you in your various endeavors, including I think on
the golf courses, you have to look good and then
to feel good.

Speaker 2 (02:02):
Right if you look like a golfer if you hit
a bad shot, they're like, well, clearly it's just a
bad shot. I mean, look at him, he looks like
a golfer. Exactly were you born looking like a TV personality?
Full head of hair, you know, just a smile and
eyes that could show both care and concern as well

(02:22):
as you know, some good natured fun when necessary.

Speaker 1 (02:25):
Is that is it does?

Speaker 4 (02:26):
Like?

Speaker 1 (02:26):
Is your baby picture?

Speaker 2 (02:27):
Are you holding a microphone? Uh?

Speaker 3 (02:30):
There is a picture where I was holding a ball
in my hand, so that but uh no.

Speaker 1 (02:36):
Golf ball.

Speaker 2 (02:36):
Probably here's the Gary Sadle myros back. Yeah, a couple
of guys who've been broadcasting for fifty years. I just
I just wanted to turn both your microphones on and
just sit back.

Speaker 4 (02:49):
Oh no, no, you're not getting away with that as
your show. You got to access questions.

Speaker 3 (02:55):
Good Jeff, Gary, don't let him push you around like that.

Speaker 2 (02:58):
All right, Fine, you I mean John is retiring, all right, fine,
I'll ask that. I'll ask the same question everyone asked me.
When's Gary going to retire? I said, I don't know,
in ten or twenty years. When he decides to do that,
we'll talk about it. Does does John retiring give you
some thought like, oh maybe there's something else out there?

Speaker 4 (03:19):
Well about that anyway? Yeah, you know, you get to
the point where you start thinking about that. But yeah,
but then I couldn't I wouldn't get to do this
every day, you know, really fun.

Speaker 1 (03:31):
So what's your excuse?

Speaker 3 (03:34):
Yeah, wait a minute, turned the table out of here. Yeah,
I think it was just you know, we've got a
lot of grand kids, Yeah, sure, got thirteen. Now we
just got I'm a rookie. They're not all in Omaha,
and so we're going to be my wife, so and
I well be free to get to Dallas and see
him in sports. Like I've got a granddaughter down there.

(03:57):
They had a basketball game recently. She's like eight years old.
The score after the first quarter was sixteen to nothing.
She had the sixteen points. Wow, Just so I don't
want to miss that.

Speaker 4 (04:09):
Yeah, yeah, that's a big deal. Mine are all here.
I'm lucky that way, But yeah, I understand what you
want to go see him?

Speaker 3 (04:16):
Yeah, yeah, we got Dallas and where else? Baltimore, Saint Louis. Wow,
And then we have six in town, but three of
them are out of the house already.

Speaker 2 (04:25):
Can't you still be I mean, with the wonders of
modern technology, can't you still be on the TV from
other cities? I mean, Mayor Stoth does it, and she's
still mayor of Omaha, and she's never here.

Speaker 1 (04:37):
Here we go right now, may Mayor. You know, I'm kidding.

Speaker 4 (04:46):
Yeah, there aren't many of us left, John, So No,
let's see Mike McKnight's still doing.

Speaker 3 (04:51):
It and doing it very well. Yeah, yeah, he's he
is so plugged in it's amazing.

Speaker 1 (04:58):
Yeah, he really is.

Speaker 3 (05:00):
I remember when, you know, way back when I started
seventy four, he came on just a short time after that,
and I remember him saying to me, John let's go
get him.

Speaker 1 (05:10):
Yeah, and a tiger, since he is a tiger.

Speaker 4 (05:14):
Yeah, Rob and Julie and Bill over at Channel seven,
I'm not sure. Probably not quite as long. They've been
there at it for a while.

Speaker 1 (05:23):
Yeah, but that's not Johnny's concern.

Speaker 4 (05:28):
No, I'm just trying to The numbers are dwindlight, That's
what I'm saying here.

Speaker 2 (05:32):
When when you see when you see those guys at
various events. Have you ever seen the movie Anchorman where
all the various TV anchors from different stations all get
together and have an Anchorman fight. Has that ever happened
in Omaha? You ever say to somebody, I'm a pretty
big deal.

Speaker 3 (05:53):
And stay classy. Yeah, that's right, I know that. To
my knowledge, that has not happened in Omaha.

Speaker 2 (06:00):
If you were to fight a member of a different
TV station in all your years here, who would it be?

Speaker 3 (06:08):
These are questions I haven't had.

Speaker 2 (06:12):
Who would you want to fight? Why would it be?
Rob McCartney.

Speaker 3 (06:17):
Okay, I think my wife is calling me.

Speaker 2 (06:21):
I named to the doctor. All right, let's let's go
back to the beginning here. What was your first What
was your first report? My first report is very memorable
if you like to know the story. So I was
the weekend sports guy at Channel six, and my first
time on the air was a Saturday.

Speaker 3 (06:39):
Like the early evening news. You have to know how
much copy to take out there with you script, you know,
to fill the time. I thought I had enough. I
was just out of college, and so I'm reading and
Wally Dean was my anchor. He got up and left
the set while I was reading, so there was nobody
out there, just me.

Speaker 1 (07:00):
I'm going on.

Speaker 3 (07:00):
I'm fine, and then I start to realize with my
peripheral vision, I started to read a little slower and
got down to the last page and read it very slow.
And you wouldn't you have script in your hands. There's
something to do. You got to get him in order
and put him down. So I did that, looked away

(07:22):
from the camera and looked up and the camera was
still looking at me, and so I said, well, we'll
be right back, looked down, looked up. The camera was
still staring at red lights still on Wally and uh,
finally I looked down and they went to the next program,
which was the Try Faith Report that followed our news,

(07:44):
and so we never came back, and Wally did come back,
walked in the state in the studio, saw me, looked
at the TV and turned around and.

Speaker 1 (07:53):
Walked out to know where he went.

Speaker 4 (07:58):
Actually, that's well, you were Sports at six and then
you went over to seventh sports, right.

Speaker 1 (08:05):
For a while.

Speaker 3 (08:05):
I went from six to Saint Louis, I did sports
three years, came back and did Sports at seven, and
jumped to news in ninety two.

Speaker 2 (08:13):
Yeah, but the Sports at seven thing was memorable.

Speaker 1 (08:16):
You know.

Speaker 2 (08:17):
I start the program here with this if this was
your childhood bit, and that could very easily be I
challenged John. You came to Ralston Middle School and I
saw my friends out there running an obstacle course with you,
and I thought, well.

Speaker 1 (08:29):
This is the coolest thing.

Speaker 2 (08:30):
We got a TV star here at our school and
he's running around with our friends. You know, so I
got beat by more ten year olds. How did that
idea start? And how come no one's picked that up
because everyone's all old and fat.

Speaker 3 (08:44):
Now, Yeah, it was suggested to me because a guy
in another market around the nation had done it, and
so they said, John, you could. Why did you try
doing that? So we named it. I challenged John and yeah,
I did so many things. But I had a great
response from viewers. They would all contact me, Well, meet

(09:07):
me at Carter Lake.

Speaker 1 (09:08):
You've got it.

Speaker 3 (09:09):
I did go there. I thought, this is good. I
can do this.

Speaker 2 (09:11):
I get similar requests from listeners of this program.

Speaker 1 (09:14):
Hey, go jump in Carter Lake. Meet me in Carter Lake.
Well this one.

Speaker 3 (09:21):
I thought, well, you know, I know how to water ski,
so this will be easy. I get there and the
guy hands me a crash helmet. It says, you see
that water ski jump over there, the jump you're going
to go over way? Oh yeah, and this is Bud Piercy.
He's in the Hall of Fame for water skiing. He's
in his d anyway. So they taught me what to do,

(09:44):
and they said, whatever you do when you and they
showed me the ramp because I had water trickling down
to keep it.

Speaker 1 (09:51):
Yeh, slipper.

Speaker 3 (09:53):
They said, when you get to the ramp, make sure
you don't pull back on the rope. Just go let
the rope pull you over. I thought, okay, I got it.
So you're going around you know, it's a horse shoe
out there. You go around the bend and then you're
starting to realize what you're about to do. Yeah, the
music is building in your head. Yeah, And so finally

(10:13):
you swing out to the left and you're you're kind
of committed. We kept getting the water jump, kept getting closer,
and I thought at one time I can just pull
out of this, but then I couldn't.

Speaker 1 (10:25):
You didn't do the agony a defeat retained, did you?

Speaker 3 (10:29):
It was agony as a matter of fact.

Speaker 1 (10:31):
You didn't stick the landing.

Speaker 3 (10:33):
In other words, Well, I hit that ramp with my
skis and immediately pulled back on the rope, which you
normally do with a water ski, and so my skis
were ahead of me and they were going up in
the air. I went off the end of it and
I was looking at heaven, Yeah, flying through the air,
and landed smacked down on my back in the water.

(10:53):
So I'm underwater and thinking, well, the rescue boat's going
to be here, and they were and they were laughing.

Speaker 1 (11:00):
Yeah, you were glad you had the helmet on, probably yes,
and was a good look. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (11:06):
So he tried it again, and landed it and immediately
fell down. But I bet that was fun anyway, those
kind of things happened, Yeah, it was a lot of fun.

Speaker 2 (11:18):
Well, being a part We're talking here with John Nicely,
whose last day on WWT First Alert six is March
March twelfth, twelve, So Wednesday night, Why in the middle
of the week. I did that because I got a well,
March Madness is going on Thursday night. I thought, sure,

(11:41):
every want to sign off and compete with that.

Speaker 1 (11:43):
Yeah, that's right.

Speaker 2 (11:44):
Well, I being a part of the community. Gary Sandelmeyer's
in here as well and certainly knows this all too
well too, that, you know, being a part of the
community for the better part of fifty years, certainly, I
mean you can't you can't beat it. And I don't
know if it can be duplicated with everyone being so
nomadic and moving all over the place, and it's journalism

(12:06):
not quite what it used to be. I don't know
that we're going to see guys like the two of
you ever again. Can you talk John about just what
it's meant to be a part of Omaha for fifty years?

Speaker 3 (12:20):
Yeah, I think as saying being a part of Omaha
is the key, like you pointed out, because you know
the community and you know what a great community it
is and the people that are in it, the type
of people, and you get involved, you help with the
charity event you can MC But in the process of
doing that, you see what people are doing around you

(12:41):
you otherwise wouldn't know, and it's very encouraging. It's just
a great place to raise a family. But people just
do things in our community serving others, which is great
to see. Some Yeah, that's a part of the community.

Speaker 1 (12:57):
No doubt.

Speaker 4 (13:00):
Well I'm you know, so many people in our business
radio or TV. Part of the part of their goal,
if you will, or the way a lot of them
roll is you want to move on to the next station. Okay,
Well I want to get to that station. I want
to get to that city that was never met. I'm
a I'm a Midwest guy and I'm a roots guy,

(13:21):
and and when I came here this station, where do
I want to go from this state? And then I
just love the city, you know, the area, and the
time flies. We've been in the same building. Well, you
guys were in the same building almost the whole time
before well you know you still are.

Speaker 3 (13:39):
We were we moved it. Yeah, and some farm and
we just moved next.

Speaker 4 (13:43):
Door, right, but basically the same area, and the time
just zooms by, It just does.

Speaker 1 (13:48):
And I love it.

Speaker 4 (13:49):
I love the people here, getting out, meeting the listeners
and getting to talk to people every morning.

Speaker 3 (13:57):
You've got a far reach with your signal, too, John,
What are the chances that you change your mind, like
it gets to be that week and you pull a
j leto or maybe after a couple of weeks, like
you're watching Mastery, going well, this clearly isn't working out.

Speaker 2 (14:11):
I say that with all love and respect. I adore
Brian Mastery. Don't tell him I said that. But so
you decide to come back, You're like, all right, put
Brian back out in the street.

Speaker 1 (14:22):
I'll go back in there.

Speaker 3 (14:23):
Any chance that's not going to happen.

Speaker 1 (14:27):
Brian's been out of a while too here.

Speaker 3 (14:29):
Yeah, he's been twenty eight years in Omaha, in thirty
years in this business.

Speaker 1 (14:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (14:34):
Well you came here, and I think you know people
that are still doing the Valka came here the same
year you did, and he's still doing He does Huscar basketball,
so he's still on. And you were seventy four and
that's when you came. Yeah, and but yeah, the numbers
are dwindling. So I don't think you should do this.
I really really think no. I understand that though, that

(14:56):
that'll be cool.

Speaker 3 (14:57):
Yeah, the TV business is really changing a lot, well
changed over the years, and you know, with the ways
you can get the news and people's habits, right, there's
not you know, people don't watch TV the way that
I did growing up.

Speaker 4 (15:14):
And well, you know what I've wondered, perfectly, frank with you,
how local TV for any TV uh survived selling advertising?
Because I got to tell you what. We watch recorded
shows now and you fast forward through commercials, you know,

(15:34):
like if I'm watching you guys, you go to a break,
I fast forward to your next segment. Yep, you know,
and that's got to be a little bit different now.
Radio you can't really do that.

Speaker 2 (15:43):
No, Yeah, we have a podcast form.

Speaker 1 (15:46):
Well yeah, a little, that's true.

Speaker 4 (15:47):
But I mean, if you're gonna watch or if you're
gonna listen, there's not a there's not a d d AR.
I guess the digital audio recorder readily available like there
is for TV. Is that a big issue for you guys.

Speaker 3 (16:01):
Well, it certainly is, Yeah, especially for the advertising in
the sales movement, like you said, and people's habits. I know,
and I watch a Nebraska game I DV are it.
I hope that nobody says anything to me.

Speaker 1 (16:15):
Good luck with that.

Speaker 2 (16:16):
Yeah, So what happens for you March thirteenth?

Speaker 1 (16:20):
What are you doing? Are you fishing? You golfing? Got
to be golfing, I would think, hopefully.

Speaker 3 (16:26):
I think one of my goals is to have Rusty
invite me to his house in his man cave to
watch NCAA basketball.

Speaker 1 (16:35):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (16:36):
Yeah, I have not gotten the invitation yet.

Speaker 1 (16:38):
Yeah, Rusty, Rusty, Rusty good man? As are you?

Speaker 2 (16:45):
John Nicely, Thank you so much for coming in here
and spending a little time with this. You guys are
great and being here for your exit interview. Yea also
official one right here. Also, I'm gonna need you to
reply to that email. Just five things that you accomplished
last week. That's all last time, not a big deal. Yeah,
five things you accomplished the last fifty years.

Speaker 3 (17:06):
Hope and I could avoid that. Now I have to
do it.

Speaker 2 (17:09):
John Nicely, you are the best man you guys, And
Gary Sadlemeyer, Yes, if both can be the best of
your respective broadcast media, all that, so we got you
both right here.

Speaker 1 (17:19):
That was fun. I appreciate it. Scott Boys Mornings nine
to eleven, Our News Radio eleven ten KFAB