June 4, 2025 • 46 mins
In this episode, I sit down with Rick Lukens, Bud Nameck and Dennis Patchin to discuss their early careers in sports reporting and just how much the news industry has changed through the decades. Is there a future for sports reporting?
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Listen more to Leslie's Lowedown on Life:
KHQ: https://www.khq.com/podcasts/lowedown/
Spotify: open.spotify.com/show/2zh3I6QViMX9u71UQPZ5bI?si=Zu7gGK2YTCqjSs0f1479bw
Apple Podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/leslies-lowedown-on-life/id1793616053
iHeart: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/53-leslies-lowedown-on-life-262851666/
Follow Me!
Facebook: facebook.com/LeslieLowe10
Instagram: instagram.com/khqleslielowe
#sports #news #reporter #podcast #leslielowe
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
So you were telling the sports stories, get something to prove, right.
You wanted to be out there, You wanted to be
the very best, so you were going to prove the work.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
We got to.
Speaker 3 (00:07):
Get the small schools too. It's just as important for
those kids to be on TV as it is for
the bigger schools.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
To be on TV.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
What are the biggest successes? Well, whose brain child was
Friday Night Extra?
Speaker 4 (00:19):
The thing that amazes me still is that Catchel I
went to ABC and asked permission to delay Nightline?
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (00:27):
Do you guys know what you did? Do you know
who you are?
Speaker 2 (00:30):
We just did a great show.
Speaker 5 (00:31):
Here's a guy who just used to work for KHQ
saying want to buy a truck?
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Oh god, I was mad.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
Are you guys? I'm so excited to enterd shoot my
three yesterday. I feel like I've grown up with you,
even though we're all about the same age, because I
was the oldest intern in the building when I came in.
But I am sitting with legends, and I told you
when he came in, I'm a little bit nervous. I'm
a little bit intimidated by you guys. But the three
Kings of Sports local sports here every that he knows you.
(01:00):
You are legends. I've got the great Rick Lukens, Bud
Namic and Dennis Patchen and you guys really revolutionized local sports.
You should, yeah, get acquainted. Take a minute and just
get to know each other.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
Is you know, we'll peel the curtain back a little bit.
We all got to know Leslie when she was the intern.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
I was the intern.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Knew Leslie before you did.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
That's true.
Speaker 4 (01:27):
Leslie was when I met she was missus Washington. Oh
boy was It was shortly after I had left k
x Y and making the transition from TV to radio
and had the golf center and then also a friend
of mine and I started a little internet company and
(01:49):
Leslie became a salesperson for us.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Did you ever sell?
Speaker 1 (01:52):
I don't think I sold a darn thing for you.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
I did not. I did not.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
I forgot about that.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
Leslie was the greatest intern because she always bought a
box of Krispy Kreme donuts.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
Well, you got to bribe people, right right, I.
Speaker 5 (02:06):
Mean, yeah, you want people to like you, Donuts is
always a.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Good way to go.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Well, I knew you were all talking behind my back,
Like what's this old lady doing in here calling herself
an interns.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
Well, actually, to be honest with you, when we fot
out how old you were, we were kind of surprised.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
We didn't think you were that old.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
So oh nice. Yeah, okay, I'll pay you guys all later. Yeah,
that's fine. I'm happy to see that charge.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
I got a bill we're working on right now.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
So okay, well charge it, put it on a tab. Yeah.
I mean, I do have history with all three of you,
and I would say that I got to say thank
you to all three of you for helping me to
get to where I am today. And I wouldn't have
been able to do it without you. I mean, Dennis,
I used to go back to your office Sports office,
and people always told me, don't worry about Dennis. You know,
(02:53):
he's like that to everybody. And I was like, he
was like a big teddy bear, right. I just brought
him donuts and made everybody happy. And then Bud, Yes,
we go way back to missus Washington days, which gosh,
that was a long time ago. That's a long time ago. Yeah,
don't tell anybody. But then I also would go on
nine twenty when I was doing like cut ins for weather,
(03:15):
and I kind of learned to get hone in that
more newsy side of things. And you taught me a
lot about that. And then I got to work with
you and your beautiful wife Teresa. Yeah, classy ninety nine
point nine.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (03:27):
And it was the thing about Leslie was, you know,
we had we had interns, and you know, we had
very pretty interns, like Leslie was I am, and all
of them came through the door and thought, I'm going
to be on radio or I'm going to be on TV,
and thought just being pretty in being there was enough.
And she was the exception. Leslie worked her butt off
(03:48):
and so that's what gets you noticed. It's not the donuts.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
It wasn't the donuts.
Speaker 5 (03:52):
No, Leslie actually worked hard and tried to get better.
And when you do that, you win a lot of friends,
you know.
Speaker 4 (04:00):
And I think part of that, Leslie, was because when
you became a media person, you weren't just out of school.
You were a little older, you'd lived life a little bit,
so you knew the work ethic that Rick was talking about.
You knew you had to have that work ethic if
you were going to survive.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
I had to prove myself and I knew it. Going in,
I was like, oh, nobody wants me to know. Everybody
told me you can't do this. What are you thinking?
And I thought I have to prove myself and I
was willing to do whatever it took, whether it be
running the board on radio, going out with whatever reporter,
getting whoever coffee, bringing into I didn't care because I
just wanted to be a part of who you guys were.
(04:36):
And it's been quite the right I'll tell you that
right now. But let's not talk about me, because I
want to talk about you guys honestly. So take me
back to the mid eighties because that's when you guys
all came together, right, is that the mid eighties when
you guys I got.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Hired last in February of eighty four, okay, so.
Speaker 5 (04:55):
January of eighty three, about a year before, and B
hired us both at KX okay.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
And then what brought this to the whole team together?
Because you start, you did revolutionize high school sports, you
really did. You went in there with football and then
you kind of took over. And I know that when
I was raising my kids, if one of you guys
was showing up, it was a big deal. It was
a big deal.
Speaker 5 (05:18):
So I think, first of all, the first thing that
set us apart from you're going back to the early
eighties and the other stations with what they were doing
with sports. And I think these guys will agree with
me that that if you were in the sports department,
people kind of laughed.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
At you a little bit. Well, that's okay.
Speaker 5 (05:36):
He is a sports guy, you know, and the sports
guys don't really work and blah blah blah, and that
would piss me off. Yes, And I think it's the
same for these two. We worked our butts off, just
like you did when you were an intern, and we
worked hard. And I think when you when you mentioned
revolutionized sports, I go to that because we did work
(05:58):
hard and we weren't going to let anybody beat us.
And so I think that's where it started with this
bonding of the three of us. We all raised the
bar for each other. We wanted to win.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
Every day.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
We wanted to beat the other two stations. We didn't
want to like them, we didn't want to wed. We
just wanted to win.
Speaker 5 (06:21):
And every day we didn't want to hang out with
them in a bar after work or anything like that,
or on the road and it's like I can remember
being on the road with competing sports people to say, Hey, Rick,
We're going out to such and such a place in
Seattle and I go have fun, you know.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
And one thing though, that was different in those days.
Speaker 4 (06:42):
Yeah, we were competitive, but it was also different from
the standpoint that if you're out shooting a game and
your battery is dying, you don't have a spare battery
something Lonia battery or Lonia a tape back in.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
The old days.
Speaker 4 (06:55):
So there was there was competitiveness, but there were all
was also a little bit cooperation. But the thing that
was I always used to joke with, you know, Koxy.
The reputation I knew of kax I was just a
huge revolving door in terms of people on air and everything.
So I always joked with Kasy management, they should let
me do all the hiring, because I hired Rick and
(07:16):
Dennis and we stuck together for over thirty years, you know,
transitioning from TV to radio and doing different things. But
the thing that was most important to me when I
was looking to hire somebody and eventually hired Frederick, which
was the way I knew of Rick at first, and
then Dennis was. I wanted somebody who was good at
(07:36):
what they were doing, but also was a good person.
And I think that is the thing that I remember
the most from this is that we were unique in
that we could all anchor, we could all shoot, we
could all report. I didn't get to report much because
I had to anchor the five and the six and
the eleven. Dennis did both, Rick did both, and then
(07:59):
Rick really his his forte really was you know, Rick's
as good as a writer and storyteller as anybody that's
ever worked in this market, as far as.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
I'm concidning in the business, forget about this market, in
the business, He's the greatest feature reporter I've ever seen
in my life period.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
End of statement.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
I will fight you in the street today if you
if you say.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
And yeah, I don't want to go up again, I
would agree with you, though, Lucan's a large right among them.
Speaker 5 (08:32):
For many years kind of out of the sports.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
Realm, so you were telling the sports stories and and
that I think that again, that's why it set you
a part. You had something to prove, right. You wanted
to be out there, you wanted to be the very best.
So you were going to prove that you were. But
then you were also telling the best stories and you
were spotlighting so many different aspects that I don't think
we'd seen before.
Speaker 3 (08:53):
One of the other things, too, is it was we
were different because we had three of us and the
other two stations in town only had two.
Speaker 4 (09:00):
So but they had a photographer pretty much a signed
to them.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
We didn't because we could all shoot right. But our
thing was is.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
We wanted to make sure that there was no national
stories in our in our sports casts. Okay, they know,
people don't didn't tune into us to watch that. They
you know, it was the early days of ESPN, but
they could get their things, and then once the Internet
came around, came around, you could get all that stuff.
So what our focus was was on local stories, local, local, local, local, local,
(09:31):
and then more local.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
Stories you can't get anywhere else except for when we had.
Speaker 4 (09:35):
A news director who told us the Seahawks and the
Mariners weren't and the Sonics at that time they're not local.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
Yeah. Well, he didn't last very long.
Speaker 5 (09:40):
So we outlasted him and many other Exactly.
Speaker 4 (09:48):
I can't name all the news directors we worked for.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
I could, but I might. I might get ill along
the way.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
I think I can get most of them, but I'd
rather not talk about some of them, because you know,
they were a hindrance to what we were doing. Usually
the greatest thing of a news director after three months
when they come in figure out what they'd come to you,
and go, I don't have to worry about you, guys,
you keep doing what you're doing. Most of them did that.
There were a few that decided that they knew better
than we did, and they either found out quickly that
(10:18):
we weren't going to listen to what they had to say,
or they weren't there very much longer.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
I feel like that's a huge thing. If a news
director or somebody at a higher level can look and
see that they have got talent in front of them,
and then learn to trust that talent, step back and
let you guys do what you do. That's when the
magic happens.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
I think that's what makes it a good leader is
he figures out, hires good people and let them do
what they want. Now, if you want a course correction,
you want to bump them half a lane over one
way or the other. I want something done stylistically a
little different, Okay, that's fine, but why try to change
something that's successful. I mean, kicks Y for a long
period of time was known for not a very good
(10:58):
news product, but a really good sports product.
Speaker 4 (11:00):
Well, first time kicks I was number one at eleven
was because of Friday Night Sports Extra.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
We didn't do very well Monday through Thursday, but we
doated so of Fridays.
Speaker 4 (11:10):
Then we were ACTU and that was quite a celebration.
Speaker 5 (11:13):
The rating, the ratings at the quarter hour took a
jump of about thirty five percent from people who were
watching at eleven on Friday night till eleven fifteen on
Friday night. It jumped like thirty five percent or something.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
Well, and that show was such a boon for us,
but it's also a boon for all of those kids
through multiple generations and everybody is still doing a show now.
One of the great things that I'm proud of, and
I know Rick and but feel the same way is
made the other two stations get off their butts and
actually go out and cover some things and got more
kids on television in a positive way. Making a basket,
(11:49):
catching a touchdown pass, you know, doing those kind of things.
And I think that's that was important and that's one
of the things I take that really hits me is
when people come up and say, and they're forty five,
they're fifty, they got gray hair.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
You know you had you put me.
Speaker 3 (12:06):
On on TV one night, and that was that's I
think that's a really important thing. And it's you know what,
if nothing else for our legacy, the three of Us
is Friday Night Sports Extra.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
I'm good with that.
Speaker 4 (12:18):
And I one of the things I think is great
about Friday Night Sports Extra is really we changed the
culture in a way for high school football teams and coaches.
These teams that would travel quite a ways, their coaches
would stop to get food for the kids, and then
they'd stop at a tavern and pop in while the
(12:39):
kids stayed on the bus and ate their food. To
see the scores and see how their opponents, you know,
the teams they compete against. They'd watch highlights and that
was cool. The officials would would always get together at
the Old Shack and they made it a point they
were watching watch That's why we had an officials date.
We went to theme shows and had the officials show
and did fun stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
Oh that took me back the Shack. Yeah, back in
the good old days.
Speaker 5 (13:02):
Right, Yeah, just a hop, skip and a jump from
where we're sitting right now.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
I think it was just so important. And like you said, Dennis,
I mean kids coming back who are now grown saying
thank you. I mean the parents too. Like I said,
when my kids were doing sports and they were in school,
it was all about were Rick Butden, Denni's going to
show up where anybody? Were any of you going to
be there? And it was a big deal and they
(13:28):
were so excited. The parents wanted to see them on TV.
That was exciting for them. I remember taping like the
old school tape to catch that and the kids were
so excited to have that memory.
Speaker 5 (13:39):
Well, and then also you talk about the kids two
years later, say you put me on TV. You could
go to a game and see a parent in the
stand watching their child play football or basketball, and you
covered the parent. You know what I'm saying, which is, yeah,
you get two generations there. So that was pretty cool.
And then the other neat thing about Friday Night Sports
(14:02):
Extra was that everybody we worked with got on board
with it. And I'm talking about the people who ran
the cameras in the studios, all of the people who
volunteered said hey, can I go out and shoot a game?
And we'd send people out with very like we'd have
to show them how to run a camera and send
them out and then hopefully be able to edit something
(14:24):
that they brought back. But the people who edited and
the directors and I mean studio crew would show up
wearing football jerseys on Fridays because it was just that
feel that was going on. It was a real team
effort and it just made you feel so good that
everybody you worked with in front of the camera, behind
the camera, everybody got into it and they were completely
(14:46):
on board and made it successful.
Speaker 3 (14:48):
One of the things we did too, is before Friday
Night Sports Extra, the schools pretty much outside the city
of Spokane, even Courtlane didn't get much coverage. Okay, one
of the things that I went to a small high
school who lived thirty minutes away from a media market,
and the three years I played football, we never saw anybody,
(15:09):
not one time. And one of those things is we gotta,
we gotta, and Butt and Rick were on board with this.
We got to get the small schools too. It's just
as important for those kids to be on TV as
it is for the bigger schools to.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Be on TV.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
And that's another legacy is didn't matter, didn't matter where
you went to school, you were going to get on
TV and the second half of the season had you
got a big game, doesn't matter if it's the top
classification or an eight man game. You knew KXOY was
going to be there. We'd figure out a way to
make sure we were at every big game.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
Of the year and drying this small community in Hyeah
And that's so important. It's so important, and now everybody
feels like they're one, right, Yeah, one of the biggest successes. Well,
whose brain child was Friday Night Extra? Or was it
just kind of culmination?
Speaker 2 (16:00):
I was out of town. We have told the story before.
Speaker 3 (16:03):
We got our asses chewed off by a news director,
the guy who also said the Mariners and the Seahawks
weren't a local team because we didn't tell our news
department that the State B Tournament was here, which they
had people that had worked in this that had been
through the State B Tournament before.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
So it was Rick's idea. He goes, well, I'll show you.
Speaker 3 (16:24):
We're gonna shoot highlights of every game and show highlights
of every game, and it was like, okay, I think
we can do that. I think So we shot highlights
the last three days of every game. Everyone didn't matter
if you're a local team or not. And all of
a sudden, at the end of Saturday, the light bulb
went off and it was like, well, this was too
(16:45):
much fun. So Bud came back and we sat down
and talked about it, and Bud went to the management
and said, this is what we'd like to do, and
they said, yeah, sure, go ahead, and that's all they
had to do. The gate was open and we were
three wild horses running around the correct as fast as
we could. And then, like Rick said, everybody got on board.
Speaker 4 (17:03):
And the thing that amazes me still is that catchl
Y went to ABC and asked permission to delay Nightline, Yeah,
which was night was a big show in these days,
and surprisingly ABC gave that permission.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (17:22):
Nightline, by contractually was supposed to start by eleven thirty
five PM, and we bumped it back out.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
Sometimes yeah, and we got a whole half hour, even
the news and weather, and then at fifteen and we
got in half an hour.
Speaker 4 (17:41):
Well, the news anchors loved it too, because they didn't have.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
To do much and they also love it.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
Well.
Speaker 5 (17:48):
When I say everyone was on board, it wasn't necessarily
the news anchors because they were out of the parking
lot before we rolled the open on the show.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
They were on board because our weather person both got
home before our show was on.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
Or they got to the shack.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
No, both of them went home.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
Yeah, oh that's great. Okay, So what if I'm and
this is kind of a loaded question. A couple of
these will be biggest success out of this. Do you
guys have a story that stands out that is just
like like, got youa right here? Throughout the years? Do
you have a person or a team or a game
(18:30):
that stands out to you?
Speaker 5 (18:34):
I think for me, one of the biggest things that
happened was was when Washington State University went to the
Rose Bowl for the first time in sixty seven years.
And what that turned out to be in this whole community.
I mean it was it was absolute year. Was that
(18:55):
nineteen ninety seven?
Speaker 2 (18:56):
Ninety seven?
Speaker 5 (18:58):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (18:59):
Huge?
Speaker 5 (19:00):
And I mean, you know, so they lock up the
Rose Bowl in the in the first the first weekend
of December November or no week last weekend November, last
weekend in November, and so you're more than a month
away from the Rose Bowl, and anywhere you went was rick,
(19:20):
how can I get tickets to the Rose Bowl?
Speaker 2 (19:22):
You know? Good luck, you know.
Speaker 5 (19:25):
And and we took we took more than forty five
but just under fifty people down to Pasadena and did
everything from down there for the whole week. And I
was actually down there for like three weeks before that, And.
Speaker 3 (19:40):
Yeah, stayed in a really nice hotel all the rest
of us were staying in.
Speaker 5 (19:44):
I stayed in the Low's Santa Monica where the team
was staying. That was pretty pretty good hotel. So that
was part of the great memory. But on that day
of that game, to see how the spoke can basically
moved to Pasadena, there was a big party on the
golf course right next to the Rose Bowl, and it
(20:05):
was all it was all Spokane or you.
Speaker 4 (20:09):
Were driving around at NCAA tournament time with Gozaggs on
every readaboard.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
Yeah, correct, it was that way for the Rose bull Yeah,
it was cool. It was such a big day.
Speaker 5 (20:19):
So for me that that maybe the biggest that was
the maybe the biggest single day or single event that
in my memory. That's not and that's not the thing.
I'm proud of stuff. It just stands out. Yeah, it's
just so gigantic. It affected everybody, it really did.
Speaker 3 (20:37):
I mean, because here's the thing is, even if you
weren't a Courier fan, you're or a coug who gone there,
you may have had an ann or an uncle, or
a mom or a dad, or a grandma or grandpa,
and you knew what the implications meant. That finally meant
because them going to the Rose Bowl was something that
nobody thought would ever happen.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
Ever. Okay, you you you were.
Speaker 3 (20:55):
Kind of thinking, maybe it would be cool if that happened,
but but you never thought the Cougars were ever going
to get to the Rose Bowl. And then, by god,
they did it twice in five years.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
And then.
Speaker 5 (21:07):
If you view it through today's lens of the for
me personally, the total mess that college football has turned into,
it becomes even bigger to me because I don't think
we'll ever see that kind of excitement again. And I
don't care. I don't care if you're at Washington State
(21:28):
or if you're at Michigan or Ohio State. We're never
going to see that kind of pageantry and excitement around
college football.
Speaker 3 (21:35):
Ever again, Oh you got to remember, nobody under the
age of seventy five remembers the Cougar's going to a
Rose Bowl. Yeah right, yeah, put that in perspective.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (21:45):
I'll say two things that come out when I think
about Friday night sports action. The first is totally personal
from the standpoint that I got introduced to a young
man who was just a manager for Cheenie and was
battling cancer, and his mom reached out to me, and
he was a big Raiders fan, and so I helped
(22:09):
set up the very first wish for the Make a
Wish Foundation for him to meet a couple members of
the Raiders. And that was to me that that was
just a really cool thing that this thing that we
do for work that we have fun doing could be
impactful in that way.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
To me, that was important. And then the other thing that.
Speaker 4 (22:31):
Now that we're so far beyond it and now that
we're yeah, we're all old and gray and retired, the
fact that when Spokane built a new stadium, the very
first event in that stadium they asked us to come
do the coin flip for that high school football game.
To me that that was such a humbling honor.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
But it just.
Speaker 4 (22:53):
Solidified what Friday Night Sports extra and all the effort
that we put into it, what it really meant to people.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
I thought that really cool. Well, it didn't.
Speaker 3 (23:01):
It didn't hurt us that the top two people in
Spokane School District, the top two administrators we both covered
on Friday Night.
Speaker 5 (23:07):
Sports, was on Friday Night Sports.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
There you go, what do you think is Actually I'm
gonna go back and I want to kind of go
back to something you said but about being doing the
coin toss at the first football game, but when Spokane Stadium,
you guys were also honored there as well. Talk about that.
Speaker 5 (23:27):
Well, one of the things I remembers that I saw
you there Sean doing a live shot.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
But I remember you guys giving me a hard time. Yep,
I do, but.
Speaker 5 (23:38):
Already said it humbling. That's that's that's the only it
was humbling.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (23:43):
I didn't really think much about it until I got
on the field and saw these two guys and saw
that because I was preparing to do a football game
that night. I had just done a soccer game, then
ran over to be honored, and then I was running
back to do the football game that night. And it
was like I jumped over the fence, which I know
you're not supposed to do, but it was like I
had to get down there and I was like then
(24:03):
it kind of hit me and it was like, oh,
this is kind of a this is not I wasn't
expecting what my emotions. I've been to all of us.
I've been to so many sporting events. You're focused on
what you're supposed to do, you're covering the game, you
do that, and then all of a sudden, it's not
about the game or the athletes. It's more about you.
(24:24):
And I'm not really comfortable when things are about me.
I'd rather put the spotlight on somebody else.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
I feel like I know that about all three of you.
You're very humble, Like I don't you know I have them?
Wonder do you guys know what you did? Do you
know who you are? I mean, really, we're just regular guys. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (24:43):
It's blessed to work together and enjoy each other. We
worked our butts off, but it was doable because we
had such a great time while we were doing it.
Speaker 5 (24:53):
I just I just thought Leslie talked about something and
it just I want to tell this story really quick.
Because it's sitting here in this building, I think it applies.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
So uh.
Speaker 5 (25:05):
We saw his picture when we walked in, Sean Ousley
hanging in the lobby downstairs. And he used to be
one of our competitors.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
He did.
Speaker 5 (25:12):
He worked at KHQ as I think the number three
or number two sports guy way back way back in
the day. And he was one of those guys that,
even though he's a likable guy, I didn't want to
be friends with him. He was like you know, he
was he was my competitor. I didn't want to be
friends with him. And while he was working here, he
made a commercial for a truck leasing truck leasing place,
(25:36):
and it was the first thing you saw was his
face going want to buy a truck? Okay, which I
would go, you know, especially when it aired on on
k XL Y and uh and so skip to it
was was it Apple Cup?
Speaker 1 (25:52):
It was?
Speaker 2 (25:52):
We did.
Speaker 5 (25:53):
We did an Apple Cup special and I was the
I was the anchor and producer of this Apple Cup
special and I worked my tail off making sure that
everything was done right because we had to shoot stuff
and turn it around quickly and get so we had
our We had a production truck down in Pullman, We
had our microwave truck set up. Everything was going well,
(26:14):
it was working like clockwork. And we got done with
that show and we hit the last thing. We hit
the closing note on the whatever musical thing we had
to end it with, and I went like, yes, like
we did it first commercial afterwards, want to buy a truck?
I went ballistic. You guys, remember Bud might not have
(26:36):
been working with us at that point. He might have.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
Anyway, I went ballistic.
Speaker 5 (26:40):
And we had our production manager was working there, and
I went and I yelled at him and I and
then I went. I went back to the station that
evening and wrote a note that said, we just did
a great show and blah blah blah blah blah. And
at the end here's a guy who just used to
work for KHQ saying, want to buy a truck? And
in every buddy's mind, now that became a k h
(27:02):
Q production. Let's pull our heads out of wherever they are.
Oh god, I was mad, but I like I like,
I like Sean very much. Once it wasn't me you got,
I just went, we.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
Guys all have passion, you know what.
Speaker 3 (27:20):
I think that's why we were for lack of a
better word, so successful in what we were able to do.
What we cared about the product, We cared about how
it impacted the community. And like I said at the beginning,
we wanted to win. We we wanted to win.
Speaker 4 (27:37):
We all had the same mantra if our name was
on it.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
Okay, Dennis, say one thing about Bud and Rick.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
Nice.
Speaker 3 (27:47):
Yes, I owe about a lot because he brought me here,
and if he doesn't bring me here, who knows where
my career winds up and who knows what happens to
my family. I got to know Bud when I was
working in Missoula and we were trading videos, and I'd
(28:09):
always I'd send him some video of something I shot
that he wanted, and then I'd put a story on
the end of it, just so he could if he
wanted to see it. It's what I was doing. So
he offered me a job and I came over here,
So I mean I owe him a lot. He brought
me here, and my family has been impacted greatly by
being able to from all my kids, my oldest was
(28:34):
born in Missoula, but he came here at two months old,
so he doesn't know anyplace else. So O A other
two kids were born here, so I mean, so I'm
indebted to him. Bud was a great boss. Bud was
one of those guys that let you do what you
wanted to do, and he trusted us. So that was great.
And when he left, I was disappointed because I wasn't
(28:56):
sure what was going to happen. Oh, I wasn't sure
if we were going to get a third guy back, and
b I wasn't sure if that guy was going to
fit in with what we were trying to do. And
then you know, and the vision, and for the most part,
we were fortunate enough to have a say in who
we hired after Bud left. Certainly when Rick was the
sports director he get I got to give him my input,
(29:18):
and then certainly when I was the sports director there
and the sports director here at Cage Q. But you know,
if it was for Bud, I don't know. I don't
know what would have happened. I really don't. I probably
wouldn't have been in the business as long as I did.
I probably would have got fired someplace else. I just
you know, And like I said about Rick, I said,
I think Rick is one of the most talented people
I've ever worked with in this business. He can go
(29:39):
out and look at something and come up with a
not only a story, a award winning story. What I look
at at and I go, there's nothing here. This is crap,
this is garbage. This is a bunch of beat you know,
I'll beat myself there. There's no story here. And Rick
comes back and turns of story and I just Mark, I.
Speaker 4 (29:58):
Wish I did gets under?
Speaker 2 (30:01):
Yeah, what what you named it? What was that? What
was that? That?
Speaker 3 (30:03):
That?
Speaker 2 (30:04):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (30:05):
Cla glodlad g l o ds gross lumps of dirty snow.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
And there was a whole story on it.
Speaker 4 (30:12):
I wreck every time I kick one off of my car, and.
Speaker 5 (30:15):
I do too.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
Here you go, looking's bang, I'm knocked it off the car.
Speaker 3 (30:19):
But it's it's remarkable what he's what he's where, the
way his mind works.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
I wish I wish I had that. I don't. I
can't do what he does.
Speaker 1 (30:29):
I love that. Okay, you know I'm gonna go to
you by next Dennis and Rick.
Speaker 4 (30:33):
Well along the theme of what what Dennis talked about?
I I got into this business because I love doing
play by play, and the sports director job at caxl
Y was fun. I didn't know they hired me. I
don't know why they did because I'd never been on TV.
(30:55):
I didn't know how to run a camera. I had
learned all this stuff on the run. But I was
blessed to be able to be in a town and
at a station care so why that allowed me to
do play by play in addition to doing my job.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
But I couldn't have done.
Speaker 4 (31:13):
That if it wasn't for Dennis and Rick, because, as
Dennis said, I trusted.
Speaker 2 (31:19):
Him, and the.
Speaker 4 (31:21):
Ultimate trust was, Hey, I'm out of town for the
next three days with the Koogs. You guys got this
and they'd run it better than I did when I
was there, So you know, to me, that's the greatest thing.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
I just we had so much fun together.
Speaker 4 (31:35):
And my wife and I started our family very late,
so I saw both Dennis and Rick be dads well
before I was a dad, and so they probably don't
realize this, but I learned things from them about being
a dad and just the ability to kind of do
(31:58):
what we needed to do and trust each other there
just to get it done one way or the other.
Speaker 2 (32:03):
And the fact that we still like each other.
Speaker 3 (32:05):
To go have lunch, Yeah, so we go now that
I'm retired, we go have lunch once a month and
we try to go to a local place and we
just talk. And people go, oh, you're talking about sports
all that. We don't talk a whole lot of sports.
We talk about life, we talk about kids, we talk
about stuff, politics. I mean, just there's a lot of stuff.
(32:30):
I think one of the yeah, one of the I
think one of the times we didn't even talk about
any sports. People, I was going to want to know,
what are you talking about? Just stuff because we were
together for so long every day, and that's one of
the things when Bud left and open up his golf business,
and that, you know, we were Fortunately he came back,
(32:51):
but there were two years, three years we didn't see
two years we didn't see Bud at all, and that
that was part of that brotherhood. And your older brother
goes off the college and now what now?
Speaker 5 (33:03):
But yeah, yeah, okay, So I mean it's easy to
go third on this because I can just echo what
these guys said. But certainly Bud Bud hired me as
he hired Dennis, So I'm obviously very thankful for that.
But Bud, as as a leader of our group of three,
(33:23):
was somebody who was able to I I learned a
lot from him on that in being a leader, sure,
but he was able to rein me in on things
and kind of keep because like sometimes my head's going
this way or that way. I learned an attention to
detail with what we're doing, and I have always attributed
that to Bud. He kept me on track, he really did,
(33:47):
and he was He was a great boss in that way,
but gave you the freedom to do what you wanted
to do. Plus he's he's been a very good friend.
He and I. I played my first round of golf
in Spokane with Bud at Downriver.
Speaker 2 (34:00):
But but was a roommate. Yeah, he gave me a
place to live when I moved to town. Kick him
out when when I got married he got married, Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5 (34:11):
And then and then the one thing I'll say about
Dennis that that hasn't been said is that, uh he
brought a commitment, uh like an every day commitment to
what we were doing. And that was very catchy and
it felt like it had to be. It was like,
while I'm out here, I've got to do this because
I'm not going to go back and explain to Dennis
(34:32):
why I didn't do that, and he wasn't my boss,
you know, uh, but but you know he uh he
brought Dennis brought it every day, every freaking day, and uh,
that's a good thing to learn. So I give him
absolute credit for that.
Speaker 3 (34:51):
The other thing, I think that it worked well and
Bud but it was a great boss for the fact
that we could go to Bud and say, hey, let
let's try let's not do that, let's do this, or
he could come to us, and everybody was open to
suggestions because we weren't looking at how does this affect me?
We always looked at it as how's it affected apartment.
And one of the things that I always took from
(35:11):
whenever I was in charge after Rick moved into radio
full time and Bud was in radio as well and
I was still doing TV, is this is a team.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
There's no eyes here. It's a team.
Speaker 3 (35:21):
And we did it for so long as a team
that it worked and it's the best, you know. And
we were together longer than any other trio or sports
team has been together ever. Some people stayed in the market,
took different jobs, most people left, but we stayed together.
So I always looked as like we're together. We're going
(35:42):
to do this as a team. And some of the
people that I didn't get along with that were my
employees were more worried about themselves than the team, and
that didn't work well with me.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
It's true, you kind of have to be all for one.
That's what makes the magic right there, because when you're
all worked together for one thing, not just for yourself.
Speaker 2 (36:02):
You know what.
Speaker 3 (36:03):
And people in our business don't think the people at
home can tell that.
Speaker 2 (36:07):
But they can.
Speaker 1 (36:08):
They can.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
The viewers understand. The viewers understand who likes each other
and who doesn't like each other. The viewers are smarter
than a lot of times we give them credit for.
Speaker 1 (36:17):
So with that said, let's wrap up with what advice
would you give to kids now that want to go
into not just the business but sports itself, Because I'll
say this, you guys said that at first you felt
like you were looked down on because you didn't do
anything right. I think sports is the hardest working department
(36:39):
in the news realm.
Speaker 3 (36:40):
It has to be leslie because if you're not, you're
the step child in a news department, okay, And if
you're not working hard every day, then there are people
who automatically, if you put the S word to it,
which is sports, not the other S word, but the
S word sports, you're automatically thought of differently.
Speaker 2 (37:00):
So you have to work hard every day. I would
put the.
Speaker 4 (37:02):
Over under on weeknights I had maybe weekends too, with
doing play by playing weekends on nights that I had
dinner with my wife. At two per month, i'd put
the and most of the time it was under because
you'd feel guilty sneaking away to go home and have
dinner when there's games you should be out shooting.
Speaker 2 (37:26):
I just I think it's it's it. So you have to.
You have to.
Speaker 3 (37:29):
You have to be better than other people in your
newsroom because you're you're already being discounted. Now that's not
every manager, that's not every news director, that's not every
person who's making those decisions, but there are some. Oh
you do sports, you get introduced to a new news director,
Oh you're the sports department.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
You guys make such huge sacrifices, like you said, you know,
over under and to dinners with your wife per month.
I mean, you guys make sacrifices, especially when things get going,
whether it be high schoo football gets.
Speaker 3 (38:00):
Going, on September to March. September to March really hard,
that's really hard for a family. And we're very fortunate,
the three of us that we married the right people. Okay,
because we all three of us have been married for
a long period of time. My wife and I will
be forty five years coming up this year.
Speaker 2 (38:16):
Rick's getting eighty eight this year we celebrated forty.
Speaker 1 (38:21):
That's amazing. So somehow you made it work.
Speaker 3 (38:24):
Well, that's why I said we married the right people,
because it's not we can. I'm not taking any credit
for my forty five years of marriage. My wife's going
to take all the credit in the world for that.
Speaker 5 (38:33):
My advice to anybody coming into get.
Speaker 2 (38:36):
Out of the business. Don't do it. Don't do it.
Get out.
Speaker 5 (38:39):
And there's it's such a different business now, so you know,
be ready to adapt to change. But I think this applies.
It applied then and it applies now. And I referenced
it with Leslie when I was talking about her earlier,
that however you get in the door, you get in
the door. And it might be a pretty face gets
(39:00):
you in the door. It might be that you know
somebody that gets you in the door. It might be
that you know you were in the right place at
the right time. That gets you in the door. That
doesn't mean that you have made it. It does not
mean you have arrived. And for so many people, they
think that they have arrived. And okay, I'm here. Never
(39:22):
stop trying to get better. And that's on you, no
one else. I mean, people can certainly pull you aside
and say, hey, Rick, you need to work on this.
That that never happened. That never happened. Did anybody above
us ever pull us aside and say, I like what
you did here, don't do that, don't do that or whatever. No,
(39:43):
it doesn't happen. And I can guarantee it has never
happened to you. It does not happen. In this business.
It's on you. Get better. It is get and get better.
When you're ten fifteen years in, keep getting better. Watch yourself,
listen to your elf. Get better.
Speaker 1 (40:01):
Don't be complacent.
Speaker 3 (40:02):
You can't be I've always told people keep your eyes
open and your ears open and your mouth shut.
Speaker 2 (40:08):
Okay, And just because this is ever do that.
Speaker 3 (40:11):
Yeah, no, no, no, no.
Speaker 2 (40:15):
When you're first in the business, I didn't I didn't talk.
Speaker 3 (40:17):
I was a nice guy in Missoulam, I said, you
guys brought it out of me.
Speaker 2 (40:23):
But but my thing is is is don't Rick said
it great.
Speaker 3 (40:28):
Don't just because you got the job doesn't mean we're
going to hand everything to you. You got to work
hard every day and pay attention to the people who
have been in the business for a long period of
time and how they do it now. Don't be the
next them, be the first you. But figure out what's working,
what's not working right. My biggest problem with the younger generation,
it's not all of them, but it's some of them.
(40:52):
They don't want to work nights, they don't want to
work weekends, Well that's the And they don't want to
work early in the mornings.
Speaker 2 (40:58):
Well that's the business.
Speaker 1 (41:00):
That's the job.
Speaker 2 (41:01):
That's not No, that's the job. That's what that's what
it is. If you don't want to do.
Speaker 1 (41:06):
Those kind of things, don't do it.
Speaker 2 (41:09):
Yeah, if you.
Speaker 3 (41:09):
Don't want to get into business where you got to
call your your significant other or your wife and say, hey,
I can't come home, there's a fire out there, I
gotta stay. It doesn't work that way.
Speaker 4 (41:21):
The advice I give to folks who ask me for it,
and it doesn't have to be just a broadcast thing.
Find something that you enjoy doing. That's probably the number
one thing in my life that's been a blessing is that.
Speaker 2 (41:43):
Even though.
Speaker 4 (41:45):
We've all worked a lot of hours, it doesn't feel
like work because it's something you enjoy doing.
Speaker 2 (41:50):
I never.
Speaker 4 (41:52):
Woke up in the morning and said, oh God, I
gotta work, got to work today, you know.
Speaker 2 (41:55):
I mean, you work quote unquote eight hours a day.
Speaker 4 (41:58):
You have eight hours a day to rely and enjoy,
and you sleep eight hours a day. And if you
hate your job, you're not gonna sleep very well. You're
probably not gonna enjoy those other eight hours. So whatever
it is, somehow, try to find something that you're passionate
about so that whatever effort you have to put into
it doesn't feel like effort.
Speaker 5 (42:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (42:19):
What's the old saying. If you love what you're doing,
you never work a day in your life. Right.
Speaker 2 (42:23):
Find a job that isn't a job, yep.
Speaker 1 (42:25):
Yeah, something you love to do.
Speaker 4 (42:27):
Well.
Speaker 1 (42:27):
I always tell kids when they come in now, it's
be really careful and choosy about who you take your
advice from and who you listen to. So I'm gonna
wrap up by saying Rick, I want to say a
huge thank you to you and Teresa for I mean,
you guys taught me so much in the radio and
(42:47):
just how to be fun and be yourself, and you
like gave me so much open ground to be able
to figure out who I was. You let me fail,
you let me make mistakes. I'd run your board on
the morning show and you didn't yell at me once.
But I learned a lot by watching you too, and
the way you worked together. You were self deprecating, you
(43:08):
were funny, you were real, and so thank you so much.
Thank you for that and the advice that I got
from both of you meant the world to me.
Speaker 5 (43:17):
Thank you. You earned everything well.
Speaker 1 (43:19):
Thank you and Bud. You were so welcoming right off
the bat. Like you said, I met you before I
ever got into the business. You gave me an opportunity
as Missus Washington. But when I came into the building,
you were equally as welcoming. You were always that friendly
person that you knew you could count on, you could
(43:41):
go to. You would walk into your studio and you
learn something every time you were in there, just by
the way you handled yourself. And you wouldn't even have
to say, here, do this. It was just by watching
you that you were like, oh, I want to do that.
I want to pick up on that. And the way
you treated people was huge and I'll never forget at
that ever.
Speaker 2 (44:01):
And Dennis, that's the nicest guy on TV. I'm going
to tell you that right now. He's the nicest man
in Tellivienion.
Speaker 3 (44:07):
He is send me in to talk to the managers
because Rick or I would blow a gasket. He'd go
in and get everything done and then we could execute it.
Speaker 1 (44:15):
So Dennis, when I came in uh to the station,
you everybody again said, don't mind Dennis. He's gruff like
that with everybody. I instantly liked you. I was not
afraid of you. I don't know should I tell you that,
but I wasn't. You were you would allow you. Your
door was always open, and so yeah, I brought donuts
(44:38):
or whatever. But I always knew that I could come
to you and say I have a concern with this,
or I don't know what should I do here? Should
I listen to that person? Am I doing it right?
And he always had such great advice. You always gave
it to me straight too. So you weren't sugarcoating anything.
You were going to give it to me straight. You
also taught me how, and I'm still working on it
and I always will because I just of who I am,
(45:00):
but to be stronger and to be more secure in
who I am, because I tend to be a bit
of a pushover. But you always help me. And even
when you came here, that door was open and you
would give me the best advice. And I know now
that if I texted you, you would continue to give
me the best advice.
Speaker 2 (45:20):
Those are nice words, thanks and tough enough, buttercups.
Speaker 1 (45:22):
I should go write that down and put it just
right there. You guys, thank you so much for being
here today. I know you're trying to get out of
here so you can go.
Speaker 3 (45:32):
You know what, I swear we could sit here for
two but you probably have work to do and I
don't know what our blood sugar level is now.
Speaker 2 (45:41):
Might have to get lunch here.
Speaker 1 (45:43):
Well, let's get out of here, let's go to lunch.
Thanks you, guys, and really thank you for everything that
you've done for this community. I know I say that
not just for me, but for everybody, So thank you,
all right, everybody, Thanks so much. I go make the
rest of your days the best of your days.
So you were telling the sports stories, get something to prove, right.
You wanted to be out there, You wanted to be
the very best, so you were going to prove the work.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
We got to.
Speaker 3 (00:07):
Get the small schools too. It's just as important for
those kids to be on TV as it is for
the bigger schools.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
To be on TV.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
What are the biggest successes? Well, whose brain child was
Friday Night Extra?
Speaker 4 (00:19):
The thing that amazes me still is that Catchel I
went to ABC and asked permission to delay Nightline?
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (00:27):
Do you guys know what you did? Do you know
who you are?
Speaker 2 (00:30):
We just did a great show.
Speaker 5 (00:31):
Here's a guy who just used to work for KHQ
saying want to buy a truck?
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Oh god, I was mad.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
Are you guys? I'm so excited to enterd shoot my
three yesterday. I feel like I've grown up with you,
even though we're all about the same age, because I
was the oldest intern in the building when I came in.
But I am sitting with legends, and I told you
when he came in, I'm a little bit nervous. I'm
a little bit intimidated by you guys. But the three
Kings of Sports local sports here every that he knows you.
(01:00):
You are legends. I've got the great Rick Lukens, Bud
Namic and Dennis Patchen and you guys really revolutionized local sports.
You should, yeah, get acquainted. Take a minute and just
get to know each other.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
Is you know, we'll peel the curtain back a little bit.
We all got to know Leslie when she was the intern.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
I was the intern.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Knew Leslie before you did.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
That's true.
Speaker 4 (01:27):
Leslie was when I met she was missus Washington. Oh
boy was It was shortly after I had left k
x Y and making the transition from TV to radio
and had the golf center and then also a friend
of mine and I started a little internet company and
(01:49):
Leslie became a salesperson for us.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Did you ever sell?
Speaker 1 (01:52):
I don't think I sold a darn thing for you.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
I did not. I did not.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
I forgot about that.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
Leslie was the greatest intern because she always bought a
box of Krispy Kreme donuts.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
Well, you got to bribe people, right right, I.
Speaker 5 (02:06):
Mean, yeah, you want people to like you, Donuts is
always a.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Good way to go.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Well, I knew you were all talking behind my back,
Like what's this old lady doing in here calling herself
an interns.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
Well, actually, to be honest with you, when we fot
out how old you were, we were kind of surprised.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
We didn't think you were that old.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
So oh nice. Yeah, okay, I'll pay you guys all later. Yeah,
that's fine. I'm happy to see that charge.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
I got a bill we're working on right now.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
So okay, well charge it, put it on a tab. Yeah.
I mean, I do have history with all three of you,
and I would say that I got to say thank
you to all three of you for helping me to
get to where I am today. And I wouldn't have
been able to do it without you. I mean, Dennis,
I used to go back to your office Sports office,
and people always told me, don't worry about Dennis. You know,
(02:53):
he's like that to everybody. And I was like, he
was like a big teddy bear, right. I just brought
him donuts and made everybody happy. And then Bud, Yes,
we go way back to missus Washington days, which gosh,
that was a long time ago. That's a long time ago. Yeah,
don't tell anybody. But then I also would go on
nine twenty when I was doing like cut ins for weather,
(03:15):
and I kind of learned to get hone in that
more newsy side of things. And you taught me a
lot about that. And then I got to work with
you and your beautiful wife Teresa. Yeah, classy ninety nine
point nine.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (03:27):
And it was the thing about Leslie was, you know,
we had we had interns, and you know, we had
very pretty interns, like Leslie was I am, and all
of them came through the door and thought, I'm going
to be on radio or I'm going to be on TV,
and thought just being pretty in being there was enough.
And she was the exception. Leslie worked her butt off
(03:48):
and so that's what gets you noticed. It's not the donuts.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
It wasn't the donuts.
Speaker 5 (03:52):
No, Leslie actually worked hard and tried to get better.
And when you do that, you win a lot of friends,
you know.
Speaker 4 (04:00):
And I think part of that, Leslie, was because when
you became a media person, you weren't just out of school.
You were a little older, you'd lived life a little bit,
so you knew the work ethic that Rick was talking about.
You knew you had to have that work ethic if
you were going to survive.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
I had to prove myself and I knew it. Going in,
I was like, oh, nobody wants me to know. Everybody
told me you can't do this. What are you thinking?
And I thought I have to prove myself and I
was willing to do whatever it took, whether it be
running the board on radio, going out with whatever reporter,
getting whoever coffee, bringing into I didn't care because I
just wanted to be a part of who you guys were.
(04:36):
And it's been quite the right I'll tell you that
right now. But let's not talk about me, because I
want to talk about you guys honestly. So take me
back to the mid eighties because that's when you guys
all came together, right, is that the mid eighties when
you guys I got.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Hired last in February of eighty four, okay, so.
Speaker 5 (04:55):
January of eighty three, about a year before, and B
hired us both at KX okay.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
And then what brought this to the whole team together?
Because you start, you did revolutionize high school sports, you
really did. You went in there with football and then
you kind of took over. And I know that when
I was raising my kids, if one of you guys
was showing up, it was a big deal. It was
a big deal.
Speaker 5 (05:18):
So I think, first of all, the first thing that
set us apart from you're going back to the early
eighties and the other stations with what they were doing
with sports. And I think these guys will agree with
me that that if you were in the sports department,
people kind of laughed.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
At you a little bit. Well, that's okay.
Speaker 5 (05:36):
He is a sports guy, you know, and the sports
guys don't really work and blah blah blah, and that
would piss me off. Yes, And I think it's the
same for these two. We worked our butts off, just
like you did when you were an intern, and we
worked hard. And I think when you when you mentioned
revolutionized sports, I go to that because we did work
(05:58):
hard and we weren't going to let anybody beat us.
And so I think that's where it started with this
bonding of the three of us. We all raised the
bar for each other. We wanted to win.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
Every day.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
We wanted to beat the other two stations. We didn't
want to like them, we didn't want to wed. We
just wanted to win.
Speaker 5 (06:21):
And every day we didn't want to hang out with
them in a bar after work or anything like that,
or on the road and it's like I can remember
being on the road with competing sports people to say, Hey, Rick,
We're going out to such and such a place in
Seattle and I go have fun, you know.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
And one thing though, that was different in those days.
Speaker 4 (06:42):
Yeah, we were competitive, but it was also different from
the standpoint that if you're out shooting a game and
your battery is dying, you don't have a spare battery
something Lonia battery or Lonia a tape back in.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
The old days.
Speaker 4 (06:55):
So there was there was competitiveness, but there were all
was also a little bit cooperation. But the thing that
was I always used to joke with, you know, Koxy.
The reputation I knew of kax I was just a
huge revolving door in terms of people on air and everything.
So I always joked with Kasy management, they should let
me do all the hiring, because I hired Rick and
(07:16):
Dennis and we stuck together for over thirty years, you know,
transitioning from TV to radio and doing different things. But
the thing that was most important to me when I
was looking to hire somebody and eventually hired Frederick, which
was the way I knew of Rick at first, and
then Dennis was. I wanted somebody who was good at
(07:36):
what they were doing, but also was a good person.
And I think that is the thing that I remember
the most from this is that we were unique in
that we could all anchor, we could all shoot, we
could all report. I didn't get to report much because
I had to anchor the five and the six and
the eleven. Dennis did both, Rick did both, and then
(07:59):
Rick really his his forte really was you know, Rick's
as good as a writer and storyteller as anybody that's
ever worked in this market, as far as.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
I'm concidning in the business, forget about this market, in
the business, He's the greatest feature reporter I've ever seen
in my life period.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
End of statement.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
I will fight you in the street today if you
if you say.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
And yeah, I don't want to go up again, I
would agree with you, though, Lucan's a large right among them.
Speaker 5 (08:32):
For many years kind of out of the sports.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
Realm, so you were telling the sports stories and and
that I think that again, that's why it set you
a part. You had something to prove, right. You wanted
to be out there, you wanted to be the very best.
So you were going to prove that you were. But
then you were also telling the best stories and you
were spotlighting so many different aspects that I don't think
we'd seen before.
Speaker 3 (08:53):
One of the other things, too, is it was we
were different because we had three of us and the
other two stations in town only had two.
Speaker 4 (09:00):
So but they had a photographer pretty much a signed
to them.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
We didn't because we could all shoot right. But our
thing was is.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
We wanted to make sure that there was no national
stories in our in our sports casts. Okay, they know,
people don't didn't tune into us to watch that. They
you know, it was the early days of ESPN, but
they could get their things, and then once the Internet
came around, came around, you could get all that stuff.
So what our focus was was on local stories, local, local, local, local, local,
(09:31):
and then more local.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
Stories you can't get anywhere else except for when we had.
Speaker 4 (09:35):
A news director who told us the Seahawks and the
Mariners weren't and the Sonics at that time they're not local.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
Yeah. Well, he didn't last very long.
Speaker 5 (09:40):
So we outlasted him and many other Exactly.
Speaker 4 (09:48):
I can't name all the news directors we worked for.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
I could, but I might. I might get ill along
the way.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
I think I can get most of them, but I'd
rather not talk about some of them, because you know,
they were a hindrance to what we were doing. Usually
the greatest thing of a news director after three months
when they come in figure out what they'd come to you,
and go, I don't have to worry about you, guys,
you keep doing what you're doing. Most of them did that.
There were a few that decided that they knew better
than we did, and they either found out quickly that
(10:18):
we weren't going to listen to what they had to say,
or they weren't there very much longer.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
I feel like that's a huge thing. If a news
director or somebody at a higher level can look and
see that they have got talent in front of them,
and then learn to trust that talent, step back and
let you guys do what you do. That's when the
magic happens.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
I think that's what makes it a good leader is
he figures out, hires good people and let them do
what they want. Now, if you want a course correction,
you want to bump them half a lane over one
way or the other. I want something done stylistically a
little different, Okay, that's fine, but why try to change
something that's successful. I mean, kicks Y for a long
period of time was known for not a very good
(10:58):
news product, but a really good sports product.
Speaker 4 (11:00):
Well, first time kicks I was number one at eleven
was because of Friday Night Sports Extra.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
We didn't do very well Monday through Thursday, but we
doated so of Fridays.
Speaker 4 (11:10):
Then we were ACTU and that was quite a celebration.
Speaker 5 (11:13):
The rating, the ratings at the quarter hour took a
jump of about thirty five percent from people who were
watching at eleven on Friday night till eleven fifteen on
Friday night. It jumped like thirty five percent or something.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
Well, and that show was such a boon for us,
but it's also a boon for all of those kids
through multiple generations and everybody is still doing a show now.
One of the great things that I'm proud of, and
I know Rick and but feel the same way is
made the other two stations get off their butts and
actually go out and cover some things and got more
kids on television in a positive way. Making a basket,
(11:49):
catching a touchdown pass, you know, doing those kind of things.
And I think that's that was important and that's one
of the things I take that really hits me is
when people come up and say, and they're forty five,
they're fifty, they got gray hair.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
You know you had you put me.
Speaker 3 (12:06):
On on TV one night, and that was that's I
think that's a really important thing. And it's you know what,
if nothing else for our legacy, the three of Us
is Friday Night Sports Extra.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
I'm good with that.
Speaker 4 (12:18):
And I one of the things I think is great
about Friday Night Sports Extra is really we changed the
culture in a way for high school football teams and coaches.
These teams that would travel quite a ways, their coaches
would stop to get food for the kids, and then
they'd stop at a tavern and pop in while the
(12:39):
kids stayed on the bus and ate their food. To
see the scores and see how their opponents, you know,
the teams they compete against. They'd watch highlights and that
was cool. The officials would would always get together at
the Old Shack and they made it a point they
were watching watch That's why we had an officials date.
We went to theme shows and had the officials show
and did fun stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
Oh that took me back the Shack. Yeah, back in
the good old days.
Speaker 5 (13:02):
Right, Yeah, just a hop, skip and a jump from
where we're sitting right now.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
I think it was just so important. And like you said, Dennis,
I mean kids coming back who are now grown saying
thank you. I mean the parents too. Like I said,
when my kids were doing sports and they were in school,
it was all about were Rick Butden, Denni's going to
show up where anybody? Were any of you going to
be there? And it was a big deal and they
(13:28):
were so excited. The parents wanted to see them on TV.
That was exciting for them. I remember taping like the
old school tape to catch that and the kids were
so excited to have that memory.
Speaker 5 (13:39):
Well, and then also you talk about the kids two
years later, say you put me on TV. You could
go to a game and see a parent in the
stand watching their child play football or basketball, and you
covered the parent. You know what I'm saying, which is, yeah,
you get two generations there. So that was pretty cool.
And then the other neat thing about Friday Night Sports
(14:02):
Extra was that everybody we worked with got on board
with it. And I'm talking about the people who ran
the cameras in the studios, all of the people who
volunteered said hey, can I go out and shoot a game?
And we'd send people out with very like we'd have
to show them how to run a camera and send
them out and then hopefully be able to edit something
(14:24):
that they brought back. But the people who edited and
the directors and I mean studio crew would show up
wearing football jerseys on Fridays because it was just that
feel that was going on. It was a real team
effort and it just made you feel so good that
everybody you worked with in front of the camera, behind
the camera, everybody got into it and they were completely
(14:46):
on board and made it successful.
Speaker 3 (14:48):
One of the things we did too, is before Friday
Night Sports Extra, the schools pretty much outside the city
of Spokane, even Courtlane didn't get much coverage. Okay, one
of the things that I went to a small high
school who lived thirty minutes away from a media market,
and the three years I played football, we never saw anybody,
(15:09):
not one time. And one of those things is we gotta,
we gotta, and Butt and Rick were on board with this.
We got to get the small schools too. It's just
as important for those kids to be on TV as
it is for the bigger schools to.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Be on TV.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
And that's another legacy is didn't matter, didn't matter where
you went to school, you were going to get on
TV and the second half of the season had you
got a big game, doesn't matter if it's the top
classification or an eight man game. You knew KXOY was
going to be there. We'd figure out a way to
make sure we were at every big game.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
Of the year and drying this small community in Hyeah
And that's so important. It's so important, and now everybody
feels like they're one, right, Yeah, one of the biggest successes. Well,
whose brain child was Friday Night Extra? Or was it
just kind of culmination?
Speaker 2 (16:00):
I was out of town. We have told the story before.
Speaker 3 (16:03):
We got our asses chewed off by a news director,
the guy who also said the Mariners and the Seahawks
weren't a local team because we didn't tell our news
department that the State B Tournament was here, which they
had people that had worked in this that had been
through the State B Tournament before.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
So it was Rick's idea. He goes, well, I'll show you.
Speaker 3 (16:24):
We're gonna shoot highlights of every game and show highlights
of every game, and it was like, okay, I think
we can do that. I think So we shot highlights
the last three days of every game. Everyone didn't matter
if you're a local team or not. And all of
a sudden, at the end of Saturday, the light bulb
went off and it was like, well, this was too
(16:45):
much fun. So Bud came back and we sat down
and talked about it, and Bud went to the management
and said, this is what we'd like to do, and
they said, yeah, sure, go ahead, and that's all they
had to do. The gate was open and we were
three wild horses running around the correct as fast as
we could. And then, like Rick said, everybody got on board.
Speaker 4 (17:03):
And the thing that amazes me still is that catchl
Y went to ABC and asked permission to delay Nightline, Yeah,
which was night was a big show in these days,
and surprisingly ABC gave that permission.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (17:22):
Nightline, by contractually was supposed to start by eleven thirty
five PM, and we bumped it back out.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
Sometimes yeah, and we got a whole half hour, even
the news and weather, and then at fifteen and we
got in half an hour.
Speaker 4 (17:41):
Well, the news anchors loved it too, because they didn't have.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
To do much and they also love it.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
Well.
Speaker 5 (17:48):
When I say everyone was on board, it wasn't necessarily
the news anchors because they were out of the parking
lot before we rolled the open on the show.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
They were on board because our weather person both got
home before our show was on.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
Or they got to the shack.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
No, both of them went home.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
Yeah, oh that's great. Okay, So what if I'm and
this is kind of a loaded question. A couple of
these will be biggest success out of this. Do you
guys have a story that stands out that is just
like like, got youa right here? Throughout the years? Do
you have a person or a team or a game
(18:30):
that stands out to you?
Speaker 5 (18:34):
I think for me, one of the biggest things that
happened was was when Washington State University went to the
Rose Bowl for the first time in sixty seven years.
And what that turned out to be in this whole community.
I mean it was it was absolute year. Was that
(18:55):
nineteen ninety seven?
Speaker 2 (18:56):
Ninety seven?
Speaker 5 (18:58):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (18:59):
Huge?
Speaker 5 (19:00):
And I mean, you know, so they lock up the
Rose Bowl in the in the first the first weekend
of December November or no week last weekend November, last
weekend in November, and so you're more than a month
away from the Rose Bowl, and anywhere you went was rick,
(19:20):
how can I get tickets to the Rose Bowl?
Speaker 2 (19:22):
You know? Good luck, you know.
Speaker 5 (19:25):
And and we took we took more than forty five
but just under fifty people down to Pasadena and did
everything from down there for the whole week. And I
was actually down there for like three weeks before that, And.
Speaker 3 (19:40):
Yeah, stayed in a really nice hotel all the rest
of us were staying in.
Speaker 5 (19:44):
I stayed in the Low's Santa Monica where the team
was staying. That was pretty pretty good hotel. So that
was part of the great memory. But on that day
of that game, to see how the spoke can basically
moved to Pasadena, there was a big party on the
golf course right next to the Rose Bowl, and it
(20:05):
was all it was all Spokane or you.
Speaker 4 (20:09):
Were driving around at NCAA tournament time with Gozaggs on
every readaboard.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
Yeah, correct, it was that way for the Rose bull Yeah,
it was cool. It was such a big day.
Speaker 5 (20:19):
So for me that that maybe the biggest that was
the maybe the biggest single day or single event that
in my memory. That's not and that's not the thing.
I'm proud of stuff. It just stands out. Yeah, it's
just so gigantic. It affected everybody, it really did.
Speaker 3 (20:37):
I mean, because here's the thing is, even if you
weren't a Courier fan, you're or a coug who gone there,
you may have had an ann or an uncle, or
a mom or a dad, or a grandma or grandpa,
and you knew what the implications meant. That finally meant
because them going to the Rose Bowl was something that
nobody thought would ever happen.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
Ever. Okay, you you you were.
Speaker 3 (20:55):
Kind of thinking, maybe it would be cool if that happened,
but but you never thought the Cougars were ever going
to get to the Rose Bowl. And then, by god,
they did it twice in five years.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
And then.
Speaker 5 (21:07):
If you view it through today's lens of the for
me personally, the total mess that college football has turned into,
it becomes even bigger to me because I don't think
we'll ever see that kind of excitement again. And I
don't care. I don't care if you're at Washington State
(21:28):
or if you're at Michigan or Ohio State. We're never
going to see that kind of pageantry and excitement around
college football.
Speaker 3 (21:35):
Ever again, Oh you got to remember, nobody under the
age of seventy five remembers the Cougar's going to a
Rose Bowl. Yeah right, yeah, put that in perspective.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (21:45):
I'll say two things that come out when I think
about Friday night sports action. The first is totally personal
from the standpoint that I got introduced to a young
man who was just a manager for Cheenie and was
battling cancer, and his mom reached out to me, and
he was a big Raiders fan, and so I helped
(22:09):
set up the very first wish for the Make a
Wish Foundation for him to meet a couple members of
the Raiders. And that was to me that that was
just a really cool thing that this thing that we
do for work that we have fun doing could be
impactful in that way.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
To me, that was important. And then the other thing that.
Speaker 4 (22:31):
Now that we're so far beyond it and now that
we're yeah, we're all old and gray and retired, the
fact that when Spokane built a new stadium, the very
first event in that stadium they asked us to come
do the coin flip for that high school football game.
To me that that was such a humbling honor.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
But it just.
Speaker 4 (22:53):
Solidified what Friday Night Sports extra and all the effort
that we put into it, what it really meant to people.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
I thought that really cool. Well, it didn't.
Speaker 3 (23:01):
It didn't hurt us that the top two people in
Spokane School District, the top two administrators we both covered
on Friday Night.
Speaker 5 (23:07):
Sports, was on Friday Night Sports.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
There you go, what do you think is Actually I'm
gonna go back and I want to kind of go
back to something you said but about being doing the
coin toss at the first football game, but when Spokane Stadium,
you guys were also honored there as well. Talk about that.
Speaker 5 (23:27):
Well, one of the things I remembers that I saw
you there Sean doing a live shot.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
But I remember you guys giving me a hard time. Yep,
I do, but.
Speaker 5 (23:38):
Already said it humbling. That's that's that's the only it
was humbling.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (23:43):
I didn't really think much about it until I got
on the field and saw these two guys and saw
that because I was preparing to do a football game
that night. I had just done a soccer game, then
ran over to be honored, and then I was running
back to do the football game that night. And it
was like I jumped over the fence, which I know
you're not supposed to do, but it was like I
had to get down there and I was like then
(24:03):
it kind of hit me and it was like, oh,
this is kind of a this is not I wasn't
expecting what my emotions. I've been to all of us.
I've been to so many sporting events. You're focused on
what you're supposed to do, you're covering the game, you
do that, and then all of a sudden, it's not
about the game or the athletes. It's more about you.
(24:24):
And I'm not really comfortable when things are about me.
I'd rather put the spotlight on somebody else.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
I feel like I know that about all three of you.
You're very humble, Like I don't you know I have them?
Wonder do you guys know what you did? Do you
know who you are? I mean, really, we're just regular guys. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (24:43):
It's blessed to work together and enjoy each other. We
worked our butts off, but it was doable because we
had such a great time while we were doing it.
Speaker 5 (24:53):
I just I just thought Leslie talked about something and
it just I want to tell this story really quick.
Because it's sitting here in this building, I think it applies.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
So uh.
Speaker 5 (25:05):
We saw his picture when we walked in, Sean Ousley
hanging in the lobby downstairs. And he used to be
one of our competitors.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
He did.
Speaker 5 (25:12):
He worked at KHQ as I think the number three
or number two sports guy way back way back in
the day. And he was one of those guys that,
even though he's a likable guy, I didn't want to
be friends with him. He was like you know, he
was he was my competitor. I didn't want to be
friends with him. And while he was working here, he
made a commercial for a truck leasing truck leasing place,
(25:36):
and it was the first thing you saw was his
face going want to buy a truck? Okay, which I
would go, you know, especially when it aired on on
k XL Y and uh and so skip to it
was was it Apple Cup?
Speaker 1 (25:52):
It was?
Speaker 2 (25:52):
We did.
Speaker 5 (25:53):
We did an Apple Cup special and I was the
I was the anchor and producer of this Apple Cup
special and I worked my tail off making sure that
everything was done right because we had to shoot stuff
and turn it around quickly and get so we had
our We had a production truck down in Pullman, We
had our microwave truck set up. Everything was going well,
(26:14):
it was working like clockwork. And we got done with
that show and we hit the last thing. We hit
the closing note on the whatever musical thing we had
to end it with, and I went like, yes, like
we did it first commercial afterwards, want to buy a truck?
I went ballistic. You guys, remember Bud might not have
(26:36):
been working with us at that point. He might have.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
Anyway, I went ballistic.
Speaker 5 (26:40):
And we had our production manager was working there, and
I went and I yelled at him and I and
then I went. I went back to the station that
evening and wrote a note that said, we just did
a great show and blah blah blah blah blah. And
at the end here's a guy who just used to
work for KHQ saying, want to buy a truck? And
in every buddy's mind, now that became a k h
(27:02):
Q production. Let's pull our heads out of wherever they are.
Oh god, I was mad, but I like I like,
I like Sean very much. Once it wasn't me you got,
I just went, we.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
Guys all have passion, you know what.
Speaker 3 (27:20):
I think that's why we were for lack of a
better word, so successful in what we were able to do.
What we cared about the product, We cared about how
it impacted the community. And like I said at the beginning,
we wanted to win. We we wanted to win.
Speaker 4 (27:37):
We all had the same mantra if our name was
on it.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
Okay, Dennis, say one thing about Bud and Rick.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
Nice.
Speaker 3 (27:47):
Yes, I owe about a lot because he brought me here,
and if he doesn't bring me here, who knows where
my career winds up and who knows what happens to
my family. I got to know Bud when I was
working in Missoula and we were trading videos, and I'd
(28:09):
always I'd send him some video of something I shot
that he wanted, and then I'd put a story on
the end of it, just so he could if he
wanted to see it. It's what I was doing. So
he offered me a job and I came over here,
So I mean I owe him a lot. He brought
me here, and my family has been impacted greatly by
being able to from all my kids, my oldest was
(28:34):
born in Missoula, but he came here at two months old,
so he doesn't know anyplace else. So O A other
two kids were born here, so I mean, so I'm
indebted to him. Bud was a great boss. Bud was
one of those guys that let you do what you
wanted to do, and he trusted us. So that was great.
And when he left, I was disappointed because I wasn't
(28:56):
sure what was going to happen. Oh, I wasn't sure
if we were going to get a third guy back, and
b I wasn't sure if that guy was going to
fit in with what we were trying to do. And
then you know, and the vision, and for the most part,
we were fortunate enough to have a say in who
we hired after Bud left. Certainly when Rick was the
sports director he get I got to give him my input,
(29:18):
and then certainly when I was the sports director there
and the sports director here at Cage Q. But you know,
if it was for Bud, I don't know. I don't
know what would have happened. I really don't. I probably
wouldn't have been in the business as long as I did.
I probably would have got fired someplace else. I just
you know, And like I said about Rick, I said,
I think Rick is one of the most talented people
I've ever worked with in this business. He can go
(29:39):
out and look at something and come up with a
not only a story, a award winning story. What I look
at at and I go, there's nothing here. This is crap,
this is garbage. This is a bunch of beat you know,
I'll beat myself there. There's no story here. And Rick
comes back and turns of story and I just Mark, I.
Speaker 4 (29:58):
Wish I did gets under?
Speaker 2 (30:01):
Yeah, what what you named it? What was that? What
was that? That?
Speaker 3 (30:03):
That?
Speaker 2 (30:04):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (30:05):
Cla glodlad g l o ds gross lumps of dirty snow.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
And there was a whole story on it.
Speaker 4 (30:12):
I wreck every time I kick one off of my car, and.
Speaker 5 (30:15):
I do too.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
Here you go, looking's bang, I'm knocked it off the car.
Speaker 3 (30:19):
But it's it's remarkable what he's what he's where, the
way his mind works.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
I wish I wish I had that. I don't. I
can't do what he does.
Speaker 1 (30:29):
I love that. Okay, you know I'm gonna go to
you by next Dennis and Rick.
Speaker 4 (30:33):
Well along the theme of what what Dennis talked about?
I I got into this business because I love doing
play by play, and the sports director job at caxl
Y was fun. I didn't know they hired me. I
don't know why they did because I'd never been on TV.
(30:55):
I didn't know how to run a camera. I had
learned all this stuff on the run. But I was
blessed to be able to be in a town and
at a station care so why that allowed me to
do play by play in addition to doing my job.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
But I couldn't have done.
Speaker 4 (31:13):
That if it wasn't for Dennis and Rick, because, as
Dennis said, I trusted.
Speaker 2 (31:19):
Him, and the.
Speaker 4 (31:21):
Ultimate trust was, Hey, I'm out of town for the
next three days with the Koogs. You guys got this
and they'd run it better than I did when I
was there, So you know, to me, that's the greatest thing.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
I just we had so much fun together.
Speaker 4 (31:35):
And my wife and I started our family very late,
so I saw both Dennis and Rick be dads well
before I was a dad, and so they probably don't
realize this, but I learned things from them about being
a dad and just the ability to kind of do
(31:58):
what we needed to do and trust each other there
just to get it done one way or the other.
Speaker 2 (32:03):
And the fact that we still like each other.
Speaker 3 (32:05):
To go have lunch, Yeah, so we go now that
I'm retired, we go have lunch once a month and
we try to go to a local place and we
just talk. And people go, oh, you're talking about sports
all that. We don't talk a whole lot of sports.
We talk about life, we talk about kids, we talk
about stuff, politics. I mean, just there's a lot of stuff.
(32:30):
I think one of the yeah, one of the I
think one of the times we didn't even talk about
any sports. People, I was going to want to know,
what are you talking about? Just stuff because we were
together for so long every day, and that's one of
the things when Bud left and open up his golf business,
and that, you know, we were Fortunately he came back,
(32:51):
but there were two years, three years we didn't see
two years we didn't see Bud at all, and that
that was part of that brotherhood. And your older brother
goes off the college and now what now?
Speaker 5 (33:03):
But yeah, yeah, okay, So I mean it's easy to
go third on this because I can just echo what
these guys said. But certainly Bud Bud hired me as
he hired Dennis, So I'm obviously very thankful for that.
But Bud, as as a leader of our group of three,
(33:23):
was somebody who was able to I I learned a
lot from him on that in being a leader, sure,
but he was able to rein me in on things
and kind of keep because like sometimes my head's going
this way or that way. I learned an attention to
detail with what we're doing, and I have always attributed
that to Bud. He kept me on track, he really did,
(33:47):
and he was He was a great boss in that way,
but gave you the freedom to do what you wanted
to do. Plus he's he's been a very good friend.
He and I. I played my first round of golf
in Spokane with Bud at Downriver.
Speaker 2 (34:00):
But but was a roommate. Yeah, he gave me a
place to live when I moved to town. Kick him
out when when I got married he got married, Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5 (34:11):
And then and then the one thing I'll say about
Dennis that that hasn't been said is that, uh he
brought a commitment, uh like an every day commitment to
what we were doing. And that was very catchy and
it felt like it had to be. It was like,
while I'm out here, I've got to do this because
I'm not going to go back and explain to Dennis
(34:32):
why I didn't do that, and he wasn't my boss,
you know, uh, but but you know he uh he
brought Dennis brought it every day, every freaking day, and uh,
that's a good thing to learn. So I give him
absolute credit for that.
Speaker 3 (34:51):
The other thing, I think that it worked well and
Bud but it was a great boss for the fact
that we could go to Bud and say, hey, let
let's try let's not do that, let's do this, or
he could come to us, and everybody was open to
suggestions because we weren't looking at how does this affect me?
We always looked at it as how's it affected apartment.
And one of the things that I always took from
(35:11):
whenever I was in charge after Rick moved into radio
full time and Bud was in radio as well and
I was still doing TV, is this is a team.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
There's no eyes here. It's a team.
Speaker 3 (35:21):
And we did it for so long as a team
that it worked and it's the best, you know. And
we were together longer than any other trio or sports
team has been together ever. Some people stayed in the market,
took different jobs, most people left, but we stayed together.
So I always looked as like we're together. We're going
(35:42):
to do this as a team. And some of the
people that I didn't get along with that were my
employees were more worried about themselves than the team, and
that didn't work well with me.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
It's true, you kind of have to be all for one.
That's what makes the magic right there, because when you're
all worked together for one thing, not just for yourself.
Speaker 2 (36:02):
You know what.
Speaker 3 (36:03):
And people in our business don't think the people at
home can tell that.
Speaker 2 (36:07):
But they can.
Speaker 1 (36:08):
They can.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
The viewers understand. The viewers understand who likes each other
and who doesn't like each other. The viewers are smarter
than a lot of times we give them credit for.
Speaker 1 (36:17):
So with that said, let's wrap up with what advice
would you give to kids now that want to go
into not just the business but sports itself, Because I'll
say this, you guys said that at first you felt
like you were looked down on because you didn't do
anything right. I think sports is the hardest working department
(36:39):
in the news realm.
Speaker 3 (36:40):
It has to be leslie because if you're not, you're
the step child in a news department, okay, And if
you're not working hard every day, then there are people
who automatically, if you put the S word to it,
which is sports, not the other S word, but the
S word sports, you're automatically thought of differently.
Speaker 2 (37:00):
So you have to work hard every day. I would
put the.
Speaker 4 (37:02):
Over under on weeknights I had maybe weekends too, with
doing play by playing weekends on nights that I had
dinner with my wife. At two per month, i'd put
the and most of the time it was under because
you'd feel guilty sneaking away to go home and have
dinner when there's games you should be out shooting.
Speaker 2 (37:26):
I just I think it's it's it. So you have to.
You have to.
Speaker 3 (37:29):
You have to be better than other people in your
newsroom because you're you're already being discounted. Now that's not
every manager, that's not every news director, that's not every
person who's making those decisions, but there are some. Oh
you do sports, you get introduced to a new news director,
Oh you're the sports department.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
You guys make such huge sacrifices, like you said, you know,
over under and to dinners with your wife per month.
I mean, you guys make sacrifices, especially when things get going,
whether it be high schoo football gets.
Speaker 3 (38:00):
Going, on September to March. September to March really hard,
that's really hard for a family. And we're very fortunate,
the three of us that we married the right people. Okay,
because we all three of us have been married for
a long period of time. My wife and I will
be forty five years coming up this year.
Speaker 2 (38:16):
Rick's getting eighty eight this year we celebrated forty.
Speaker 1 (38:21):
That's amazing. So somehow you made it work.
Speaker 3 (38:24):
Well, that's why I said we married the right people,
because it's not we can. I'm not taking any credit
for my forty five years of marriage. My wife's going
to take all the credit in the world for that.
Speaker 5 (38:33):
My advice to anybody coming into get.
Speaker 2 (38:36):
Out of the business. Don't do it. Don't do it.
Get out.
Speaker 5 (38:39):
And there's it's such a different business now, so you know,
be ready to adapt to change. But I think this applies.
It applied then and it applies now. And I referenced
it with Leslie when I was talking about her earlier,
that however you get in the door, you get in
the door. And it might be a pretty face gets
(39:00):
you in the door. It might be that you know
somebody that gets you in the door. It might be
that you know you were in the right place at
the right time. That gets you in the door. That
doesn't mean that you have made it. It does not
mean you have arrived. And for so many people, they
think that they have arrived. And okay, I'm here. Never
(39:22):
stop trying to get better. And that's on you, no
one else. I mean, people can certainly pull you aside
and say, hey, Rick, you need to work on this.
That that never happened. That never happened. Did anybody above
us ever pull us aside and say, I like what
you did here, don't do that, don't do that or whatever. No,
(39:43):
it doesn't happen. And I can guarantee it has never
happened to you. It does not happen. In this business.
It's on you. Get better. It is get and get better.
When you're ten fifteen years in, keep getting better. Watch yourself,
listen to your elf. Get better.
Speaker 1 (40:01):
Don't be complacent.
Speaker 3 (40:02):
You can't be I've always told people keep your eyes
open and your ears open and your mouth shut.
Speaker 2 (40:08):
Okay, And just because this is ever do that.
Speaker 3 (40:11):
Yeah, no, no, no, no.
Speaker 2 (40:15):
When you're first in the business, I didn't I didn't talk.
Speaker 3 (40:17):
I was a nice guy in Missoulam, I said, you
guys brought it out of me.
Speaker 2 (40:23):
But but my thing is is is don't Rick said
it great.
Speaker 3 (40:28):
Don't just because you got the job doesn't mean we're
going to hand everything to you. You got to work
hard every day and pay attention to the people who
have been in the business for a long period of
time and how they do it now. Don't be the
next them, be the first you. But figure out what's working,
what's not working right. My biggest problem with the younger generation,
it's not all of them, but it's some of them.
(40:52):
They don't want to work nights, they don't want to
work weekends, Well that's the And they don't want to
work early in the mornings.
Speaker 2 (40:58):
Well that's the business.
Speaker 1 (41:00):
That's the job.
Speaker 2 (41:01):
That's not No, that's the job. That's what that's what
it is. If you don't want to do.
Speaker 1 (41:06):
Those kind of things, don't do it.
Speaker 2 (41:09):
Yeah, if you.
Speaker 3 (41:09):
Don't want to get into business where you got to
call your your significant other or your wife and say, hey,
I can't come home, there's a fire out there, I
gotta stay. It doesn't work that way.
Speaker 4 (41:21):
The advice I give to folks who ask me for it,
and it doesn't have to be just a broadcast thing.
Find something that you enjoy doing. That's probably the number
one thing in my life that's been a blessing is that.
Speaker 2 (41:43):
Even though.
Speaker 4 (41:45):
We've all worked a lot of hours, it doesn't feel
like work because it's something you enjoy doing.
Speaker 2 (41:50):
I never.
Speaker 4 (41:52):
Woke up in the morning and said, oh God, I
gotta work, got to work today, you know.
Speaker 2 (41:55):
I mean, you work quote unquote eight hours a day.
Speaker 4 (41:58):
You have eight hours a day to rely and enjoy,
and you sleep eight hours a day. And if you
hate your job, you're not gonna sleep very well. You're
probably not gonna enjoy those other eight hours. So whatever
it is, somehow, try to find something that you're passionate
about so that whatever effort you have to put into
it doesn't feel like effort.
Speaker 5 (42:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (42:19):
What's the old saying. If you love what you're doing,
you never work a day in your life. Right.
Speaker 2 (42:23):
Find a job that isn't a job, yep.
Speaker 1 (42:25):
Yeah, something you love to do.
Speaker 4 (42:27):
Well.
Speaker 1 (42:27):
I always tell kids when they come in now, it's
be really careful and choosy about who you take your
advice from and who you listen to. So I'm gonna
wrap up by saying Rick, I want to say a
huge thank you to you and Teresa for I mean,
you guys taught me so much in the radio and
(42:47):
just how to be fun and be yourself, and you
like gave me so much open ground to be able
to figure out who I was. You let me fail,
you let me make mistakes. I'd run your board on
the morning show and you didn't yell at me once.
But I learned a lot by watching you too, and
the way you worked together. You were self deprecating, you
(43:08):
were funny, you were real, and so thank you so much.
Thank you for that and the advice that I got
from both of you meant the world to me.
Speaker 5 (43:17):
Thank you. You earned everything well.
Speaker 1 (43:19):
Thank you and Bud. You were so welcoming right off
the bat. Like you said, I met you before I
ever got into the business. You gave me an opportunity
as Missus Washington. But when I came into the building,
you were equally as welcoming. You were always that friendly
person that you knew you could count on, you could
(43:41):
go to. You would walk into your studio and you
learn something every time you were in there, just by
the way you handled yourself. And you wouldn't even have
to say, here, do this. It was just by watching
you that you were like, oh, I want to do that.
I want to pick up on that. And the way
you treated people was huge and I'll never forget at
that ever.
Speaker 2 (44:01):
And Dennis, that's the nicest guy on TV. I'm going
to tell you that right now. He's the nicest man
in Tellivienion.
Speaker 3 (44:07):
He is send me in to talk to the managers
because Rick or I would blow a gasket. He'd go
in and get everything done and then we could execute it.
Speaker 1 (44:15):
So Dennis, when I came in uh to the station,
you everybody again said, don't mind Dennis. He's gruff like
that with everybody. I instantly liked you. I was not
afraid of you. I don't know should I tell you that,
but I wasn't. You were you would allow you. Your
door was always open, and so yeah, I brought donuts
(44:38):
or whatever. But I always knew that I could come
to you and say I have a concern with this,
or I don't know what should I do here? Should
I listen to that person? Am I doing it right?
And he always had such great advice. You always gave
it to me straight too. So you weren't sugarcoating anything.
You were going to give it to me straight. You
also taught me how, and I'm still working on it
and I always will because I just of who I am,
(45:00):
but to be stronger and to be more secure in
who I am, because I tend to be a bit
of a pushover. But you always help me. And even
when you came here, that door was open and you
would give me the best advice. And I know now
that if I texted you, you would continue to give
me the best advice.
Speaker 2 (45:20):
Those are nice words, thanks and tough enough, buttercups.
Speaker 1 (45:22):
I should go write that down and put it just
right there. You guys, thank you so much for being
here today. I know you're trying to get out of
here so you can go.
Speaker 3 (45:32):
You know what, I swear we could sit here for
two but you probably have work to do and I
don't know what our blood sugar level is now.
Speaker 2 (45:41):
Might have to get lunch here.
Speaker 1 (45:43):
Well, let's get out of here, let's go to lunch.
Thanks you, guys, and really thank you for everything that
you've done for this community. I know I say that
not just for me, but for everybody, So thank you,
all right, everybody, Thanks so much. I go make the
rest of your days the best of your days.
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