September 14, 2026 • 31 mins
Guest Hosts Joe Lomonaco, Gary Smith, and Don Alhart talk about rejection letters, mishaps, Don's upcoming new children's book, and Gary covering sports.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'm Dave Deboe, NewsRadio WAM 1180. Next news, 11.30, breaking
news when it happens any time. But first, another hour
with Joe Lomonaco, Don Alhart, and Gary Smith, sitting in
for Bob Lonsbury today on NewsRadio WHAM 1180.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Thank you, Dave.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Certainly welcome.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
And thank you for following along. If I throw you
that lob, you have to send it back in the
same variety.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Gary Smith here, Don Alhart here.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
I'm Joe Lomonaco. Thanks for spending time with us. We've
got another hour to hang out here, and we have
so many more stories. I said throughout the entire show
we were going to run out of time before we
run out of stories. And I don't know which one
I want to go to here. All right, I'm going
to go to rejections here is something that I wrote
down on. Now, I think I'm pretty fortunate in my
(00:51):
career in this town. From the day I left SUNY Geneseo,
which was I spent four years there from 1989 to 1993.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
I graduated on a Saturday. The day after I.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
Started my first job in the business, I have been
in the business ever since. And I've never had to
audition for a job other than that first one. And
I will say publicly to Bob Savage, thank you so
much for taking a chance on an unproven kid. I
was right out of college. I had only college radio experience.
(01:24):
I literally had no experience, and he gave me the opportunity.
And then I have to say thank you to Jack Palvino.
And to Jeff Howlett and to Randy Gordman, who gave
an unproven kid with only 18 months experience and no
news experience a chance to prove himself here. And those
are the places where I got fortunate. Past that point,
(01:45):
I haven't had a rejection letter.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
So, Gary, I'm going to start with you. Have you
had a rejection letter?
Speaker 3 (01:52):
And was there a job that you really wanted to
when they said, we don't think you're right for this?
Speaker 4 (01:59):
There was one.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Okay, I'm dying to hear this.
Speaker 5 (02:01):
I sent a tape to KOA in Denver.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
I also sent a tape to KOA in Denver and
never heard anything, so I can't call it a rejection.
Speaker 4 (02:10):
I did hear something.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Okay.
Speaker 4 (02:12):
And it was a rejection.
Speaker 6 (02:13):
Oh, man.
Speaker 5 (02:14):
But, you know, it was one of those jobs that
I wasn't really sure I wanted.
Speaker 4 (02:20):
Okay.
Speaker 5 (02:21):
If they had gotten back to me and said, yeah,
we want you. You're the guy we're looking for. I'm
not sure what I would have said.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
Okay.
Speaker 5 (02:31):
But I thought I'd send the letter out and the
tape and see what the reaction was.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
Okay, so you weren't fishing for a gig?
Speaker 4 (02:38):
Not really.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
Okay, so you just kind of like, I'm just going
to test the waters over here. I'm okay where I am,
but I'm going to test and see. Was Denver a
place where you thought, I might like to live there?
Speaker 5 (02:48):
Well, I might have liked to live there. Our family
might have liked it. My wife and I were skiers,
and so that would have worked as part of it.
But Whether the kids would have wanted to go to
school there after being in school here, I'm not sure.
All right.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
Well, I'm grateful because you wouldn't have been here when
I got here if you had moved to Denver.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
All right.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
Same thing for you, Al Hart. Where's the rejection come from?
And what do they tell you in the rejection?
Speaker 6 (03:14):
And this, again, I wasn't looking for work. But Al White,
one of our reporters, had applied for a job at
KYW in Philadelphia. And when they looked at his videotape,
they saw just a snippet of me introducing him. And
reached out to me and said, we've seen you on
an audition tape, and we would like to see more
of your work. Which to me was, hey, I'm packing
(03:37):
the bags. So I sent them more of my work,
and I still have the letter.
Speaker 4 (03:42):
Oh, really? It's in my scrapbook, and it's Dear Don.
Speaker 6 (03:45):
We are looking for someone who exudes more warmth on
the air.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
No!
Speaker 4 (03:50):
Sincerely, Bob Feldman. Oh, man. And that was that.
Speaker 6 (03:54):
The other one was a chance a news director here
who went on to become a news director in Washington
actually invited me down for an audition. And again, to
Gary's point, it came at a time when we just
bought a new home in Penfield. Our son was starting
high school, daughter junior high, our youngest starting kindergarten. And
I went down, I auditioned, did not get the job,
(04:16):
but found out a year or two later from a
good friend that they sensed I wasn't thirsty for it.
They wanted someone who really wanted that job. And there
was a reluctance that they sensed. And I think part
of it, too, is to Gary's point, you look at
your kids, you look at where they are, you go,
I want to uproot our whole life for what could
(04:37):
be in that market a year, six months. You know,
the ratings come in, they go, well, sorry, you didn't
make it.
Speaker 4 (04:43):
Where are you going to go?
Speaker 2 (04:43):
Okay, that's an interesting point.
Speaker 3 (04:45):
Did you feel that maybe you had more security if
you stayed here because of what you had done here?
And testing the waters elsewhere, what might have scratched an
itch that was intriguing? Can I do it in a
bigger market? Can I move up? Can I be like
other of my colleagues? But when you weigh the uncertainty
(05:05):
against what you could potentially continue to build here, the
scale just didn't tip in the direction of moving out
of here.
Speaker 5 (05:11):
That's the way I felt, really. I really did want
to stay here. I liked the town where I grew up,
where my wife grew up. And I liked the people
that I worked with. And it was a good place,
I felt, to continue a career and to raise a family.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Same thing for you, Don?
Speaker 6 (05:33):
I think when you look at it that way, and
this really triggered a new thought in my mind, I
think The uncertainty I felt of being successful in a
larger market speaks to my personality that allowed me to
be successful here. I wasn't that. I would look at
myself and say, I don't picture myself there. I don't
(05:54):
think I'm going to be able. I think I had
some doubts. I had some doubts. Could I be successful
in a larger market? But I also think those doubts
may have made me more acceptable here.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
There's that notion of big fish little pond I think
Gary you brought that up in one of our breaks
you know and I think of Rochester now as a
as a big small city I think that's how I
like to describe it it has a feel that is
larger it punches above its weight in a lot of
ways it has opportunities here that you wouldn't necessarily consider
(06:28):
a city of this size having. And despite all of
the changes economically and population-wise, it still feels to me
the same way as it did when I was an
outsider coming in from Binghamton, New York, to Geneseo, and
seeing that as the shiny place that you wanted to
get to. For me, a trajectory of moving to this
place was exactly what I wanted to do, because I
just kind of liked the vibe of the place. And
(06:48):
I thought, this is big enough for me. I don't
know whether I necessarily need to go any larger.
Speaker 6 (06:53):
And it's a larger market. I mean, I was always
told when you think about it, this market, we're on
the lake. So a lot of our audience is out
over the lake.
Speaker 4 (07:04):
So, you know, really, if.
Speaker 6 (07:06):
This Rochester was 100 miles south, our market population wise
would be much bigger.
Speaker 4 (07:13):
So the potential. Was there.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
And you'd still wind up doing the farm report. Even
to this day, you probably still would. All right, we
have much more to discuss. We talked about rejections. I
definitely want to talk about some plans. Sometimes you got
put on the spot. those horror stories that I think
all of us have had. I'm going to share one
with you as well that I've never shared before because
I just have to get it out and put it
out there in public. I'm Joel Monaco, along with Gary
(07:36):
Smith and Don Alhart on NewsRadio WAM 1180. Back.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
Following the events.
Speaker 4 (07:40):
Of the day.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
We are following.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
Following the story.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
Wherever they take us.
Speaker 5 (07:44):
The straight of her moves.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
We have total control.
Speaker 6 (07:46):
We own it. Congressional battles.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
Across the country.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
Check in.
Speaker 6 (07:49):
Our movement.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
They're communists.
Speaker 5 (07:51):
Anytime.
Speaker 4 (07:51):
What are we talking about?
Speaker 2 (07:52):
NewsRadio WAM 1180.
Speaker 4 (07:55):
Ben Bortleford is proud to be certified by J.D.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
Power as a 2020... Gary Smith and Don Elhart on
NewsRadio WAM 1180. We are sharing stories. Don's got stuff
on his phone. We're looking at Muhammad Ali from a
TV appearance way back in the day. There's so many
stories that we're just definitely not able to get to.
Speaker 4 (08:13):
If they could see in between the breaks here.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
The show is better in the breaks than it is
on the air.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
So I definitely wanted to do this one because, sure,
things have gone really well when you've been out in
public or when you've been on the air or on
a set, but things have also been disastrous. Um, I'm wondering,
and Don, I'll start with you. If there's ever been
one of those, just think where anything that possibly could
go wrong, did go wrong moments that you keep, but
(08:41):
when you're going to tell a horror story, that's the one.
Speaker 4 (08:43):
You go to.
Speaker 6 (08:44):
I'm trying to think, you know, we were just looking
at one, which didn't involve me directly, but Muhammad Ali
did come to Rochester and, uh, we made arrangements to
have him on the 11 o'clock news. People in the
newsroom said, Don, you've been spoofed. He's not going to
show up. But he did show up. And we brought
him in live on the air with Ron DeFrance. Well,
he spotted Floyd Patterson on the cardboard cutout behind Ron
(09:06):
and takes a punch at it. And Ron goes, please,
don't knock over our set. Because back then, television was
black and white. So you didn't need a fancy set.
We just had cardboard. I remember that in Ithaca when
I was anchoring the one newscaster week at college. And
we didn't have fancy graphics or effects. So to simulate
(09:29):
wiping from one scene to the other, we had this
window behind the news set and the window would open
up and the camera would dolly in. to the weather
area where I was. Well, the camera dollied in that
night and knocked over the wall. And I'm literally, I'm
doing the weather, the whole weather cast with one arm
out of the scene because I'm holding up the wall
(09:49):
because I'm afraid it's going to cave in. But, you know,
there are moments like that. And I think the one
horror one was in radio when I had been up
most of the night in college, but I was working
a Sunday morning. And there was a half-hour show that
was on reel-to-reel tape. And that was before the live
(10:10):
church broadcast. And once I put that half-hour reel-to-reel show on,
I just, I'm going to take a little nap, put
my head down. I woke up at 5 after 11.
Speaker 4 (10:19):
Oh, man.
Speaker 6 (10:20):
And it was dead air, and the phones are ringing.
That was probably the biggest panic I can remember.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
You got a pucker there. Gary, any horror stories from
you that you tell?
Speaker 5 (10:30):
Well, the one that I remember, which did not turn
out badly, but it could have, my first job at WSAY,
we had a big snowstorm. And I got to the
station 20 minutes after sign-on, and that was the first
(10:51):
time I'd ever been late to a job in my life.
And I thought, oh my gosh, this is awful. Well,
I was the first one there. So finally got into
the building, and I'm sitting around waiting, and no one
else is there. No engineers, no transmitter engineer. So Now
(11:12):
it's about seven. I thought, well, we've got to go
on the air. People are waiting to listen, of course.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
They're depending on me to be there.
Speaker 5 (11:20):
So I turned the transmitter on, which I had no
right to do. Didn't have that kind of a license.
And we had an engineer spinning the records at that
point at S.A.Y. So I– clipped the mic into the
console out in the control room so that I could
(11:43):
run combo, play the records. And so I went on
the air. About 20 minutes afterwards, I hear a car outside,
tires spinning and somebody trying to get up the driveway.
Speaker 4 (11:55):
And I figured, well, one of the engineers are here.
Speaker 5 (11:58):
And then I hear clump, clump, clump coming up the
stairs to the second level of the farmhouse on on
French Road, where the studio was. And down the hall
comes Mr.
Speaker 4 (12:11):
Brown.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
Station owner.
Speaker 5 (12:13):
The station owner. And he looked at me, looked into
the studio where there wasn't anyone because I was working
in the control room. And I thought, well, my career
is over in the first year and I'm all done.
And he just, he said, where is everybody? I said, well,
they haven't gotten here yet. Turned around, walked down the stairs,
(12:38):
drove away.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
Never heard another word. Well, that's good.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
So both of those, okay, I'm going to one-up you.
This will be the one and only time I'm going
to one-up you. So in the early part of my career,
in addition to being on the air, I was also
our promotions director, which meant that when we did station events,
I was the one who kind of ran point on everything. Well,
one of the things that we used to do way
back in the day was something called an insurance contest.
Our friend and colleague, Jean Menton, rest her soul, was
(13:07):
big on those contests where you would register to win
in a cardboard box at a convenience store, and we'd
pull all the names in, and you'd have a chance
to win a big cash prize in usually some public place. Well,
we did a lot of those with the Red Wings
over the years, and one of the ones that we
did was a damn near impossible contest, and here is
what it was. The object of the game was we had,
(13:29):
I think, five winners or six winners. You were called
down to the field during the seventh inning stretch, which
is where they would do some of the bigger contests.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
I think they still do today.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
And we drove, this was probably in the late 90s,
so probably a late 90s or 2000 model Honda Accord
that we had gotten, that was the prize, onto the field.
The car was parked so that it was facing the stands,
so kind of parallel to the to the baseline from
second to third.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
And our winners were at home plate.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
And the object of the game was you had to
throw a Frisbee from home plate to the car at
third base, fly it through the open passenger and driver's
side window into a net on the other side, not
touching any part of the car in the process. And
(14:22):
if that happened, you won the car. I've never been
booed off a stage, but I was booed by the
entirety of Frontier Field that day because I had to
be the one to explain the rules.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
Why are we standing there?
Speaker 3 (14:38):
We had five people who just flung it.
Speaker 5 (14:40):
They had no idea.
Speaker 3 (14:41):
We had this charming lady. She probably was close to 80.
She was mobility impaired, and.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
She had her walker doggone it. Don't you know? It's
like on a Price is Right show. You get one.
Speaker 3 (14:53):
And she actually hit the car. She didn't get close.
And they kept telling us to give her the car.
And they kept telling us to give her the car.
I have never in my career since been.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
Booed off a stage before.
Speaker 3 (15:04):
But that is the one and only time I have
ever been booed off a stage. Was trying to get
a Frisbee through the open window of a car.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
The things we do when it comes to trying to
give a listener a good experience. And maybe have them
win a big cash prize.
Speaker 3 (15:20):
All right, we've got another half an hour to spend.
We still have more stories to get to. We'll hopefully
get to them all by the time we wrap up.
Gary Smith and Don Elhart are my guests. I'm Joe
Lomonaco in for Bob Lonsberry. And thanks for spending time
with us today on NewsRadio WAM 1180.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
We'll be back with more. Stick around.
Speaker 4 (15:39):
Back to school.
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Is for beginners.
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What you want is a masterclass for news that shapes
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We need to do it now.
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NewsRadio.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
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1180.
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Car accident call rochester's local car accident lawyers parisian bella
via bob today we appreciate him giving us the opportunity
to come and just share stories this is what we
do when we're together you're just now a fly on
the wall for what you know our normal conversations are
when we do we usually when we meet up it's
usually like three or four hours worth of just telling
stories and one folds into the next into the next
(16:14):
one thing that we were talking about during the break
that i didn't want to bring up you know don
in addition to being a Television anchor, is also an author.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
And his third book, second children's book, is off to
the printers. Can you please tell us a little bit
about this?
Speaker 4 (16:33):
I'm excited about this one.
Speaker 6 (16:35):
The first book, Sibley's Christmas Adventure, just traced the story
of a little mouse that lived in Sibley's and was
devastated when it was closing and the toy department was
shut down.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
And he.
Speaker 6 (16:46):
befriends McCurdy, another mouse on the Skyway, who enables him
to get on the amount of rail and go to
the North Pole. And I'm out at a book signing
last November at the shops at Westridge. And this little
girl came up, Isla, five years old with her parents.
I love the story. I got it out of the library.
I didn't even know it was in the library. But
(17:08):
she said, I love the story. And she says to me,
looks up with her big eyes and says, whatever happened
to McCurdy?
Speaker 3 (17:16):
Now, you had never thought about doing another one. Had
you thought about doing.
Speaker 4 (17:19):
Another one at that point? People said, you ought to
write another book.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
I go, eh, don't tell me what I should do.
Speaker 4 (17:23):
It was a lot of work and this and that.
And I said, I don't know.
Speaker 6 (17:27):
I mean, in her mind, Will McCurdy helped Sibley get
out to the North Pole. He was left behind. So
I looked at her. I said, I guess I have
to write another book. And so that's the inspiration for
McCurdy's Christmas Surprise, which went to the printers this week.
It will benefit the Rochester Rotary Sunshine Camp, and it
(17:48):
will be dedicated to Isla. We took a picture with
her a couple of weeks ago because she is the
inspiration for it.
Speaker 4 (17:54):
And I am more.
Speaker 6 (17:57):
Excited about this one because I like the story a
little more, how McCurdy gets his adventure underway. But again,
it speaks to community. The first book benefited the Ark
Foundation of Monroe. they were able to raise funds, and
they still have some of those books back. And this
one will benefit the Rotary Sunshine Camp, which really not
only addresses the people from the Arkham and Row, but
(18:19):
other organizations in our community reaching out to those with disabilities.
So it's going to benefit a lot of people. And again,
the proceeds will be used for that. And I'm excited
about it, that it's coming out.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
Well, you made a promise to a five-year-old, so you
definitely had to keep it.
Speaker 3 (18:35):
Just from start to finish, though, from the time that
that question first came in to the time that you
were ready to deliver that, what sort of commitment did
you make to this?
Speaker 6 (18:46):
I reached out to Carol DeMolin, who was with the
ARC at the time and is now in consulting. And
so she put the first book together for me, which
is what I needed at the time. I wanted to
do a book, but I said, I don't have the time.
I was working when the first one was put together.
And so, you know, doing all of the necessary paperwork
to have it filed and printed and find an illustrator,
(19:08):
Doug Hoyt. Doug Hoyt was an intern at the Arkham
Monroe when we were looking for an illustrator and said,
I can do this. And he's doing the second book
as well. So I reached out to her on this one,
and I said, this one is going to benefit the camp.
Can you help with it? We brought it to fruition.
And this time I reached out to about 10 or
15 friends in Rotary. And said, would you give us
(19:32):
some money to fund the printing of the book and
donate it to the camp so that now every sale
is going to benefit the camp because we've already made
the investment with with donated dollars. So I'm just excited
to see it. I can't wait to see when it's printed.
And I've mentioned it to two or three people. I
(19:55):
think I was telling you, my good friend down in Dansville,
Marion Kennel, 94 years old, called me up the other day.
Speaker 4 (20:00):
He said, I have three great-grandchildren. I want to buy
them right now. I said, we haven't printed them yet, Marion.
But when they're printed, you'll get the first three right
off the press.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
Doing plushies with them too? Because Sibley had a plushie
that came with it.
Speaker 4 (20:10):
Sibley had a plushie.
Speaker 6 (20:11):
I don't think we've broached that yet because there are
A few Sibley plushies left.
Speaker 4 (20:16):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
Well, maybe just put them in a different outfit.
Speaker 3 (20:19):
But it brings up a topic that I definitely wanted
to get into and get your thoughts on. The way
media is right now, there was a time when you
did something, you did one thing. Whether you were on television,
whether you were on radio, whether you were in print,
you were the person that did the one thing. that
model has changed. And by necessity, many people that still
(20:42):
do the job right now do multiple things. They're YouTubers,
they're TikTokers, they're bloggers, they're.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
On any type of social media.
Speaker 3 (20:50):
And those people that may have left the industry have
gone on to pursue a.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
Path and an opportunity that they create for themselves.
Speaker 3 (21:01):
Was there ever a a sense that, you know what,
I wanted to do something else in your professional life, Gary,
other than doing what you did. And you did a
lot of different things being on the air, working for
an agency.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
I know you did that.
Speaker 3 (21:14):
You had done some, you, you've been an account rep
and a, and a salesperson here at WHAM toward the
end of your career. Was there ever anything else like
to Don's point about being an author to say, you know,
I'd really love to take the time and do this.
Speaker 5 (21:27):
The only thing that I thought about connected with, uh,
my career, was being a full-time play-by-play sports guy.
Speaker 3 (21:39):
That's right, because I've failed to mention your entire career
in baseball and how long you had done that, and
you've been away and come back and been away and
come back, but it's always been there.
Speaker 5 (21:49):
It has, and I've always enjoyed it, and of course
I covered all of the LPGA tournaments at Locust Hill
and the last one at Monroe, and I'd did all
of the majors at Oak Hill starting in 1968. And
they were great fun. The problem in a market this
(22:14):
size without major league teams is can you make a
living now just doing sports? And the answer is probably not.
Speaker 4 (22:26):
Okay.
Speaker 5 (22:27):
Um, If you're in a market with major league teams,
there are so many opportunities peripheral to the game itself
that I think people can do that.
Speaker 4 (22:38):
Did you ever do any of the recreations? Oh, yes.
Speaker 6 (22:42):
I remember when I was the engineer, it was Joe Cunningham.
Speaker 4 (22:47):
Joe Cullinane. Cullinane.
Speaker 5 (22:48):
Yep.
Speaker 6 (22:49):
And my job would be to– and he had– he
would recreate from a ticker. If the game was out
of town, they didn't send anyone. He had a mitt
and a little bat, and he would make the sound
of a pitch, and he would recreate the game, and
you probably did the same.
Speaker 4 (23:06):
That process was amazing.
Speaker 5 (23:07):
The first game I ever did with the Red Wings
was a recreate from Havana when the Havana Sugar Kings
were in the league, and I had never done a
real play-by-play game.
Speaker 4 (23:23):
I played baseball.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
Mm-hmm.
Speaker 5 (23:25):
I watched a lot of games at Red Wing Stadium.
So they said, can you do this? It was when
Jerry Flynn was first having problems with his voice, and
he was not supposed to make a sound for a month.
So I said, yeah, yeah, I can do it. So
it was a recreate. It wasn't a game here at
(23:46):
Red Wing Stadium. Recreate from Havana. I had taken French
in school, never Spanish. So that was the first problem.
And doing recreates depended a lot on the sender, the
ticker coming in and whoever was– lots of them would
give you lots of information. Fly ball to center fielder
(24:10):
makes a great catch on the warning track. The next
guy who was a sender from another city might say,
fly ball, center fielder. So you could make it anything
you want. Then the ticker would go down, and you'd
have no information coming. So unless it was a game
(24:31):
in Buffalo where people might be able to hear it,
we had a rain delay.
Speaker 3 (24:37):
You had the ability to make them sound as good
as your imagination.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
Could make them. That is absolutely fantastic.
Speaker 3 (24:44):
Stories like these, I'm so glad that we're having the
opportunity to share with all of you. That's Gary Smith,
and along with Don Elhart, I'm Joe Lamonaco. And for
Bob Lonsberry, we have more time to spend with you.
We'll do it next on NewsRadio Wham 1180.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
I'll create those four communists.
Speaker 5 (24:56):
I'll beat people progressively. These people will take them a
train to crazy town.
Speaker 6 (24:59):
Let those voices out.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
So get off your asses. What is in my head?
Speaker 6 (25:03):
Those voices in my head. NewsRadio Wham 1180.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
Tackle rust before it scores on your ride.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
With Corrosion Pro Plus. 585-235-RUST, 235-7878. And Don Elhart.
Speaker 3 (25:18):
I'm Joel DeMonaco, and for Bob Lonsberry on NewsRadio WAM 1180,
we've been sharing stories, talking about careers in the past,
and again, we just wanted to give you a little
bit of an insight as to what we do when
we all get together. And these are the kind of
things that we share. One of the things that I
think this may be a good place to kind of
land the plane is the idea of choices and the
(25:39):
idea of things that we do have.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
In our in our medium.
Speaker 3 (25:46):
Right now you know back in the day i think
we've all done it you grab the radio and you
scanned around the dial and see how far away you
could pick up radio stations from and that was kind
of cool because you can you know you it was
sort of like you were trying to find something a
little buried treasure somewhere choices have always existed now they
come to you in a much more aggressive way and
there's a heck of a lot more out there how
(26:09):
do you guys see what the role of any one
of these types of contents, creations, or radio just being
one of them, still has a way to be not
only relevant, but to deliver a product that is useful
and of service in some way. You can certainly pick
up your phone and start recording a video or recording audio,
(26:32):
but just, is it volume over substance?
Speaker 2 (26:36):
I guess maybe is what I'm getting at.
Speaker 3 (26:38):
Are we oversaturated with things, but not many of them
have the same kind of a, kind of a benefit
to them at the end of the day.
Speaker 6 (26:46):
I think we're almost at the peak of what social
media is going to be doing. And I say that
not that there isn't a lot more room for it
to grow. But I think in a sense, everybody's out.
Everybody's a reporter now. If you've got a phone, you
are reporting. You are on TikTok. You are on Instagram.
And I think at some point, it seems to me,
(27:08):
we're going to be so overwhelmed by that, that we're
going to to have that local connection a little more direct.
I think we've talked about local radio stations maybe in
small communities having a surge again because I think people,
once we're so exposed to all of this, we almost
become numb to it because we don't, there's so many
(27:30):
people on so many platforms that none will stand out
that we're going to, want something that stands out. We're
going to want something to focus on because we're going
to be overwhelmed with what's there.
Speaker 4 (27:42):
Well, yeah.
Speaker 5 (27:43):
And along with that, so much of social media now
is unsocial media. And I think a lot of people
are growing very weary of that. And something that can
be interesting, positive, friendly, whatever term you want to put
(28:04):
on it, I think will become more relevant and some
portions of social media I think are really going to
shrink because a lot of people I think have just
reached The saturation point.
Speaker 4 (28:19):
With the bad stuff.
Speaker 3 (28:20):
And also, you know, to that point of saturation, there
are some times where my wife and I.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
Will do this. We'll sit in the living room and
be like, hey, we should put a movie on. Well,
let's go see a movie.
Speaker 3 (28:29):
And we'll spend an hour scanning through stuff and never
pick anything. And, you know, having choice, I certainly like it.
It's certainly a good thing to have, and I pay
for the privilege of doing that. But at a certain point,
it does get to where it kind of shuts me
down a little bit to say, like, I can't make
a decision, so I will sit here on my phone
(28:52):
and maybe play a game or scroll through social media
and not hope to find anything because I can't make
the decision about what I'm going to engage myself with
for that two hours.
Speaker 4 (29:04):
And think about it. We grew up with all of
this for free.
Speaker 6 (29:07):
And now when I look at what I pay for
the Internet to get that signal for the different– services
to watch television that used to be for free i
sat down a month or so ago i added it
up it was a little frightening but yeah you know
we throw in the cell phone and everything else we're
paying a lot per month a lot of us for
(29:27):
just the electronic connection we make with the world.
Speaker 3 (29:30):
Yeah and for the fact that we know we pay
a lot of for the for the privilege of not
watching anything or not consuming anything. Or it comes into
your eyes or ears and then it immediately is lost.
And we've done this here and we can certainly go
on for hours longer telling stories and remembrances about things
(29:50):
we did, stories we covered, people we met, events that
we had been at. And they're still as present for
me anyway, and I suspect they are for you guys,
as they were the day that they happened, but I'm
wondering how sticky any of this stuff is. You know,
choice is great, but how much of it is actually
sticky and we'll wind up making a, you know, we
come back five years from.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
Now, are we going to remember it the same way?
Speaker 4 (30:11):
Good question.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (30:14):
Maybe that's exactly the place where we will line up media.
So we have about a minute left. Final thoughts, Gary,
you're going to play golf this week. Where are you playing?
Speaker 5 (30:21):
I am playing tomorrow at Champion Hills in Victor, and
Thursday's game isn't set up.
Speaker 4 (30:27):
Oh, okay.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
Well, good.
Speaker 3 (30:28):
I'm glad that you can still be loosey-goosey with your
schedule like that. Champion Hills, a proud supporter of iHeartRadio,
so thank them very much. Don, what do you got
going on?
Speaker 4 (30:35):
Yeah, I'll fill out tonight.
Speaker 6 (30:36):
We mentioned Spencerport Rotary is celebrating their 50th anniversary, so
my wife and I join them for their gala tonight,
and And deliver a keynote address, which I hope is
warmly accepted.
Speaker 4 (30:49):
We'll find out later tonight.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
I'm sure it will be.
Speaker 4 (30:51):
But a good group out there, and we wish them well.
Speaker 3 (30:54):
Yeah, I will see you in front of a group.
We're going to do some fundraising for Wilmot and Pluta
Cancer Centers on Friday. We're going to be at a
Genesee Country Village and Museum on Saturday for their annual whirl.
It is sold out for their 50th anniversary year. See
you at the Al Siegel Center for a wine event
later this month. So at some point in time, you'll
probably bump into one of us. And if we're at
the Costco, we'll stop and tell you a story. Gary,
(31:17):
thank you so much for being here. It's been a
pleasure hanging out with you.
Speaker 4 (31:19):
Love it, Joe.
Speaker 5 (31:20):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
Don Alhart, thank you so much for being here.
Speaker 4 (31:22):
It's been a pleasure. Thank you for including us. A
wonderful morning.
Speaker 3 (31:25):
And for Bob Lonsberry, thanks for taking the day off, pal.
We appreciate you. I hope you got your work done,
whatever it was you were doing. We appreciate sitting in
the big seat and spending time with everybody out there.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
I'm Joe DeMonaco.
Speaker 3 (31:34):
And for Bob Lonsberry, and this is NewsRadio WHAM 1180. Information.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
Everything we do is FYI.
Speaker 6 (31:42):
Information on this economic battle against Iran.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
The midterms.
Speaker 5 (31:47):
Prices.
Speaker 4 (31:48):
America is too expensive.
Speaker 2 (31:49):
Check in throughout the day.
Speaker 4 (31:51):
I just got information.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
News Radio.
Speaker 5 (31:53):
Wham!
Speaker 4 (31:53):
1180.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
Hi folks, Jim Salmon here from the Wham!
Speaker 4 (31:56):
Home Repair.
I'm Dave Deboe, NewsRadio WAM 1180. Next news, 11.30, breaking
news when it happens any time. But first, another hour
with Joe Lomonaco, Don Alhart, and Gary Smith, sitting in
for Bob Lonsbury today on NewsRadio WHAM 1180.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Thank you, Dave.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Certainly welcome.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
And thank you for following along. If I throw you
that lob, you have to send it back in the
same variety.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Gary Smith here, Don Alhart here.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
I'm Joe Lomonaco. Thanks for spending time with us. We've
got another hour to hang out here, and we have
so many more stories. I said throughout the entire show
we were going to run out of time before we
run out of stories. And I don't know which one
I want to go to here. All right, I'm going
to go to rejections here is something that I wrote
down on. Now, I think I'm pretty fortunate in my
(00:51):
career in this town. From the day I left SUNY Geneseo,
which was I spent four years there from 1989 to 1993.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
I graduated on a Saturday. The day after I.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
Started my first job in the business, I have been
in the business ever since. And I've never had to
audition for a job other than that first one. And
I will say publicly to Bob Savage, thank you so
much for taking a chance on an unproven kid. I
was right out of college. I had only college radio experience.
(01:24):
I literally had no experience, and he gave me the opportunity.
And then I have to say thank you to Jack Palvino.
And to Jeff Howlett and to Randy Gordman, who gave
an unproven kid with only 18 months experience and no
news experience a chance to prove himself here. And those
are the places where I got fortunate. Past that point,
(01:45):
I haven't had a rejection letter.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
So, Gary, I'm going to start with you. Have you
had a rejection letter?
Speaker 3 (01:52):
And was there a job that you really wanted to
when they said, we don't think you're right for this?
Speaker 4 (01:59):
There was one.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Okay, I'm dying to hear this.
Speaker 5 (02:01):
I sent a tape to KOA in Denver.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
I also sent a tape to KOA in Denver and
never heard anything, so I can't call it a rejection.
Speaker 4 (02:10):
I did hear something.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Okay.
Speaker 4 (02:12):
And it was a rejection.
Speaker 6 (02:13):
Oh, man.
Speaker 5 (02:14):
But, you know, it was one of those jobs that
I wasn't really sure I wanted.
Speaker 4 (02:20):
Okay.
Speaker 5 (02:21):
If they had gotten back to me and said, yeah,
we want you. You're the guy we're looking for. I'm
not sure what I would have said.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
Okay.
Speaker 5 (02:31):
But I thought I'd send the letter out and the
tape and see what the reaction was.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
Okay, so you weren't fishing for a gig?
Speaker 4 (02:38):
Not really.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
Okay, so you just kind of like, I'm just going
to test the waters over here. I'm okay where I am,
but I'm going to test and see. Was Denver a
place where you thought, I might like to live there?
Speaker 5 (02:48):
Well, I might have liked to live there. Our family
might have liked it. My wife and I were skiers,
and so that would have worked as part of it.
But Whether the kids would have wanted to go to
school there after being in school here, I'm not sure.
All right.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
Well, I'm grateful because you wouldn't have been here when
I got here if you had moved to Denver.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
All right.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
Same thing for you, Al Hart. Where's the rejection come from?
And what do they tell you in the rejection?
Speaker 6 (03:14):
And this, again, I wasn't looking for work. But Al White,
one of our reporters, had applied for a job at
KYW in Philadelphia. And when they looked at his videotape,
they saw just a snippet of me introducing him. And
reached out to me and said, we've seen you on
an audition tape, and we would like to see more
of your work. Which to me was, hey, I'm packing
(03:37):
the bags. So I sent them more of my work,
and I still have the letter.
Speaker 4 (03:42):
Oh, really? It's in my scrapbook, and it's Dear Don.
Speaker 6 (03:45):
We are looking for someone who exudes more warmth on
the air.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
No!
Speaker 4 (03:50):
Sincerely, Bob Feldman. Oh, man. And that was that.
Speaker 6 (03:54):
The other one was a chance a news director here
who went on to become a news director in Washington
actually invited me down for an audition. And again, to
Gary's point, it came at a time when we just
bought a new home in Penfield. Our son was starting
high school, daughter junior high, our youngest starting kindergarten. And
I went down, I auditioned, did not get the job,
(04:16):
but found out a year or two later from a
good friend that they sensed I wasn't thirsty for it.
They wanted someone who really wanted that job. And there
was a reluctance that they sensed. And I think part
of it, too, is to Gary's point, you look at
your kids, you look at where they are, you go,
I want to uproot our whole life for what could
(04:37):
be in that market a year, six months. You know,
the ratings come in, they go, well, sorry, you didn't
make it.
Speaker 4 (04:43):
Where are you going to go?
Speaker 2 (04:43):
Okay, that's an interesting point.
Speaker 3 (04:45):
Did you feel that maybe you had more security if
you stayed here because of what you had done here?
And testing the waters elsewhere, what might have scratched an
itch that was intriguing? Can I do it in a
bigger market? Can I move up? Can I be like
other of my colleagues? But when you weigh the uncertainty
(05:05):
against what you could potentially continue to build here, the
scale just didn't tip in the direction of moving out
of here.
Speaker 5 (05:11):
That's the way I felt, really. I really did want
to stay here. I liked the town where I grew up,
where my wife grew up. And I liked the people
that I worked with. And it was a good place,
I felt, to continue a career and to raise a family.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Same thing for you, Don?
Speaker 6 (05:33):
I think when you look at it that way, and
this really triggered a new thought in my mind, I
think The uncertainty I felt of being successful in a
larger market speaks to my personality that allowed me to
be successful here. I wasn't that. I would look at
myself and say, I don't picture myself there. I don't
(05:54):
think I'm going to be able. I think I had
some doubts. I had some doubts. Could I be successful
in a larger market? But I also think those doubts
may have made me more acceptable here.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
There's that notion of big fish little pond I think
Gary you brought that up in one of our breaks
you know and I think of Rochester now as a
as a big small city I think that's how I
like to describe it it has a feel that is
larger it punches above its weight in a lot of
ways it has opportunities here that you wouldn't necessarily consider
(06:28):
a city of this size having. And despite all of
the changes economically and population-wise, it still feels to me
the same way as it did when I was an
outsider coming in from Binghamton, New York, to Geneseo, and
seeing that as the shiny place that you wanted to
get to. For me, a trajectory of moving to this
place was exactly what I wanted to do, because I
just kind of liked the vibe of the place. And
(06:48):
I thought, this is big enough for me. I don't
know whether I necessarily need to go any larger.
Speaker 6 (06:53):
And it's a larger market. I mean, I was always
told when you think about it, this market, we're on
the lake. So a lot of our audience is out
over the lake.
Speaker 4 (07:04):
So, you know, really, if.
Speaker 6 (07:06):
This Rochester was 100 miles south, our market population wise
would be much bigger.
Speaker 4 (07:13):
So the potential. Was there.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
And you'd still wind up doing the farm report. Even
to this day, you probably still would. All right, we
have much more to discuss. We talked about rejections. I
definitely want to talk about some plans. Sometimes you got
put on the spot. those horror stories that I think
all of us have had. I'm going to share one
with you as well that I've never shared before because
I just have to get it out and put it
out there in public. I'm Joel Monaco, along with Gary
(07:36):
Smith and Don Alhart on NewsRadio WAM 1180. Back.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
Following the events.
Speaker 4 (07:40):
Of the day.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
We are following.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
Following the story.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
Wherever they take us.
Speaker 5 (07:44):
The straight of her moves.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
We have total control.
Speaker 6 (07:46):
We own it. Congressional battles.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
Across the country.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
Check in.
Speaker 6 (07:49):
Our movement.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
They're communists.
Speaker 5 (07:51):
Anytime.
Speaker 4 (07:51):
What are we talking about?
Speaker 2 (07:52):
NewsRadio WAM 1180.
Speaker 4 (07:55):
Ben Bortleford is proud to be certified by J.D.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
Power as a 2020... Gary Smith and Don Elhart on
NewsRadio WAM 1180. We are sharing stories. Don's got stuff
on his phone. We're looking at Muhammad Ali from a
TV appearance way back in the day. There's so many
stories that we're just definitely not able to get to.
Speaker 4 (08:13):
If they could see in between the breaks here.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
The show is better in the breaks than it is
on the air.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
So I definitely wanted to do this one because, sure,
things have gone really well when you've been out in
public or when you've been on the air or on
a set, but things have also been disastrous. Um, I'm wondering,
and Don, I'll start with you. If there's ever been
one of those, just think where anything that possibly could
go wrong, did go wrong moments that you keep, but
(08:41):
when you're going to tell a horror story, that's the one.
Speaker 4 (08:43):
You go to.
Speaker 6 (08:44):
I'm trying to think, you know, we were just looking
at one, which didn't involve me directly, but Muhammad Ali
did come to Rochester and, uh, we made arrangements to
have him on the 11 o'clock news. People in the
newsroom said, Don, you've been spoofed. He's not going to
show up. But he did show up. And we brought
him in live on the air with Ron DeFrance. Well,
he spotted Floyd Patterson on the cardboard cutout behind Ron
(09:06):
and takes a punch at it. And Ron goes, please,
don't knock over our set. Because back then, television was
black and white. So you didn't need a fancy set.
We just had cardboard. I remember that in Ithaca when
I was anchoring the one newscaster week at college. And
we didn't have fancy graphics or effects. So to simulate
(09:29):
wiping from one scene to the other, we had this
window behind the news set and the window would open
up and the camera would dolly in. to the weather
area where I was. Well, the camera dollied in that
night and knocked over the wall. And I'm literally, I'm
doing the weather, the whole weather cast with one arm
out of the scene because I'm holding up the wall
(09:49):
because I'm afraid it's going to cave in. But, you know,
there are moments like that. And I think the one
horror one was in radio when I had been up
most of the night in college, but I was working
a Sunday morning. And there was a half-hour show that
was on reel-to-reel tape. And that was before the live
(10:10):
church broadcast. And once I put that half-hour reel-to-reel show on,
I just, I'm going to take a little nap, put
my head down. I woke up at 5 after 11.
Speaker 4 (10:19):
Oh, man.
Speaker 6 (10:20):
And it was dead air, and the phones are ringing.
That was probably the biggest panic I can remember.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
You got a pucker there. Gary, any horror stories from
you that you tell?
Speaker 5 (10:30):
Well, the one that I remember, which did not turn
out badly, but it could have, my first job at WSAY,
we had a big snowstorm. And I got to the
station 20 minutes after sign-on, and that was the first
(10:51):
time I'd ever been late to a job in my life.
And I thought, oh my gosh, this is awful. Well,
I was the first one there. So finally got into
the building, and I'm sitting around waiting, and no one
else is there. No engineers, no transmitter engineer. So Now
(11:12):
it's about seven. I thought, well, we've got to go
on the air. People are waiting to listen, of course.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
They're depending on me to be there.
Speaker 5 (11:20):
So I turned the transmitter on, which I had no
right to do. Didn't have that kind of a license.
And we had an engineer spinning the records at that
point at S.A.Y. So I– clipped the mic into the
console out in the control room so that I could
(11:43):
run combo, play the records. And so I went on
the air. About 20 minutes afterwards, I hear a car outside,
tires spinning and somebody trying to get up the driveway.
Speaker 4 (11:55):
And I figured, well, one of the engineers are here.
Speaker 5 (11:58):
And then I hear clump, clump, clump coming up the
stairs to the second level of the farmhouse on on
French Road, where the studio was. And down the hall
comes Mr.
Speaker 4 (12:11):
Brown.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
Station owner.
Speaker 5 (12:13):
The station owner. And he looked at me, looked into
the studio where there wasn't anyone because I was working
in the control room. And I thought, well, my career
is over in the first year and I'm all done.
And he just, he said, where is everybody? I said, well,
they haven't gotten here yet. Turned around, walked down the stairs,
(12:38):
drove away.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
Never heard another word. Well, that's good.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
So both of those, okay, I'm going to one-up you.
This will be the one and only time I'm going
to one-up you. So in the early part of my career,
in addition to being on the air, I was also
our promotions director, which meant that when we did station events,
I was the one who kind of ran point on everything. Well,
one of the things that we used to do way
back in the day was something called an insurance contest.
Our friend and colleague, Jean Menton, rest her soul, was
(13:07):
big on those contests where you would register to win
in a cardboard box at a convenience store, and we'd
pull all the names in, and you'd have a chance
to win a big cash prize in usually some public place. Well,
we did a lot of those with the Red Wings
over the years, and one of the ones that we
did was a damn near impossible contest, and here is
what it was. The object of the game was we had,
(13:29):
I think, five winners or six winners. You were called
down to the field during the seventh inning stretch, which
is where they would do some of the bigger contests.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
I think they still do today.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
And we drove, this was probably in the late 90s,
so probably a late 90s or 2000 model Honda Accord
that we had gotten, that was the prize, onto the field.
The car was parked so that it was facing the stands,
so kind of parallel to the to the baseline from
second to third.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
And our winners were at home plate.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
And the object of the game was you had to
throw a Frisbee from home plate to the car at
third base, fly it through the open passenger and driver's
side window into a net on the other side, not
touching any part of the car in the process. And
(14:22):
if that happened, you won the car. I've never been
booed off a stage, but I was booed by the
entirety of Frontier Field that day because I had to
be the one to explain the rules.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
Why are we standing there?
Speaker 3 (14:38):
We had five people who just flung it.
Speaker 5 (14:40):
They had no idea.
Speaker 3 (14:41):
We had this charming lady. She probably was close to 80.
She was mobility impaired, and.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
She had her walker doggone it. Don't you know? It's
like on a Price is Right show. You get one.
Speaker 3 (14:53):
And she actually hit the car. She didn't get close.
And they kept telling us to give her the car.
And they kept telling us to give her the car.
I have never in my career since been.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
Booed off a stage before.
Speaker 3 (15:04):
But that is the one and only time I have
ever been booed off a stage. Was trying to get
a Frisbee through the open window of a car.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
The things we do when it comes to trying to
give a listener a good experience. And maybe have them
win a big cash prize.
Speaker 3 (15:20):
All right, we've got another half an hour to spend.
We still have more stories to get to. We'll hopefully
get to them all by the time we wrap up.
Gary Smith and Don Elhart are my guests. I'm Joe
Lomonaco in for Bob Lonsberry. And thanks for spending time
with us today on NewsRadio WAM 1180.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
We'll be back with more. Stick around.
Speaker 4 (15:39):
Back to school.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
Is for beginners.
Speaker 3 (15:42):
What you want is a masterclass for news that shapes
your world.
Speaker 4 (15:47):
We need to do it now.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
NewsRadio.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
Wham!
Speaker 2 (15:52):
1180.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
Car accident call rochester's local car accident lawyers parisian bella
via bob today we appreciate him giving us the opportunity
to come and just share stories this is what we
do when we're together you're just now a fly on
the wall for what you know our normal conversations are
when we do we usually when we meet up it's
usually like three or four hours worth of just telling
stories and one folds into the next into the next
(16:14):
one thing that we were talking about during the break
that i didn't want to bring up you know don
in addition to being a Television anchor, is also an author.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
And his third book, second children's book, is off to
the printers. Can you please tell us a little bit
about this?
Speaker 4 (16:33):
I'm excited about this one.
Speaker 6 (16:35):
The first book, Sibley's Christmas Adventure, just traced the story
of a little mouse that lived in Sibley's and was
devastated when it was closing and the toy department was
shut down.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
And he.
Speaker 6 (16:46):
befriends McCurdy, another mouse on the Skyway, who enables him
to get on the amount of rail and go to
the North Pole. And I'm out at a book signing
last November at the shops at Westridge. And this little
girl came up, Isla, five years old with her parents.
I love the story. I got it out of the library.
I didn't even know it was in the library. But
(17:08):
she said, I love the story. And she says to me,
looks up with her big eyes and says, whatever happened
to McCurdy?
Speaker 3 (17:16):
Now, you had never thought about doing another one. Had
you thought about doing.
Speaker 4 (17:19):
Another one at that point? People said, you ought to
write another book.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
I go, eh, don't tell me what I should do.
Speaker 4 (17:23):
It was a lot of work and this and that.
And I said, I don't know.
Speaker 6 (17:27):
I mean, in her mind, Will McCurdy helped Sibley get
out to the North Pole. He was left behind. So
I looked at her. I said, I guess I have
to write another book. And so that's the inspiration for
McCurdy's Christmas Surprise, which went to the printers this week.
It will benefit the Rochester Rotary Sunshine Camp, and it
(17:48):
will be dedicated to Isla. We took a picture with
her a couple of weeks ago because she is the
inspiration for it.
Speaker 4 (17:54):
And I am more.
Speaker 6 (17:57):
Excited about this one because I like the story a
little more, how McCurdy gets his adventure underway. But again,
it speaks to community. The first book benefited the Ark
Foundation of Monroe. they were able to raise funds, and
they still have some of those books back. And this
one will benefit the Rotary Sunshine Camp, which really not
only addresses the people from the Arkham and Row, but
(18:19):
other organizations in our community reaching out to those with disabilities.
So it's going to benefit a lot of people. And again,
the proceeds will be used for that. And I'm excited
about it, that it's coming out.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
Well, you made a promise to a five-year-old, so you
definitely had to keep it.
Speaker 3 (18:35):
Just from start to finish, though, from the time that
that question first came in to the time that you
were ready to deliver that, what sort of commitment did
you make to this?
Speaker 6 (18:46):
I reached out to Carol DeMolin, who was with the
ARC at the time and is now in consulting. And
so she put the first book together for me, which
is what I needed at the time. I wanted to
do a book, but I said, I don't have the time.
I was working when the first one was put together.
And so, you know, doing all of the necessary paperwork
to have it filed and printed and find an illustrator,
(19:08):
Doug Hoyt. Doug Hoyt was an intern at the Arkham
Monroe when we were looking for an illustrator and said,
I can do this. And he's doing the second book
as well. So I reached out to her on this one,
and I said, this one is going to benefit the camp.
Can you help with it? We brought it to fruition.
And this time I reached out to about 10 or
15 friends in Rotary. And said, would you give us
(19:32):
some money to fund the printing of the book and
donate it to the camp so that now every sale
is going to benefit the camp because we've already made
the investment with with donated dollars. So I'm just excited
to see it. I can't wait to see when it's printed.
And I've mentioned it to two or three people. I
(19:55):
think I was telling you, my good friend down in Dansville,
Marion Kennel, 94 years old, called me up the other day.
Speaker 4 (20:00):
He said, I have three great-grandchildren. I want to buy
them right now. I said, we haven't printed them yet, Marion.
But when they're printed, you'll get the first three right
off the press.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
Doing plushies with them too? Because Sibley had a plushie
that came with it.
Speaker 4 (20:10):
Sibley had a plushie.
Speaker 6 (20:11):
I don't think we've broached that yet because there are
A few Sibley plushies left.
Speaker 4 (20:16):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
Well, maybe just put them in a different outfit.
Speaker 3 (20:19):
But it brings up a topic that I definitely wanted
to get into and get your thoughts on. The way
media is right now, there was a time when you
did something, you did one thing. Whether you were on television,
whether you were on radio, whether you were in print,
you were the person that did the one thing. that
model has changed. And by necessity, many people that still
(20:42):
do the job right now do multiple things. They're YouTubers,
they're TikTokers, they're bloggers, they're.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
On any type of social media.
Speaker 3 (20:50):
And those people that may have left the industry have
gone on to pursue a.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
Path and an opportunity that they create for themselves.
Speaker 3 (21:01):
Was there ever a a sense that, you know what,
I wanted to do something else in your professional life, Gary,
other than doing what you did. And you did a
lot of different things being on the air, working for
an agency.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
I know you did that.
Speaker 3 (21:14):
You had done some, you, you've been an account rep
and a, and a salesperson here at WHAM toward the
end of your career. Was there ever anything else like
to Don's point about being an author to say, you know,
I'd really love to take the time and do this.
Speaker 5 (21:27):
The only thing that I thought about connected with, uh,
my career, was being a full-time play-by-play sports guy.
Speaker 3 (21:39):
That's right, because I've failed to mention your entire career
in baseball and how long you had done that, and
you've been away and come back and been away and
come back, but it's always been there.
Speaker 5 (21:49):
It has, and I've always enjoyed it, and of course
I covered all of the LPGA tournaments at Locust Hill
and the last one at Monroe, and I'd did all
of the majors at Oak Hill starting in 1968. And
they were great fun. The problem in a market this
(22:14):
size without major league teams is can you make a
living now just doing sports? And the answer is probably not.
Speaker 4 (22:26):
Okay.
Speaker 5 (22:27):
Um, If you're in a market with major league teams,
there are so many opportunities peripheral to the game itself
that I think people can do that.
Speaker 4 (22:38):
Did you ever do any of the recreations? Oh, yes.
Speaker 6 (22:42):
I remember when I was the engineer, it was Joe Cunningham.
Speaker 4 (22:47):
Joe Cullinane. Cullinane.
Speaker 5 (22:48):
Yep.
Speaker 6 (22:49):
And my job would be to– and he had– he
would recreate from a ticker. If the game was out
of town, they didn't send anyone. He had a mitt
and a little bat, and he would make the sound
of a pitch, and he would recreate the game, and
you probably did the same.
Speaker 4 (23:06):
That process was amazing.
Speaker 5 (23:07):
The first game I ever did with the Red Wings
was a recreate from Havana when the Havana Sugar Kings
were in the league, and I had never done a
real play-by-play game.
Speaker 4 (23:23):
I played baseball.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
Mm-hmm.
Speaker 5 (23:25):
I watched a lot of games at Red Wing Stadium.
So they said, can you do this? It was when
Jerry Flynn was first having problems with his voice, and
he was not supposed to make a sound for a month.
So I said, yeah, yeah, I can do it. So
it was a recreate. It wasn't a game here at
(23:46):
Red Wing Stadium. Recreate from Havana. I had taken French
in school, never Spanish. So that was the first problem.
And doing recreates depended a lot on the sender, the
ticker coming in and whoever was– lots of them would
give you lots of information. Fly ball to center fielder
(24:10):
makes a great catch on the warning track. The next
guy who was a sender from another city might say,
fly ball, center fielder. So you could make it anything
you want. Then the ticker would go down, and you'd
have no information coming. So unless it was a game
(24:31):
in Buffalo where people might be able to hear it,
we had a rain delay.
Speaker 3 (24:37):
You had the ability to make them sound as good
as your imagination.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
Could make them. That is absolutely fantastic.
Speaker 3 (24:44):
Stories like these, I'm so glad that we're having the
opportunity to share with all of you. That's Gary Smith,
and along with Don Elhart, I'm Joe Lamonaco. And for
Bob Lonsberry, we have more time to spend with you.
We'll do it next on NewsRadio Wham 1180.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
I'll create those four communists.
Speaker 5 (24:56):
I'll beat people progressively. These people will take them a
train to crazy town.
Speaker 6 (24:59):
Let those voices out.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
So get off your asses. What is in my head?
Speaker 6 (25:03):
Those voices in my head. NewsRadio Wham 1180.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
Tackle rust before it scores on your ride.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
With Corrosion Pro Plus. 585-235-RUST, 235-7878. And Don Elhart.
Speaker 3 (25:18):
I'm Joel DeMonaco, and for Bob Lonsberry on NewsRadio WAM 1180,
we've been sharing stories, talking about careers in the past,
and again, we just wanted to give you a little
bit of an insight as to what we do when
we all get together. And these are the kind of
things that we share. One of the things that I
think this may be a good place to kind of
land the plane is the idea of choices and the
(25:39):
idea of things that we do have.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
In our in our medium.
Speaker 3 (25:46):
Right now you know back in the day i think
we've all done it you grab the radio and you
scanned around the dial and see how far away you
could pick up radio stations from and that was kind
of cool because you can you know you it was
sort of like you were trying to find something a
little buried treasure somewhere choices have always existed now they
come to you in a much more aggressive way and
there's a heck of a lot more out there how
(26:09):
do you guys see what the role of any one
of these types of contents, creations, or radio just being
one of them, still has a way to be not
only relevant, but to deliver a product that is useful
and of service in some way. You can certainly pick
up your phone and start recording a video or recording audio,
(26:32):
but just, is it volume over substance?
Speaker 2 (26:36):
I guess maybe is what I'm getting at.
Speaker 3 (26:38):
Are we oversaturated with things, but not many of them
have the same kind of a, kind of a benefit
to them at the end of the day.
Speaker 6 (26:46):
I think we're almost at the peak of what social
media is going to be doing. And I say that
not that there isn't a lot more room for it
to grow. But I think in a sense, everybody's out.
Everybody's a reporter now. If you've got a phone, you
are reporting. You are on TikTok. You are on Instagram.
And I think at some point, it seems to me,
(27:08):
we're going to be so overwhelmed by that, that we're
going to to have that local connection a little more direct.
I think we've talked about local radio stations maybe in
small communities having a surge again because I think people,
once we're so exposed to all of this, we almost
become numb to it because we don't, there's so many
(27:30):
people on so many platforms that none will stand out
that we're going to, want something that stands out. We're
going to want something to focus on because we're going
to be overwhelmed with what's there.
Speaker 4 (27:42):
Well, yeah.
Speaker 5 (27:43):
And along with that, so much of social media now
is unsocial media. And I think a lot of people
are growing very weary of that. And something that can
be interesting, positive, friendly, whatever term you want to put
(28:04):
on it, I think will become more relevant and some
portions of social media I think are really going to
shrink because a lot of people I think have just
reached The saturation point.
Speaker 4 (28:19):
With the bad stuff.
Speaker 3 (28:20):
And also, you know, to that point of saturation, there
are some times where my wife and I.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
Will do this. We'll sit in the living room and
be like, hey, we should put a movie on. Well,
let's go see a movie.
Speaker 3 (28:29):
And we'll spend an hour scanning through stuff and never
pick anything. And, you know, having choice, I certainly like it.
It's certainly a good thing to have, and I pay
for the privilege of doing that. But at a certain point,
it does get to where it kind of shuts me
down a little bit to say, like, I can't make
a decision, so I will sit here on my phone
(28:52):
and maybe play a game or scroll through social media
and not hope to find anything because I can't make
the decision about what I'm going to engage myself with
for that two hours.
Speaker 4 (29:04):
And think about it. We grew up with all of
this for free.
Speaker 6 (29:07):
And now when I look at what I pay for
the Internet to get that signal for the different– services
to watch television that used to be for free i
sat down a month or so ago i added it
up it was a little frightening but yeah you know
we throw in the cell phone and everything else we're
paying a lot per month a lot of us for
(29:27):
just the electronic connection we make with the world.
Speaker 3 (29:30):
Yeah and for the fact that we know we pay
a lot of for the for the privilege of not
watching anything or not consuming anything. Or it comes into
your eyes or ears and then it immediately is lost.
And we've done this here and we can certainly go
on for hours longer telling stories and remembrances about things
(29:50):
we did, stories we covered, people we met, events that
we had been at. And they're still as present for
me anyway, and I suspect they are for you guys,
as they were the day that they happened, but I'm
wondering how sticky any of this stuff is. You know,
choice is great, but how much of it is actually
sticky and we'll wind up making a, you know, we
come back five years from.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
Now, are we going to remember it the same way?
Speaker 4 (30:11):
Good question.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (30:14):
Maybe that's exactly the place where we will line up media.
So we have about a minute left. Final thoughts, Gary,
you're going to play golf this week. Where are you playing?
Speaker 5 (30:21):
I am playing tomorrow at Champion Hills in Victor, and
Thursday's game isn't set up.
Speaker 4 (30:27):
Oh, okay.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
Well, good.
Speaker 3 (30:28):
I'm glad that you can still be loosey-goosey with your
schedule like that. Champion Hills, a proud supporter of iHeartRadio,
so thank them very much. Don, what do you got
going on?
Speaker 4 (30:35):
Yeah, I'll fill out tonight.
Speaker 6 (30:36):
We mentioned Spencerport Rotary is celebrating their 50th anniversary, so
my wife and I join them for their gala tonight,
and And deliver a keynote address, which I hope is
warmly accepted.
Speaker 4 (30:49):
We'll find out later tonight.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
I'm sure it will be.
Speaker 4 (30:51):
But a good group out there, and we wish them well.
Speaker 3 (30:54):
Yeah, I will see you in front of a group.
We're going to do some fundraising for Wilmot and Pluta
Cancer Centers on Friday. We're going to be at a
Genesee Country Village and Museum on Saturday for their annual whirl.
It is sold out for their 50th anniversary year. See
you at the Al Siegel Center for a wine event
later this month. So at some point in time, you'll
probably bump into one of us. And if we're at
the Costco, we'll stop and tell you a story. Gary,
(31:17):
thank you so much for being here. It's been a
pleasure hanging out with you.
Speaker 4 (31:19):
Love it, Joe.
Speaker 5 (31:20):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
Don Alhart, thank you so much for being here.
Speaker 4 (31:22):
It's been a pleasure. Thank you for including us. A
wonderful morning.
Speaker 3 (31:25):
And for Bob Lonsberry, thanks for taking the day off, pal.
We appreciate you. I hope you got your work done,
whatever it was you were doing. We appreciate sitting in
the big seat and spending time with everybody out there.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
I'm Joe DeMonaco.
Speaker 3 (31:34):
And for Bob Lonsberry, and this is NewsRadio WHAM 1180. Information.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
Everything we do is FYI.
Speaker 6 (31:42):
Information on this economic battle against Iran.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
The midterms.
Speaker 5 (31:47):
Prices.
Speaker 4 (31:48):
America is too expensive.
Speaker 2 (31:49):
Check in throughout the day.
Speaker 4 (31:51):
I just got information.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
News Radio.
Speaker 5 (31:53):
Wham!
Speaker 4 (31:53):
1180.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
Hi folks, Jim Salmon here from the Wham!
Speaker 4 (31:56):
Home Repair.
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