There's no way it's been 15 years...has
it?
Fifteen years ago today I wrapped up a
HUGE project that had taken up four months of my life. At the time,
we were broadcasting from a dumpy, drafty, dusty space in Ishpeming,
a space that really wasn’t a good one for a modern radio station
with computers and high tech equipment. So thanks for the foresight
of the late Joe Blake, we found a nice space in downtown Marquette
that fit our needs perfectly, we moved what we could down from
Ishpeming (and donated the rest to Westwood High School), and after a
VERY long construction and conversion process, we began broadcasting
from our current home fifteen years ago today.
So happy anniversary (in a way) to us,
I guess!
I can tell you the exact time we began
broadcasting from Marquette on November 27th, 2002. That
would be 5:45pm. And I can even tell you what song we played when we
began broadcasting from Marquette that afternoon; that would be U2’s
“Beautiful Day”. And although that song was a random choice, it
was indeed fitting, not only because it wrapped up months and months
of very hard work, but because of everything that our move has
allowed since then, everything from broadcasting right outside our
door for ball drops and bike races and food festivals to how I now
live my life.
And in those fifteen years my life has
changed considerably. I no longer have to drive to Ishpeming five to
eight times a week; instead, I walk down Front Street whenever I feel
like it. I no longer have to plan ahead to take a vacation; instead,
if it’s a nice day outside, I’ll take a few hours off and enjoy
the weather or enjoy the beach, and not have to worry about killing a
huge chunk of the day driving back & forth. In all honesty, back
in 2002 I was getting to the point where I was getting burned out
going back & forth to Ishpeming all the time and wasn’t sure if
I wanted to keep doing it; after the move, I was immediately
re-energized, and I haven’t looked back since.
As with many things, it does not seem
like it’s been a decade and a half since this all happened. It
seems like it’s been a couple of years, at most. But it has indeed
been fifteen years, a fifteen year span in which we’ve accomplished
a lot of things from this studio, everything from frying eggs on the
sidewalk and holding a bake sale out front for NMU to raising money
for drug dogs and hosting Olympians, rock stars, and all kinds of
really great people for all kinds of really great causes. And maybe
that’s why it doesn’t seem like it’s been a decade and a half.
We’ve just been having too much fun to realize just how quickly the
time is passing.
So that’s the big anniversary we’re
celebrating today. If for some strange reason you hear “Beautiful
Day” at 5:45, now you’ll know why!
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