As a kid, you dream that someday you’ll be something. You grow up and you ended up not becoming an astronaut or a pro ball player, but you somehow wound up on the radio. OK, that’s fun.

And it was, for a lot of years. In fact, it’s still fun.

I’m at that enviable position that a lot of folks in radio don’t get to experience. I know I’m departing the station sometime this summer. I don’t know exactly when, but management is all about giving me fair notice so that I can say goodbye to my listeners.

With my current workload, I felt my departure from radio coming. I took this job with KRKO almost five years ago just so I could re-live one of the most fun careers I ever could have imagined. With this gig, I was enjoying the music I liked to play (which is also rare in radio careers, I must say), my Program Director/Consultant and I saw the biz eye-to-eye, I mean, I hit the jackpot. Well, except for the money part.

I’ve spent a good chunk of my last 45 working years on the radio. You learn a lot about the business and what it takes with all that time yacking away. I know with the Murdock & Hunter and, eventually, the Murdock, Hunter and Alice Show, our best radio was when we just did what was fun for us and not thinking about “There’s a consultant in town and he’s listening.” Back in the early days, you were operating more out of fear of losing your job, so you felt that you needed to do the best show of your career for a particular morning, because the program director tipped you off that they were in town and would be listening.

Man, if I knew then what I know now.

In any case, during these final weeks at KRKO, I’m having all the fun I can muster. The demands of all my other jobs would probably have me cutting corners and saying, “That’s good enough”, if this was for the long haul. But I don’t work that way. I can’t.

So, I’m having fun. And when I recently had the honor of awarding a $10,000 Backyard Makeover to some lucky KRKO listener, I wanted it to be something people would remember and enjoy hearing. But the day before the announcement, when I really needed to talk with her, I was unable to reach her. So, this happened.

My first attempt at congratulating our winner.

But after I had uploaded that break and planned on that being the only winner tape I could round up, the Grand Prize winner actually called me back. And so, it sounded something like this.

Actual contact with our winner.

In fact, exactly like that.

I’ve talked about this with my auction buddy, Ken Carson, before about my theory. Just like radio shows, you will always have a great auction if you just plan for something to go wrong. It always does. In radio, you may have the perfect break in your head but you can’t let mistakes ruin the entertainment you’re providing. The goofs, your reaction, your co-host’s reactions, that makes for really good radio and it’s something those A.I. Disc Jockeys will never be able to copy.

It’s all about just relaxing and having fun. Where was this great advice 45 years ago?

It’s a shame, in a way.

Tim Hunter

P.S. You can catch my final shows weekdays from 6-9am on KRKO radio in the Everett area, or anywhere in the world, with our KRKO app, or just streaming it right here. Talk to you soon.