Beginning of Senior Year/ Top 40 Radio and SAT’s
Somewhere between my Junior and Senior year, I quit working at Belk’s Department Store. An opportunity arose for me to work at the local music store, and I jumped on it. I thought I would spend the majority of my time there learning how to repair guitars, play guitar, and sell guitars. Instead, I spent the majority of my time with a weed eater or a lawnmower. When I wasn’t outside in the hot abyss of humidity hell, I was taking out trash, cleaning toilets, and shrink wrapping CD’s upstairs in the non-air conditioned attic of the store.
After about three months of sweating away about 10lbs that I really couldn’t afford to lose (at that point in my life anyway) and not as much as touching a guitar, I realized it was time for an occupational shift. I quit the music store, and took the first job I could find… Subway.
I figured working at Subway would be a cool deal. It was right beside
School had started, and while I tried to pretend I was getting over my break up with Katie, but I really wasn’t. I had a huge chip on my shoulder, and to be quite honest, I had a pretty bad attitude all around.
It didn’t take long for me to hate my new job. After about three weeks of going home with yellow fingers from cutting banana peppers, and smelling like onions, tuna, and meatballs.. I was beginning to contemplate another occupational shift.
On top of that, though the school year had just begun, I had a major case of senioritis.
I was ready to move on and move out of Laurinburg. The problem was, I had no idea where I was moving to, or what I was going to do when I got there. I assumed I would go to college somewhere, major in something.
I just had no clue where or what.
Everyone else seemed to have a plan, and I had nothing.
During the end of
my junior year, our local FM Southern Gospel Radio station switched formats and
went Top 40. The station changed its name to Mix 96. It was a very big
deal to have something so cool in such an un-cool small town.
One day while
still angry over the fact that I had just burned my hand baking crappy bread,
and that I was only one hour into my work day, a big fellow came in to order a
BMT. He had short blondish brown hair, and had a funny accent.
It didn’t take me long to figure out who he
was.
The guy I was
making a BMT for was Shane Foley.
He was the
mid-day personality for Mix 96. His thick Australian accent made him
different from anyone else on the radio in our area.
Though it seems
funny to admit now, at that time I still held Disc Jockey’s in celebrity
status. As a kid, I would sit by the
radio patiently to hear my favorite song.
I often called in when they needed a “guest DJ” or for a contest. When you’re an only child without a lot of
friends, the radio becomes as close as a friend can get.
When I was
through making his sandwich, I told him I recognized who he was, and even
called him by name before he could introduce himself. He appeared to be
flattered.
On a whim, I
asked him if there were any opportunities for something like an internship or
something like that. He gave me his card and told me to call him.
I took his card
home with me and called him the next day. He offered to let me come up to the
station to have a look around and meet the program director.
Later that
evening, I drove to the station. It was there that I met Sammy Simpson, the
Program Director of Mix.
We hit it off
immediately, and after a two hour visit he invited me to come back anytime I
liked. I took him up on the offer, and spent nearly every weekday evening at
the radio station. Sammy hosted the night show at Mix, as well as holding down
PD honors. I became fast friends with both Sammy and Shane.
I felt within the
small, musky smelling walls of that tiny building, that I had found a place
where I felt comfortable, and somewhere I belonged. It felt like home, like I
had found what I had been looking for.
I didn’t feel the
need to try to be cool, or popular like I did for the majority of my days at
school. I was immediately accepted for who I was by people I admired immensely.
In short, when I was there… I finally found a place where I WAS cool.
In just a couple
of months I was working part time at the sister AM station, helping run NC
State games on AM1460 WEWO. I also did whatever else they needed me to
do. I cleaned my share of toilets and even used the weed eater a few times outside
of the station. I didn’t mind as much then. I had found my calling, my passion
and what I felt like I was meant to do.
My love for radio
grew deeper as I learned more about what went on behind the scenes, on the
other side of what had been a close childhood friend.
My love of
broadcasting grew even deeper while at school. My favorite class was my Video
Production class. The teacher who taught the class was Bob Bierbaum. He was
hands down, my favorite teacher in HS. He helped me grow my imagination and
creative side by supporting many of my ideas. Every day at school, we had daily
announcements broadcast via television to each classroom. Mr. Beirbaum knew of
my new found passion for broadcasting, and soon after appointed me one of the
head anchors for ‘Scotland Today‘.
I tried to bring
a sense of humor to the show, and a little bit of personality. A lot of what I
learned from the station, just by watching Sammy do his night show, I copied
and tried to implement onto the Scotland Today show. It was my
favorite hour of the day while at school.
One assignment we
had during VP class was to make our own music video. We could use whatever song
we liked, and shoot in whatever format we liked. My friend Steve McNair (not to
be confused with late Titan QB Steve McNair) and I came up with a great idea.
We chose the song “Round the Way Girl” by LL Cool J (again, remember…. it was
the early 90′s).
The format we
chose was simple. We would take the video camera around and video tape various
hot girls and use that as footage for the music video. So in other words, Mr
Bierbaum allowed us to roam the halls of HS with a video camera, shooting hot
girls, for credit. Is there any doubt why I loved this guy?
It is amazing how
friendly popular girls become when you put a camera in front of them. Girls
that never would have given me the time of day, suddenly were more than
friendly to me (as long as I had the camera in my hands). I don’t think it was
just because they wanted to be seen in the video, I really think (looking
back), that by doing the project, it gave me more confidence in some way, and
that made me more appealing.
Well that, plus
teenage girls LOVE posing for a camera.
Regardless, the
project was huge success. We got shots of every pretty girl imaginable in our
school.
Every girl, but
one.
Somehow, I didn’t
get a shot of Megan Alba Biel. I tried a few times, but she kept turning away
from the camera. I could not do a project featuring all of the pretty girls
from SHS, and not include her. I eventually got a distant shot of her, but
nothing close up.
She was self
conscious for some reason, though I never could figure out why. In my eyes, she
set the mark for everything and anyone that was beautiful.
After HOURS of
staying after school and editing numerous tapes, we turned in our project. What
started out be something silly and fun, turned into something that was time
consuming and at times difficult. But in the end, the finished project was
something we were proud of.
In the process,
we learned a lot about all aspects of shooting, editing, and overdubbing video.
Mr. Bierbaum taught us that by having fun, we can still learn. Anything worth being proud of rarely comes
easy.
It was one of the many life lessons I learned
from him. He never will fully comprehend the influence he had on me as a teen.
I hear that not long after I graduated, he gave up teaching and went to Law School
Before I knew it,
the school year was almost at it’s mid point and it was almost time to take the
SAT’s.
Now contrary to
what may be somewhat popular belief… I was NOT a nerd in school.
You see, nerds
actually made good grades. Thus, I was not a nerd.
School bored me to tears, and I simply did not
apply myself like I should have. My grades were shaky at best, and my parents
were concerned. So, before I took my SAT’s, they made me go to tutoring on a
couple of Saturdays.
They held the
radio station over my head, and told me if I didn’t apply myself, then I would
have to quit the station and not be allowed to hang out there anymore after
school. Thus, I went to Saturday tutoring.
The first
Saturday came and went, and I really did try hard... but a lot of stuff still
seemed over my head. We were seated two to a table, and the teacher passed out
worksheets for me and my partner to go over. I had a hard time concentrating on
stuff that I didn’t understand, and I daydreamed through the stuff that I
deemed too easy (not unlike any other day at school for me). After three hours,
I left feeling pretty bad about myself. I was concerned about the upcoming
test, and I dreaded coming back the following week to do it all over again.
The following
week, I went back to the same classroom, with the same teacher, and sat in the
same seat. The only difference was, there were all different students in the
class. I was the only repeat offender apparently. The other seat across from me
remained empty until about three minutes until the class started.
Then my table
partner finally arrived.
She sat across
from me, and asked for a pencil.
I reached into my back pack and gladly
obliged.
I handed a yellow
#2 pencil with hardly any eraser left… to Megan Alba Biel.
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