More of this Feature • Part 2

Related Resources • The Corey and Jay Show • Sept. 11 Digital Archive • September 11 News.com

From Other Guides • Visiting Ground Zero • 9/11 Graphics for The Web • 9/11 Political Satire

Messenger - “One who bears a message; the bearer of a verbal or written communication, notice, or invitation, from one person to another, or to a public body. - Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.

As a Radio personality, I have many times been - through luck or fate - in the position of a messenger during bad times or terrible news. This is the hardest part of being who I am. Most mornings, almost every weekday, I have the luxury of spending four hours on-the-air providing casual conversation and a lot of laughs. This is my work. It's great.

There have been a handful of days where the medium I work in has been called to speak to all in a different voice. There have been just a few times when my mission was to be a messenger because I was the first to know something.

I have broadcast during very adverse times. Early in my career, I stayed on the air 24 hours straight and broadcast during the worst blizzard in Ohio history. I was the messenger who said it was coming and during the darkest hours, when power was gone and people were scared, I was the lifeline of communication that gave solace and hope.

When I worked on the Mississippi Gulf coast in Biloxi, I broadcast vital life-saving information and news during the course of two hurricanes. One, Hurricane Frederick, was especially nasty and in the middle of the night, it's 100-mile-per-hour winds cracked my station's tower in half forcing us off the air temporarily. I continued to broadcast from our station - literally located a couple of blocks from the water's edge - through a phone loop connected to a New Orleans station which we luckily had the foresight to set up earlier in the day to cover such a situation. That night, I was one of just a few voices able to reach thousands of people who had gone inland to shelters and who desperately wanted information on the storm.

At the start of the Persian Gulf War, my radio partner, Jay Hamilton, and I were on the air, everyday, with the news, commentary and even some humor to keep people smiling. When Princess Diana was tragically and suddenly killed, we were the liaison for conversation and emotion. Sometimes it is best when messengers just listen.

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