Brian Ojanpa
The Free Press
April 13, 2007 11:20 pm
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It is axiomatic in the radio business that words going out over the air can’t be taken back.
It’s also true that Mankato isn’t the New York City market, where an aging shock jock’s idiotic josh about basketball players being ill-groomed hoochie mamas is enough to spark a national dungstorm.
There are no Don Imuses on local radio, which may be viewed as good or bad depending upon personal tastes.
There are, however, people who know what it’s like to catch flak for uttering words some folks didn’t take kindly to.
Mankato veteran air personality Barry Wortel learned that lesson years ago.
“It was the only time in all my years here that I had to apologize,” he says.
As a radio host, Wortel may be the antithesis of “edgy.” Even so, his quip prior to a song dedication raised a listener’s hackles.
The female listener had called in requesting that a Kenny Rogers song be played in dedication to her 15th wedding anniversary.
Wortel chose to introduce the song by incorporating an old joke: He said the couple’s 15th wedding anniversary song is being dedicated by their 16-year-old son.
The woman called and went off on him, Wortel apologized and cleared the air, and he says she remains a loyal listener.
Mankato sports broadcaster Randall Harder says he learned the hard way several years ago that high school sports team nicknames can be sacred cows.
“You realize how sensitive people can be, especially in smaller markets,” says Harder, whose sin was that he made sport of Blooming Prairie’s moniker, the Awesome Blossoms.
Harder says he can’t recall the specifics of his jibe, but he clearly remembers the wrath he incurred from a member of the, um, Blossom Nation.
“I’d just as soon forget about it,” he says with a rueful laugh.
But the gold standard for Mankato radio announcer words that fell with a thud might have been forged by Jack Kolars.
He’s a Nicollet County commissioner now, but in the 1980s he was a dedicated newsman who was canned after rubbing advertising interests the wrong way over the debacle of a roller-skating horse.
“I called it like I saw it,” Kolars says of a Mankato downtown mall promotion that was to feature the skating horse ridden, incidentally, by a monkey dressed in a cowboy outfit.
As the moment approached, Kolars and other media types accompanied the horse and his trainer through the mall skyway and into, yes, an elevator, with the panicky animal-on-wheels slipping all the way.
“I thought it was a poor use of roller skates and said so,” Kolars says of his ill-fated broadcast comments.
Kolars says he has no regrets.
“I lost my job because of it — and I’d do it all over again tomorrow.”
Brian Ojanpa is a Free Press staff writer. Call him at 344-6316 or e-mail bojanpa@mankatofreepress.com
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