Thursday, February 11, 2025:

Mark:

There was this radio station in a foreign country where three station members were sentenced to die because of something that was said on the air. This was in a former French colonly where the method of execution was by Guillotine...their heads would be cut off. The station manager was put in the machine. When the blade came down, it stopped just one inch from his neck. It must have been divine intervention. He was set free. The same thing happened with the woman program director. Then the engineer was put in the machine. Before they pulled the cord to drop the blade, the engineer exclaimed, "Wait, i see the problem!" So you see, engineers are really smart people.

We are here today because for 44 years while I was building and repairing radio stations, Paula was in Brainerd talking with customers on the phone and running the business. I was an employee in our two-Persons business. I don’t know much about accounting, and I could not have succeeded without her. I sometimes worked 24 hours straight. It was at those times when Paula would say, “Isn’t it illegal to send bills this big?

By the way, they don’t give these awards away. You have to do something to get one…and we did it as TEAM of man and wife.

Interestingly, we never had a Plan B. It is the ONLY thing we did.

We are living in our second architect-designed residence where the electronics shop and office occupy about 1300 square feet on the first floor with living quarters above. That made it possible to design and build electronic equipment for the broadcast industry.

Some items were manufactured nearby while hundreds of custom items were hand-built in our shop.

I thoroughly enjoyed being out in the field where I realized things could be done to make stations run better. Then it was back to the shop to design and build something to do just that.

In addition, broadcast equipment for repair came to us from across the nation AND other countries. The money came to Minnesota. That beats sending money to Japan for a car!

It was not work; it was a lifestyle. Retirement came at age 70. However, this lifetime in broadcasting has not ended. We mentor five radio broadcast engineers. The reward…well…a free lunch now and then.

Paula:
A fun story, Mark was at the WYRQ transmitter site on a farm when a bull thought Mark was competition for the Heffers. The bull forcefully butted Mark to leave, which he did in a hurry. Next time Mark showed up in town, Chris Grams greeted him with a cape to simulate bull fighting. Farmer later told her the bull could have killed Mark. There is NEVER a dull day in broadcasting!

I used to type articles that Mark wrote for Radio World magazine. That is how I learned he was packing up his gear at a radio station at three in the morning and was suddenly held at gunpoint by a policeman while the station owner was awakened to verify Mark was innocence. How many executives do you know who work in the middle of the night?

Only in radio do you get awakened at 2:00 AM to go downstairs to read a schematic for a transmitter Mark is trying to repair hours away or get called to meet someone at 3:30 AM in northern MN at the halfway point to bring an extra piece of equipment Mark just happened to have in the shop.  That’s why we had our shop where we liveOur motto was, Take care of the customer and the customer will take care of you.  It was the people like you in this room who made this such a fun ride.  We are very honored and humbled to be receiving this award and thank you very much. 

Mark:
I recently remarked to one of our radio station client owners that it was so much fun that I would have done it for free! Then he said. “Now you tell me.”

Maybe you remember my father Charlie Persons, who passed away 27 years ago. He was a long-time Rotarian who always sat at the SAME table. One day Rotary decided to mix it up so each Rotarian was handed a number and was to sit at a table with the same number. Charlie found a number on HIS table and then found a member to trade so he could sit at HIS table!

In closing, I'd like to say, "We are honored to have worked with some of “America’s Great Radio Stations!”