Ten Years Gone

This picture is now exactly 10 years old…taken at 9:14pm on Saturday July 2nd, 2005.  We had just that moment signed on “The Trail” 103.3 FM in Missoula.  There’s more of my DNA in the Trail than in any station I worked at in my 30 year radio career.  I had already been a part of many start-ups and format changes, but this one really was from scratch.  New building and studios….brand new frequencies (2 more sign-ons would follow that summer)….shiny new equipment.  HD audio chain, too.  I was tired.  I was proud.

It’s hard to look at this photo.  My experiences in this building were some of the most fulfilling and yet most frustrating of my career.  It was the site of my biggest success and probably my biggest failure.  I do remember one thing clearly from that night.  I told Scott Hawk (who took the above picture) that it “may never get any better than this.” In some ways, it didn’t.  I could write a book on the entire experience but for now I’ll just say that while I’m very proud of the Trail, its sister stations and especially the people that I worked with, the next nine years (including 3 years in the middle spent elsewhere) were trying and frustrating.  I left radio a year ago, and that was probably 7 or 8 years too late.