It is hard to believe Up In Your Business with Kerry McCoy (UIYB) has been on the air for 5 years. What started as a mentoring program aimed at helping entrepreneurs and would-be entrepreneurs has morphed into more.
In the first year of the show, while I was still learning about the business of radio, I would try to direct the interviewees toward talking about their business knowledge i.e., good business practices. In each of these instances, we would wind up talking about my guest’s whole life, their journey, and the events that shaped their success.
This is when I realized UIYB was more. No longer bound by business acumen, it became more of a biography show, if you will. For how can one talk about their success without talking about their life’s course; a course from the school of hard knocks.
Along with noticing the shift in our show’s content, we more recently noticed that a one-hour, live radio show with commercial breaks and time constraints is often too limiting, especially for older guests with decades of stories and wisdom to share.
Change is Good
There is an old adage at FlagandBanner.com (FAB), started by the now-retired and always-thinking employee, Becky Gertsch, “If you leave for a week’s vacation and come back, something will have changed.” Never have truer words been spoken.
This week, the change was to UIYB. As my staff can tell you, I have been a stickler for having a live show because I love the increased adrenaline and excitement it affords me and my guests. But the downside is that you often do not have enough time for the whole story. After much prodding from my staff to try prerecording, we did it. Two interviews were schedule on the same day, back-to-back, with no time limits.
Long Lives and Tall Tales
The two guests were both elderly. These are my favorite victims (lol) because of their long lives and tall tales about times gone by. The first interview was of a 94-year-old, North Little Rock, Arkansas gentleman, Mr. Robert Traylor who smuggled emeralds out of Columbia and was a state representative in 1971. Late in life Mr. Traylor (who I call Bob) took up painting and for the past 40 years has been an early adopter of the healing benefits of marijuana. Guess it worked.
My next guest was an German octogenarian, Frau Edith Ropke (Mrs. Edith Harris, now) whose life story is told in the book Back to Bremen by Cecilia Wilson. The author, who was also in the studio, writes in first person of Fraulein Edith’s story, a 5-year-old girl living in Bremen, Germany during the harrowing, war torn years of WWII, led by the madman Adolf Hitler and his Third Reich.
Time to Talk
Once again, my staff was right. I am so glad we had plenty of time to visit with our guests. These fascinating biography shows will need to be edited before they can be aired, but in the meantime, you can get a sneak peek behind the curtain and watch the unabridged interviews on UIYB’s YouTube Channel.
Since this was our first test at prerecording an interview, no decision has been made about our future show’s choreography. But I do know that next week will be business as usual, with a live show at 6 pm on 101.1 the Answer with the self-proclaimed “Arkansas craft beer evangelist” and blogger, Mr. Scott Parton. And then re-aired Friday at 2pm on 88.3 KABF, the Voice of the People.
Stay tuned.
