History of Learfield: The Missourinet Poll
In 1984 we got into polling. The idea was to determine public perceptions about candidates and relevant issues. It served our purposes from three angles: (1) It was both interesting and valid news; (2) As such, it was carried by other media and wire services crediting the Missourinet; thus securing strong promotional benefit. And (3) it sociologically was of interest, particularly when analyzing detailed breakdowns such as race; rural v. metropolitan; age; and geography.
The survey itself was credible because it was conducted by the Public Policy Extension Program of the University of Missouri-St. Louis.
But it was tremendously expensive. So we sought a sponsor, securing the Centerre Bancorporation of St. Louis, changing the name to The Centerre-Missourinet Poll. But in doing so we got into trouble with our own newsroom and others; journalists who didn't want to credit a bank every time the poll was referenced. The bank too had some misgivings because it couldn't appear that the bank was supporting particular positions or candidates. Of course that wasn't the case, but tell that to the bank. Eventually, Centerre pulled its money.
We got into trouble in other ways too. Former Governor Mel Carnahan went to his grave believing the Missourinet Poll–and thus the Missourinet, and Bob Priddy and me–were to blame for an election loss he suffered. And, he may have had a point, arguing that any candidate behind in the poll has a harder time raising much-needed cash than the leader. If the electorate doesn't know who is leading, fund raising is thus easier. [Download PDF of Poll news release]
–clyde
History of Learfield: …and have fun!
Part of our mission statement talks about having fun. The upper picture [larger photo] was taken in the fall of '85 and shows Daryl Duwe, Steve Mays, and Dan McPherson huddled around Bob Priddy at a company cook-out.
In January of 1986 a group of us went to Beaver Creek to try the sport of skiing. Here's some of the bunch…Kevin Meyer, Roger Gardner; Charlie Peters, Robert Fowler and down front, Steve Mays [larger photo]. Meyer was manager of our Sports Division; he left us shortly after this was taken. But the rest of the group is still here 22 years later! Gardner continues to ski; the others haven't.
–clyde
A New Year’s resolution
I resolve to carefully choose words and phrases I use. First, I want to honor and encourage those with whom I communicate–like Sue. And, I want to subtly teach some about our language to you and others who might be interested. We all need to communicate better. On the emotional side, we need to choose language that builds up and encourages. On the technical side, we need to know about and avoid poor grammar. Make this one of your resolutions as well. Our Bob Priddy offers us our first lesson in this humorous piece:
–clyde
History of Learfield: Mary Phelan
One of the bright, fun, energetic, stars of the Missourinet newsroom was killed in a car crash ten years ago today. Mary Phelan (Baudendistel) was part of our team in the '80's, left us to join KMOX and became a real star in St. Louis media.
Bob Priddy was her mentor right out of college and writes this wonderful reflection of her happy times in Jefferson City.
–clyde
Celebrating the Mashed Potato
I walked into my kitchen Wednesday night, fatigued and grieved after a long day of work and travel and mourning and found my wife mashing potatoes for our dinner.
Not many potatoes. Just enough for the two of us, in a small pan, using a hand masher.
The telephone rang. It was for her. “Here,” she said, “You mash the potatoes.” And so while she talked, I mashed, poured in some milk to make the mashing smoother, mashed, added milk, and then some butter. And I thought of the girl who, 14 years earlier, had stood where my wife was standing, learning how to do what I was doing.
Hours earlier, I had said goodbye to her and her wide-eyed wonder about life.
In the Spring of 1984, the Missourinet had a vacancy on its news staff. We received a resume and an audition tape from a young woman about to graduate from Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. I put the cassette into my tape player and pushed “start.” Fifteen seconds later I had stopped the tape, extracted it, and was dashing down two flights of stairs to the office of our General Manager, Jeff Smith. “Listen to this,” I told him. “This is the person we’re going to hire.”
Fifteen seconds.
One for each of the years that I knew her, 1984-1998.
Mary Phelan burst into our lives that Spring, all energy and enthusiasm and joy and laughter. And talent. Incredible talent.
At the Missourinet we knew Mary Phelan before she became MARY PHELAN!!!
She started her professional life working at a dark corner desk in the renovated attic of an old house at 216 E. McCarty Street in Jefferson City, a room where the sun stormed through a skylight in the deepest part of summer, increasing the temperatures in the stuffy room to as much as 110 degrees, more even than a St. Louis/San Antonio girl–and the rest of us–could tolerate at times. The building’s old and inadequate air conditioning could never push enough cool air into our area. There were days I sent people down to the kitchen to cool off.
She quickly pronounced our ancient Royal manual typewriters unworkable for her and brought in an electric machine.
We constantly had to tell her to slow down when she read her newscasts. She read the way she talked–like a machine gun: rapid and often extended bursts, her words running together as she spoke, rushing to get out.
“Slow……down,” we told her.
“Right,” she said. And then her next newscast would begin, “ThisisnewsontheMissourinet, I’m MaryPhelan.”
Slowing Mary down at anything she did was like trying to stop a train with a marshmallow. She never seemed to move at normal speed, but lived life in long strides.
Mary was the last person in and the last person out each day. And she always arrived talking. One day the other three of us decided we would not respond when she came in and said “Hello” just to see how long she’d keep going before it dawned on her that nobody was paying attention. Mary arrived in full rant that morning. I do not recall the topic or topics, but we were treated to a monologue that went on so long that the rest of us had to struggle to keep from bursting into laughter and interrupting her before she paused long enough to take a breath and realize nobody had said anything to her yet. And when she asked, “What’s going on? Why isn’t anybody talking to me?” We told her, “We just wanted to see how long you’d last.” And she burst forth with her great, full-hearted laugh.
Mike Kraemer, who enjoyed Mary as much as anyone else in the newsroom, recalled the time she decided to make brownies and thought a double dose of caramel would make them REALLY good. “We spent most of the morning trying to chip those things out of the pan,” he remembered. And we laughed about it. Mary laughed that day, too, as she watched us try to enjoy her brownies.
She lived in a little apartment upstairs in a house behind a funeral home in Jefferson City. That’s where she learned some things about self-sufficiency. And making brownies.
It was the high-point of the “yuppie” era. And I decided Mary was such a yuppie that I nicknamed her “Muffy.” And when things got too loud in the newsroom—when the laughter and the frivolity, and even the pointed political disagreements between Mary and another staffer, started to get beyond order, I’d turn to her and say, “Muff!”
“Yeah, chief.”
“Cool it!”
“Okay”
And then there would come, as she turned back to her typewriter, a deep throated laugh. She’d gotten a rise out of the Chief. The newsroom boredom had been broken. The grind could be resumed for a while longer.
Sometimes, I’d say “Phelan!” instead of “Muff….” About half the time, probably. I don’t remember calling her “Mary” very much after we bestowed nicknames on each other.
It was the time when Reebok tennis shoes caught the public imagination. Trendy. Stylish. Plain white leather. Silver soles, Mary thought Reeboks were cool.
Then one day I showed up in a new pair of Reeboks. Trendy? I didn’t care. They looked good. They were comfortable. They felt good when I walked. Who the hell cared what brand name they were.
Mary’s eyes widened. “Chief!!”
“What?”
“Are those Reeboks?”
“Uhh, yeah..?”
“You got some Reeboks!”
Somehow, I guess, she didn’t think anybody with the exalted title of News Director, somebody who wore neckties and wing-tip shoes most of the time, somebody 20 years older than she was, would ever do something so “in” as buy a pair of the nation’s yuppiest tennis shoes.
Mary and the Capitol Mall were made for each other. My wife and I ran into her several times when we were shopping there. She always had a bag of something she’d bought. Wednesdays were special days for her. That’s when the local newspaper was fat with coupons. Mary took special delight sitting at her desk on Wednesday afternoons cutting them out. “Great coops!” she sometimes proclaimed.
Mary never saw the new building into which we moved a few years after she left. But from my newsroom window at 505 Hobbs Road, I look across the expressway to see the mall.
Sometimes we were treated to a taste of her musical abilities from that corner of the newsroom. She became involved with a musical group in Jefferson City that presented Gilbert and Sullivan’s MIKADO. Mary was one of the Mikado’s daughters, and sometimes we’d hear her humming one of the songs, or even quietly rehearsing the words.
We hired Steve Mays to become the new General Manager of the Missourinet about the same time we hired Mary. Steve was from the bootheel town of Kennett, a small town radio guy who liked to play on his small-town roots and image to disguise his natural intellect and sharpness. Mary immediately began calling him “Skip,” and bestowed upon herself the role of big city cultural adviser and fashion consultant. Obviously somebody from southeast Missouri needed advice on fashion elegance from somebody like Mary Phelan. “He’s such a skipper,” she noted once. Whatever that meant. Phelan sometimes had her own code.
Now, lest we get carried away with the idea that Mary Phelan came to us an innocent and naive waif, let us remember that Mary was an adult who knew adult words and used them. There was an edge within her wonder, a bit of toughness beneath the laughter, sometimes a narrowness behind the state of astonishment.
When Vanessa Williams forfeited her Miss America crown, Mary made a slashing 10-word comment laced with a racial slur that, believe it or not, seemed at least somewhat amusing although it also was offensive. Nobody ever said anything to her about it that I know of.
But it was at that point that I decided to expose Mary Phelan to some things. After that, Mary was assigned more often to cover news conferences, hearings, and meetings that focused on social issues affecting the poor, the unemployed, and minorities.
One day she covered a rally that featured the Reverend Jesse Jackson. Afterwards she did a brief interview with him, at the conclusion of which he bent over and kissed her on the cheek and then moved on. Mary was stunned. And we playfully reminded her of the experience from time to time.
I hope the experiences helped her grow.
In the winter, Mary dreaded becoming “boo white,” as she put it, losing the healthy tan that contrasted with her blond hair and her striking eyes. And furthermore, she thought her legs looked better, too, when they were tan. So she found a tanning bed in Jefferson City and from time to time got some fake sun to retain a properly healthy glow.
She had an undeniable presence at the microphone from the beginning. It’s a characteristic that separates the kind of person who is only on the radio from the kind of person audiences listen to. Mary’s voice, delivery, and obvious enthusiasm all served to grip the listener.
We used to do customized newscasts for the Missourinet affiliate in Kansas City. Before we went on the air for our “live” broadcasts with them, Mary would chat things up with the folks at KMBZ. She so captivated their flying traffic reporter that he flew to Jefferson City after his morning drivetime broadcasts, met Mary at the airport for lunch, and then flew back to Kansas City in time for his evening drivetime reports.
Now, THAT was presence.
Mary turned heads wherever she went. It was not until Mary Phelan came along that I had to write a policy for the newsroom operations manual that outlined what was permissible social behavior with news sources. Several times she told us a member of the legislature had suggested they have coffee or dinner. If she accepted, she never told us.
She did date a young man for a while who had run for statewide office, but lost. She showed her practical side by deciding she was not about the marry somebody who still had tens of thousands of dollars in campaign debts.
It was a sound decision. He never could have kept up with her anyway.
Mary decided she had to have a low-numbered license plate number, a status thing, especially in a political town such as Jefferson City. And with typical directness, she decided not to waste time with process and bureaucrats. She made the acquaintance of the Director of the Department of Revenue. Within days, her car was sporting a low license plate number.
Once, after she had moved to St. Louis, she called to check on some information for a story she was doing. Every time she did, I got a social update. She was dating a guy who had a Mercedes with a car phone! Wasn’t I impressed? I think I hmmmphed about it and she laughed.
But five years ago, when I bought a Mercedes, I made sure Mary knew. I even made sure she knew I sometimes carried the portable newsroom telephone in it.
I used to have the news staff come to my house at Thanksgiving, since we split up the work shifts and the news staff could not go home to be with their families, if they did not live in Jefferson City.
In 1984, Mary spent Thanksgiving evening with us. Our children, who were then 11 and 13, still remember M
ary, wearing a salmon-colored apron over her stylish outfit, watching as the potatoes were placed in a large mixing bowl, and my wife, Nancy, took an electric hand mixer and started to whip the potatoes. Once she had shown Mary how to do it, Mary took over. “Look, They’re mashing! They’re mashing!” she exclaimed.
It was that excitement about the common things of life, as well as the excitement about the grander and greater things that helped set Mary apart. She looked forward to discovery; to seeing new things; to hearing new voices; to hearing new stories from new people. Life seemed to be the joy of each new day’s discoveries. It radiated from her. It infected others. And don’t be a wet blanket. Don’t rain on her parade. The joy of life was too important for grumps to slow down the living.
She dreamed of working for Mr. Hyland and the legendary KMOX. Even while she was with us, she had her eye on her home city and its great radio station. And so it was no surprise when she told us she was leaving us to reach that dream. We were happy for her. But we knew we would miss her.
I never saw her again. In person, at least. She never returned to Jefferson City. I sometimes heard her on KMOX, and sometimes would pause while channel-surfing when her picture appeared on Channel 4 on our cable system. And each time, I said, “Hi, Muff.” Sometimes I’d call my wife—Mary called her “Nance”–into the living room to see her. Check out the new tan. The new hair style. Catch a laugh.
She never belonged behind that desk with Julius Hunter or Larry Connors. It put her energy under restraints. She belonged among the people, hearing the stories, experiencing the event, chasing the experience. And it was interesting that when the television station paid tribute to her, most of what was shown was Mary on the move, Mary laughing, Mary at speed, not Mary limited by a desk.
Several years after Mary left us, a bright young woman who had worked at the Missourinet affiliate in Columbia, then moved to the television station in Jefferson City sought me out for advice on getting into television in St. Louis. I called Mary. I think I talked to her voice mail. I told her about Anne Steffens, that she was bright and sharp and that she might be calling her for some advice.
They made contact. Anne told me Mary was extremely cordial and helpful on the phone, although she paused a couple of times to read the riot act to a co-worker who apparently had brought in some poor images on videotape. “Young Steffens,” Mary used to call her when Anne joined the Channel 4 staff.
I kept up with her, too, through Jerry Berger’s column. She once said one of her goals was to be mentioned by Jerry Berger. I found myself checking Berger’s column almost regularly, not caring a whit about his usual prattle about the people whose dining habits and locations are for some reason significant. But I looked for Mary’s name. And that’s how I kept up on who she was dating or engaged to or occasionally lesser things. .
When I read that she had found someone who meant so much to her that a marriage date had been set, I figured he must be an incredible person. Her standards were so high, her needs to give and accept love so great that surely this must be someone with so much more than a Mercedes with a car phone than I could imagine.
Every now and then through the years, the telephone would ring.
“Chief!”
“Muff!”
“How ya DOIN’?”
“Fine…how about you?”
And then there would be a quick monologue before she’d get to the point of her call, usually something about a bill in the legislature or a candidate or an issue she wanted some background about. And before we got done:
“How’sNance?” And I’d tell her.
“AndwhatareRobertandElizabethupto?” And I’d tell her.
“Andhowaboutthatskipper, Steve Mays?” And I’d bring her up to date on him, too.
“Listen, Chief, I gotta run.”
“I gotta run.”
When a friend called on Sunday afternoon, December 20th, to tell me Mary had died, I was instantly numbed. I turned to Nance. “Mary Phelan’s been killed in a car accident.”
“Muffy?” she asked, in surprised.
“Yeah,” I said. And I sketched the few details I’d been given. And I learned more in the Post-Dispatch the next day.
And I thought how ironic it had been that Mary died because she had to slow down.
About 6:30 Monday morning, the telephone rang in my newsroom. The deep voice of Mike Kraemer said, “Can you believe it?”
“No,” I said.
A few hours later, a Post-Dispatch reporter called, asking me to share some memories of Mary. By then I’d had time to assemble some thoughts. The numbness had worn off and I felt myself slipping deeper into mourning. A natural reaction.
“Someone that alive shouldn’t die so young,” I told her, repeating what I’d said to others at the office earlier that Monday. And I told some other stories, once describing a dress she was wearing in a photograph I had found in our files, showing her sitting on Kraemer’s lap in our old newsroom, her tan legs crossed, eyes flashing, her face in full laugh.
Mary was not one to ever wear unstylish outfits. Even in summer informality, she carried with her a certain elegance. The dress she was wearing in that picture that day, as I recall it, was a colorful blend of red and orange and yellow. But I recall her most often in a crisp white blouse and a dark, loose, skirt.
I was at the funeral at Our Lady of the Pillar in Creve Coeur, a large, modern Catholic Church, packed with a standing-room-only audience Wednesday morning. When I walked in, Kraemer was standing at the end of the last pew on the right. We crowded together in the pew for the almost two-hour service. “I still can’t believe this,” he said. “I can’t either,” I responded.
I had hoped there might be some kind of a guest register to sign, as there often are at visitations and funerals. I wanted the family to know that some people who knew her when she was making concrete brownies and learning to mash potatoes loved her; that she was a part of our lives as much that sorrowful day as she had been all those years earlier; that we lost someone and something valuable in our lives too.
The music soared, and engulfed us and her, part worship and part tribute to the wonderful voice of our friend. The spoken words were of love and comfort. And when her husband, Al, stood before the audience, I learned in those three minutes of courage and control, compassion and love why Mary could love him so deeply.
When her casket was wheeled past us at the end, Mike turned to me and said, “Goodbye, Muffy.”
“Yeah,” was all I could say.
Anne Steffens filed past as the crowd walked out of the church. She saw me, reached out, and we hugged. “She would have wanted you here,” she said. “I couldn’t stay away,” I told her.
Outside, Anne, Mike and I talked some more in the chill dampness, I hugged Ann again, shook hands with Mike, and I went back to Jefferson City.
It took two hours to get there, plenty of time for remembering. I drove past crowded shopping malls and homes and businesses brightly decorated for Christmas. And I thought, “Some people are gifted. Some never discover their gifts. Mary Phelan WAS a gift.”
As the numbness of mourning passes and the pain of grief abates, memory’s celebration of her life will take hold. And those who knew her will relate Phelan stories
that are alive with her spirit, her freshness, and her excitement about the daily discovery that is life. Each telling will be a celebration. The celebrating is just beginning.
And for me, something so common as mashed potatoes will always remind me of someone so UNcommon as Mary Phelan.
If anyone should see me smiling as I eat them, and ask me why, I’ll just say, “I’m celebrating.”
Bob Priddy
News Director
The Missourinet
December 25, 1998
History of Learfield: Station Ownership
One of the questions I get is: "did you ever consider station ownership?" The answer is yes.
First, soon after we went into business in 1974 we had an opportunity to purchase KAOL, Carrollton. Located in prime farm country, we considered the expansion, but declined because we thought it was much too small of a market in spite of a good AM frequency. (it later was a move-in to the Kansas City market).
Second, in May of 1977 we hired a national radio station brokerage firm, Blackburn and Company, of Washington DC, to make inquiries about purchasing KLIK in Jefferson City. This was the 5,000-watt AM station at 950khz where Derry, Bob Priddy, Jim Lipsey, Jeff Smith and I had all worked. I’d heard it was on the block. Further the owners had secured a construction permit for a 100-thousand watt FM, which later became KJFF. I wanted the FM to use the subcarrier as a network transmission tool. We told Blackburn to offer $1.3 Million for the properties. After several months of negotiations through the summer, Blackburn suggested we withdraw our offer because the property was too expensive. We did.
In hind sight, this was a blunder. That would have been a great time to buy into the radio market even at a higher price. Further it might have emboldened us to buy more radio properties in larger markets. Financing was relatively easy to come by. I should have been more bold. I was a little fearful of operating the business, but shouldn’t have been because I was surrounded by guys like Lipsey, Smith and Priddy. We’d have been great. However one could argue it might have caused me to take my eyes off our core business; so you just never know. Be sure to read future blogs about Missouri Life Magazine, another media we bought two years later.
–clyde
History of Learfield: John Rooney
John was our first-ever Sports Director. We weren’t the first place he worked, however, nor the last.
The roots of Learfield Sports go back to the first newscasts of the Missourinet in January, 1975. The 7:05 a.m. feed to affiliates was an extended newscast that included weather, sports, and things that had happened that day in history.
In the first few years when the company broadcast Missouri Tiger football games, we followed each game with a 90-minute scoreboard show presided over by News Director Bob Priddy, former Jefferson City sports writer Jim Vieth –who was then with the state high school activities association– and Jack Guthrie, from the Jefferson City News-Tribune. Bob handled the college scores. Jim reviewed high school football. Jack looked ahead to the NFL games on Sunday with special emphasis on the Chiefs and the football Cardinals.
In time, our income picture improved enough that we could begin offering stand-alone sportscasts. By then we had heard from a young man in Pittsburgh, Kansas who had been one of our first affiliate correspondents when he worked at a station in Lexington, Missouri. Bob Priddy took John Rooney’s application to Clyde Lear one day and told him, "When we start doing sports, this is the guy we should hire."
The time finally came.
We found a chink in John Rooney’s St. Louis Cardinals broadcasting schedule schedule long enough to get together and recall some of those days. (Download/Listen 12 min MP3)
–Clyde
PS: Thanks to Bob for providing background for our interview.
Clarice’s 30th Year at Learfield
Clarice Brown has been at Learfield 30 years! She’s now over accounts payable and financial reporting, but through her 30 years she’s been a secretary, receptionist and in charge of traffic. It was that traffic function where she really proved her worth handling all logs and billing too for all networks. She learned and operated our first computer — an Apple. Ask her about that!
Clarice grew up in Jamestown, MO. She is the daughter of Harold and Marie Gentzsch who still farm those rich Missouri River bottom lands. She was married at 19 to Mike who died of a sudden coronary in 1997; they have two boys: Thomas, 23, and Jason, 20. Clarice still lives near Jamestown with her friend, Jesse Emmons, on a delightful farm complete with a lake and lots of flowers. Gardening is her passion — particularly day lilies.
Right out of high school she went to work for the Missouri Public School Retirement System and two years later –at age 20– joined us. When she started April 17, 1978, she was the 12th person on our staff joining me, Derry, Jim Lipsey, Dan Coons, Verni Brownfield, Beryl Rosenmiller, Jeff Smith and Matt Jarrett at the farm office and Bob Priddy, Ken MacNevin, and one other in Jefferson City.
Needless to say, Clarice is a big part of our family. Call her at 573-556-1207 or drop her an e-mail at cbrown@learfield.com to congratulate her.
–clyde
Priddy helping let the sunshine in
Missourinet News Director Bob Priddy has again been asked to serve as one of the national spokesmen for Sunshine Week (March 16-22). Last year Bob was on talk shows from Rhode Island to Hawaii, promoting the non-partisan campaign to "shine light on what the governmenbt is doing and to uphold the people’s right to know."
The American Society of Newspaper Editors and the Radio-Television News Directors Association are two of the biggest leaders of the effort and we’re proud of Bob for representing in this worthwhile effort.
–clyde
History of Learfield: Two Reporters
Shortly after he was hired, Bob Priddy began his search for two reporters for the new network due to go "on air" January 2, 1975. He selected two young guys, Jeff Smith and Chuck Morris. Smith had worked with all of us at KLIK, but left Missouri to finish his degree at Indiana.
This morning I interviewed Chuck Morris from his home near San Diego about how he was hired, what he recalls about his years as reporter here and what he’s done since. Take 10 minutes and enjoy. The picture is Morris sitting in the broadcast studio our first week. You can see his face in this shot.
–clyde
