When it came to college shopping as a senior at Cold Spring Harbor High School on Long Island, I knew two things. I wanted to attend a small liberal arts college with a strong radio/television department and I didn’t want to be close to home. I only applied to two schools, Ithaca College in upstate New York and Ashland. When visiting Ashland and its broadcasting facilities with my father, I was asked if I wanted to run a camera for the nightly news. I was hooked.
As I look back on my days at Ashland during the mid-70’s, I realize that any degree of success I’ve achieved in both my professional career and my marriage is a direct result of Ashland’s influence.
I began my career in broadcasting in 1972, when I was hired as a weekend disc-jockey at WGLN in Galion. I was also on the air at WRDL Ashland (then known as Home of the Turtle…why? I don’t know). Also, I worked at WMAN Mansfield, WDBN Cleveland/Akron and WVNO Mansfield. By 1976 I had won an internship at WKYC-TV (NBC) in Cleveland. There I met the executive producer, Albert Fisher, who helped my career immeasurably. Upon graduation I was awarded the Outstanding Radio/TV Graduate of 1976.
Here’s what’s interesting about the Ashland connection. As a sophomore, I met my wife of 42 wonderful years, Phyllis Armstrong, during her freshman year. She was also a radio/television major. She ended up producing a TV show I inherited from Will Ruch (‘74) and love was in the air. Phyllis ended up graduating early, and by the time she walked across the stage to receive her diploma, she was Phyllis Armstrong Brodie. Coincidentally, she was also awarded the Outstanding Radio/TV Graduate for 1977. As far as I know that’s never happened before or since. And what’s even more interesting, she too won an internship at WKYC-TV Cleveland and also worked for Albert Fisher.
We both served (at different times) as assistant producers of Sunday Magazine–a forerunner of the Sunday morning news programs. By 1980 we needed a break in our lives, so we took a two-week vacation to Hilton Head Island where we owned a condominium. By this time we were also traveling with a six-month old. Want another coincidence? That six-month old, Matt Brodie, was a broadcast major at The University of South Carolina and ended up with an internship with–you guessed it–Albert Fisher, who by then owned his own production company in Los Angeles. Albert’s company produced a number of TV programs for some of the major cable networks and put Matt to work as a video editor for one of the flea market shows he produced. Ashland’s influence marched on.
After Phyllis and I went to Hilton Head Island, I got a bug for boating again, having grown up sailing a 40-foot ketch with my family along Long Island Sound and New England during summer breaks in high school. For a short time, broadcasting work took a hiatus and we opened a boat rental company. Unfortunately, in our second year of business, I was in an accident at the marina and ended up with major back and spinal cord issues. Because of all the surgeries, physical therapy sessions and recuperation, we sold the boat company and slowly got back into broadcasting. I started back behind the microphone after being hired by Hilton Head’s only radio station (at the time). That exposure led to some national script writing and the opening of a new office and studio on the Island, where I worked until 2010 when I had to retire and go on disability.
Because of all the surgeries and spinal injections I developed what’s known as AA or Adhesive Arachnoiditis, which is an inoperable and incurable condition of the spinal cord. I have been losing the use and feeling of my left leg and am in what Mayo Clinic classified as intractable pain. Fortunately, during the almost 40 years of my broadcasting career, I was able to call on my training and education at Ashland, winning numerous national writing, voice-over and producing awards. Perhaps my proudest achievement, though–besides being married to a remarkable woman and having three incredible sons who have now given us six grandchildren–was becoming the voice of Gulfstream Aerospace, voicing the standard safety videos for each individual jet they built between 1990 and 2010. Additionally, I was the voice of a number of other regional and national companies.
Of course, I can’t think back to my days at Ashland without remembering the privilege of being taught and tutored by Larry Hiner (television), Jay Pappas (radio), Charles Beekley (radio/television), Dick Leidy (department chairman) and Bill Clinger, the always on-call chief engineer who kept the equipment running. Without their influence, expertise and friendship, my life would not have been the same.
I am honored, when people ask where I went to college, to proudly answer “Ashland College.” Of course, now it’s a university, and I’m sure it’s even better because of it. But my diploma has “Ashland College” written on it, and by God, that’s what it is to me!
