Happy Birthday to WCHL’s Ron Stutts!
Ron, besides being the bedrock upon which WCHL’s success rests, is an all-around “nice guy” (hope that doesn’t mess with his street cred ;-)).
I met Ron a longtime ago but didn’t really get to know him until I became more active in the local community. Ron seems to know everyone, has an encyclopedic knowledge of our community, is a stalwart supporter of many worthy local causes, has a great mellow vibe and is just an interesting guy to shoot the breeze with.
One of Ron’s many jobs at WCHL is to corral community commentators for WCHL’s 90-second commentary spots.
While I had done a few sporadic commentaries on critical issues like the red-light camera project, saving Chapel Hill’s only hands-on arts program, the Town’s budget, Lot $$$5, etc. over the last decade, I hadn’t thought of myself as up to being a “regular” like Walt Mack, Terri Tyson, Augustus Cho, Wes Hare, Laura Paolicelli or Fred Black (who now appears to have a regular gig subbing for DG Martin on WCHL).
I ran into Ron at a community event shortly after last year’s election and he kindly encouraged me to comment on a more regular basis.I’m pretty sure he didn’t know what he was letting himself in for as I’m fairly sure each of my spots takes some skillful editing to squeeze them into their allotted time.
Ron always pulls off that feat with the best of humor and makes what sounds like an incoherent delivery into a fairly serviceable message.
Thanks Ron for giving me the opportunity to get the message out.
Ron is always looking for new commentators, here’s his contact info if you’re interested.
Here’s a few of my recent commentaries that Ron and fellow production wizards Anthony and Walter somehow whipped into shape (MP3’s):