"The bright good morning voice, whose heard but never seen.
Feeling all of forty five, going on fifteen."
-Harry Chapin
Harry Chapin's classic W.O.L.D. described a typical radio personality of the 1970's era. Although Bob Edwards crawled out of bed at 1 a.m., for twenty-four-and-a-half years to do NPR's Morning Edition, no one thought of him as bright and cherry.
Bright and extremely intelligent, yes. A wild and crazy candidate for the Morning ZOO. No.
Still going strong after forty years, Bob puts together intelligent and well thought out stories for a well educated audience who appreciates him. His autobiography, A Voice in the Box: My Life in Radio gives the good (Bob is in the Broadcasting Hall of Fame) and the bad (Bob's family life suffered from the long and unusual hours and he is single for the second time). A Voice in the Box is Bob's stories but it is really about the fascinating people he has interviewed and the years of history he got to cover all the way.
As a fellow Kentuckian, Bob has long been known locally for bringing attention to Appalachian region and championing environmental causes.
Like most readers, the "juicy part" of the book that I wanted to get to was the story of his controversial firing from Morning Edition, after twenty-four-and-a-half years as its host. Although Bob does not dig up a lot of dirty laundry on people in the book, he does tell his story completely and fully. It is the most interesting segment of the book. His story of how he landed on his feet, more popular than ever, on satellite radio and doing a weekend show for NPR, shows that the radio veteran knew how to land on his fee.
The book is published by the University of Kentucky press and has an interesting marketing strategy. The Kindle book, which I read, is absolutely free. As I write this, it is one of the top 100 free Kindle books and number one in the category of biographies and memoirs of journalists. The hardback book goes for $14.63.
I couldn't pass up am opportunity to learn the history of a legendary broadcaster. I'm glad I did.
Don McNay, CLU, ChFC, MSFS, CSSC is the bestsellling author of the book Wealth Without Wall Street: A Main Street Guide to Making Money
McNay, who lives in Richmond Kentucky, an award winning financial columnist and Huffington Post Contributor. You can learn more about him at www.donmcnay.com
He is the Chairman of the Board for the McNay Group (www.mcnay.com) which provides structured settlement consulting for injury victims, lottery winners, and the families of special needs children.
McNay founded Kentucky Guardianship Administrators LLC, which assists attorneys in as conservators and setting up guardianship's. It is nationally recognized as an administrator of Qualified Settlement (468b) funds.
McNay serves as a consultant for self employed people, is a well known public speaker and is an insurance consultant in the state of Kentucky.
Don has appeared on the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric and over 100 radio and television programs.
McNay has Master's Degrees from Vanderbilt and the American College and is in the Eastern Kentucky University Hall of Distinguished Alumni. Don is a Quarter Century member of the Million Dollar Round Table and has four professional designations in the financial services field.