Wednesday, April 29, 1998
Popular radio talk show host returns to Tiffin
By Cathy Willoughby
Staff Writer
''Good Day'' radio talk show listeners from around the world learned about Heidelberg College Tuesday morning.
Doug Stephan, a '68 graduate and host of the popular morning show, used the WHEI studio as his base of operations for yesterday's show.
The show was broadcast locally from 5 a.m. to 9 a.m. and featured students, staff and faculty member interviews. Although Stephan constantly is on the road to broadcast from locations around the country, he recalls fondly his earliest radio days in Tiffin.
''I worked at both WTTF and what was then HAR at Heidelberg. It was in the basement of Founder's Hall,'' he said. ''In 1965, I was a pup announcer here, and then the next year I was working at WTTF making minimum wage, which was $1.65 an hour.''
Back then, he spun the country & western tunes on the WT Roundup show.
''I used the name Doug Williams, because I was afraid someone would figure out who I was,'' Stephan said. Under the mentorship of the WTTF newsman at the time, Jack Storer, Stephan learned news-gathering techniques that he has relied on over the years.
Stephan continued working at WTTF for a short time following his graduation from Heidelberg, until his mother became ill and he returned to his home in Farmingham, Mass.
''When I went back, I taught school for awhile. Heidelberg has a great reputation for their education department, and I took enough courses that for three and a half years I taught at both the secondary and college levels,'' he said. ''I was also working for several hours an afternoon as a disc jockey at a suburban Boston radio station.
''One day, I looked at the difference between the $6,300 I was making in teaching and the $12,000 I was making a couple of hours a day on the radio. It told me, at least the way some people viewed it, that my work on the radio was more valuable than teaching.''
Stephan said that the thread through his life always has been radio. Since 1974, he has worked in radio. His journey into talk radio began in 1988, while he was working at a radio station in Cincinnati.
''I was contacted by a group that wanted to start the first non-lettered talk radio network. They hired five men and one woman to do a 24-hour broadcast day,'' Stephan said. ''They were correct when they forecast that through an independent network, talk radio could make inroads.''
He has hosted ''Good Day USA'' for 10 years now and is broadcast from 120 stations daily in 300 cities from coast to coast. In order to do this, he spends six days a week flying from one location to another.
''I feel that my listeners are taking the trips with me,'' he said. ''I've broadcast from London, Houston, several locations in Florida, I have studios in Washington and New York studios, Denver and Chicago.
''There's a broad diversity that I try to bring into the program. Everybody thinks of the East or West coasts, but there is the filling of the sandwich there which is all of middle America. And the secret of my success is really more mid-central America. Those people in Kentucky, Little Rock, Ark., and Louisiana who are listening.''
Stephan stays grounded by farming, returning to his family's legacy by living on the only farm left in Farmingham. He lives there most of the months with pleasant weather; he winters in Los Angeles to escape the New England snows. He maintains a large garden and owns a herd of 10 cows.
''They are really pets. They would follow me into the house if they could,'' he said.
He tries to return to Heidelberg as often as possible and fondly recalls his days on campus as an undergraduate.
''The best four years that I have spent collectively were spent at Heidelberg. I truly felt at home there and I had a lot of friends there. And of that, I am most appreciative.''