National DJ Day with Jaynie Dillon

National DJ Day was January 20, 2022. I'm late to the party. Forgive me for being 'fashionably late'.

My earliest on-air gig was in 1960 when I was eleven years old, but I pretended to be 13. I was writing and reporting high school news stories on KTEL in Walla Walla even though I was still in grade school. I wanted desperately to be a teenager. On my application for membership in the KTEL Coca-Cola Hi-Fi Club, I pretended to be 13 so that technically I would be old enough to belong to the prestigious club. Burl Barer was the DJ at KTEL at the time. He was perhaps 16 then and smoking cigars! I was shocked to my core when I met him in the studio the first time.

My dad and brother had both worked for KTEL, also in years gone by. My brother was a radio personality "Dan Tory" and did afternoon drive on the station, also on KUJ and K-HIT in Walla Walla. My dad did a live music radio show singing and playing original songs on guitar in the studios at KTEL with one of his brothers and another friend. They were "The Cascadians."

KCYS FM, Richland, WA 1967 with music director Robert MacRae demonstrating the fine art of cueing up the 10-inch reels of tape with classical music

"J.Y" was a teenager living in Walla Walla, who drove all the way up to the Tri-Cities (nearly 60 miles) to spend a night in the studio and observe. He then created the first ever promo for my radio show.with a printing set he had at home.

My first PAYING radio job was after graduation from Upper Columbia Academy in 1967 at age 18 at KCYS FM in Richland, WA. The station was owned by Three Rivers Broadcasting (call letters KCYS represented the Columbia, Yakima and Snake Rivers that converged in the Tri-Cities) and it was a wonderful launching pad for my professional on-air career on the 100,000-watt FM station, which easily blanketed almost all of eastern Washington's Columbia Basin due to its terrain with that mighty signal. KCYS FM had block programming with an hour of this, an hour of that, e.g. two hours of Top-40 Request Time, an hour of Classical Music, an hour of Polkas and Shottisches, and so on... After the Tri-Cities it was on to Spokane with no job and only $17 to my name. I found a room to rent by-the-week through the YWCA, and then was hired at KTWD FM in Spokane. Simplest format ever: male vocal, female vocal, group vocal, instrumental, repeat...

Live remote broadcast of KTWD FM from the Washington State Fair in Spokane in 1968 with eager listeners and autograph-seekers gathered closely around the broadcast booth.

My first PRESS CREDENTIALS were issued in the City of Spokane after being finger printed and having my mugshot taken for this authentic card signed by station owner/manager Terry William Denbrook, December 31, 1969.

After a few years in Spokane (marrying a listener, having my first baby, and then moving our family to Seattle) I took a different path entirely for a few years and went into medicine. Eventually, I returned to radio in Tacoma at KTNT and KNBQ FM. From there to Country KAYO in Seattle... Next stop was KTAC and KBRD "K-Bird" FM in Tacoma.

Jaynie Dillon's Overnight Club on KOMO 1981-1990

KOMO Radio 60th Anniversary with air staff (seated) Larry Nelson; (standing, left-to-right) Joe Coburn, Jaynie Dillon, Norm Gregory, and Keith Jonasson.

The 60th Anniversary celebration for KOMO had included a choreographed stage show at Union Station in Seattle during the evening on New Year's Eve. I returned to the studio to go on-the-air at midnight as New Year's Day began January 1, 1987.

Eventually, the big break came when KOMO Radio made a spot for me that lasted for just shy of ten years as Jaynie Dillon and The Overnight Club on KOMO. During those years I was also teaching Broadcast Journalism at Green River Community College and had also taught at Ron Bailie School of Broadcast for a couple of years prior to that, too. Then back to medicine and health care marketing, community relations in senior living, medical transcription, etc. Crazy as it seems, along the way, I was incredibly blessed after having been divorced and resolutely single for more than a decade to have had the most incredible person come into my life (not a listener) -- Charles -- my beloved current husband.

Love Me Now Floral Design specializing in tropical and exotic plants and flowers in Steilacoom, Washington. Charles Jones and I created the business in our home and it grew to this retail location where we were for several years in the 1990s. We loved our clients and being located in the heart of the Historic District of the Town of Steilacoom just a block from Chambers Bay on Puget Sound and close to the ferry dock, too.

Charles and I opened a flower shop in Steilacoom and called it Love Me Now Floral Design. We named it after a poem my mother wrote for me when I was a teenager. We did lots of weddings, funerals, trade shows, etc. We specialized in tropical and exotic flowers and plants. During all the years we were in the floral design business, I also provided voice overs for Clay Huntington's KLAY Radio in Lakewood. Clay was a great man, a legend locally and regionally. He has passed away now, but there is even a street named after him in Tacoma at the entrance to the local ballpark Cheney Stadium. When Clay needed some commercials recorded, he'd call and ask me to come over to KLAY. Rather than paying me with cash or a check, he'd load me up with comps. i.e. gift certificates for a bunch of the station's current advertising clients (bars, restaurants, whatever he had on hand) to be equivalent to the talent fee. It was a great arrangement. One afternoon at the flower shop -- with no prior warning -- Ichabod Caine and his morning show producer popped in for a visit. He had just taken over the morning show on a new country music station in the Tacoma area KKBY FM 'The Cowboy.' He was doing the morning show. He had come to ask me, implore me to join him on the station and do the afternoon drive show from 3-7 p.m. He pleaded with me to, "Do it for the Lord." Who could say no to that?!?

Charles and I continued operating the flower shop, but I'd leave the store early each afternoon in order to get to KKBY 'The Cowboy' in time to go on-the-air and do my show. It was a blast! Until it wasn't... Until the station was sold... And overnight it went from being KKBY FM 'The Cowboy' to... 'The Funky Monkey' -- rap and R&B I was out. The whole staff was out. Poof! Charles and I have been happily together for 30 years. We have survived unbelievable heartbreak and tragedies -- several that are ongoing, both medical ones and family-related ones -- but we thank God every day that we're still kickin' and that we have each other. Two years ago, after having only been doing freelance voice overs and having not been on-the-air doing a regular show in over 20 years, a miraculous opportunity presented itself. Out of the blue, I was invited to 'get back in the saddle again' and join the on-air staff of a brand-new radio station Boss Country Radio, an internet station based in Amarillo, Texas. What a hoot! It felt like being alive again!!! As radio people, I think we never get it out of our blood. Maybe it's in our DNA... or as Lady Gaga puts it "Born This Way!" With my 73rd birthday coming up in just over four weeks, I've pared down my schedule a bit. I still have a passion for writing. I'm incredibly blessed to be a staff writer for South Sound Talk and have a monthly feature published online. Look for it here https://www.southsoundtalk.com/

I'm also a freelance contributing writer for The Suburban Times. The Suburban Times has more than 30,000 readers. Look for it here The Suburban Times Thanks for listening. And thanks for being on the show...

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