In the radio industry there’s an invisible world many outside our two speaker stage never get to see, feel, hear or experience—there are no books, no free food or opportunities to take another step up on the company ladder; it’s a single moment, years of travel and quite possibly a one way highway toward a horizon you never reach until one day a message on Face Book forces you to recount the sheep.
I’ve often believed its God’s classroom.
Announcers, jocks and on-air talent are “invited” not sent into a realm of lessons taught. There are no teachers, professors or big voiced mentors but rather the most raw, untrained sense of letting go of personal goals to put focus on how to look deeper than the surface of this business and how very little of it has anything to do with you and yet the end result of a lone belief can be someone’s hope, wish come true and or only drop of peace experienced during a lifetime of personal and private struggles.
Margaret Padgett has passed.
There’s not a radio talent in the Carolina’s that hasn’t heard from or some how been touched by her incredible drive to reach through a telephone with a landscape of unforgettable inner beauty, an endless willingness not to act but to seriously be happy at all costs and many, many times it required a jocks joke to perk up her morning, noon or night because in Margaret’s world that little laugh was the only fuel the Great Creator gifted her with.
Before the World Wide Web, texting, Skyping and My Space…Margaret put a lot of faith and trust in ample amounts of phone time; often becoming escorted visits to the studio where our conversations became giant hoots and hollers blessed with laughter, compassion and a fist full of true love spread through the speakers to which we speak from in ways that continue to affect the path of millions we’ll never meet.
I’ve credited Margaret and David Hill countless times for being my deeply responsible mentors in the department of teaching me how to drop the super hero’s cape and have the courage to be “real” rather than a publicity hound seeking headlines from local fund raisers.
A fellow radio announcer unveiled a picture of Margaret and myself in the late 1980’s…great songs can take you anywhere in the world without feeling a sudden rush in your stomach…pictures from a past you can’t change recreate the dips in the highway serving as a reminder of why Broadcaster’s do what they do during times when doing needs only a whiff of inspiration and it’s that energy that becomes a force for the rest of the world to participate with.
I can’t help but wonder if Chuck didn’t think about Margaret during the extremely long hours dedicated to sitting in every seat of a newly shaped coliseum to help raise funds for a nonprofit organization. What about the announcers who’ve leaped onto massive roadside billboards to raise awareness and continuous amounts of radio talkers that have poured their hearts and soul into twenty, forty and fifty mile walks or participated with radio and telethons for what never feels like an eternity and yet the average person couldn’t do what people like Margaret inspired radio people to reach through.
You probably won’t read about her in local newspapers. Chances are the only reason why you’ve made it to this sentence is because fate put you on this page.
Show me a jock, announcer, Broadcaster or DJ that didn’t dedicate their life to the community and my first question will always be, “Did you ever talk or meet with Margaret Padgett?” I can’t imagine how many millions of dollars wouldn’t have been raised if she hadn’t put forth the effort to pick up that phone and call the voice that just happened to be on the air that day.
God’s tools are of many and Margaret you were the one that entered the soul of those driving favorite songs from a radio station control board out to a car, office or home and in between the lyrics the announcer would say, “Hey this weekend, join us for _______.”
It was how they said it that convinced the radio listener to open their heart and that lesson was taught by a girl whose strange twist in life fed passion for all people into the vocal chords that learned how to warm the thoughts of a passerby.
God has your wings Margaret…I know you’re enjoying your freedom to finally fly. You are his angel now...
arroecollins@clearchannel.com
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