I participated in my first job fair. Actually I was not looking for a job. I had a booth set up at LQPV high school for KLQP radio, promoting careers in radio and television. I found those couple of hours very educational and interesting. It was nice to visit with so many young people searching and exploring different colleges and careers.
I was asked a lot of questions about my career in radio and the college degrees that are needed to work in radio and television. I was surprised at a number of kids that were really genuinely interested in pursuing radio and television careers.
Maynard was with me in the booth and he added a lot to the discussion. We both enjoyed sharing our stories of going to college and our jobs and how we got where we are today.
After the job fair was over I spent a lot of time thinking about my early years after graduating from high school. How important the decisions were that I made at that young age and how it affected my life.
Out of high school I was accepted at Brown Institute in Minneapolis, to pursue my career as a radio or television sports announcer. I remember getting my acceptance letter in the mail and being so excited that I was to going to the prestige Brown Institute. All the big time sports broadcasters had graduated from Brown. Two weeks before school started in Minneapolis I changed my mind and decided to attend Alexandria Tech to get a business degree first, with plans to go back to Brown. After graduating from Alexandria I joined the family business in Madison. I stayed in the family business for thirty years, before the business closed. Now at sixty years old I am living my dream of broadcasting sports on the radio.
But I always wondered what my life would be like and where I would be if I would have graduated from Brown Institute. Would I be working in a major radio market in a big city? Would I be broadcasting major college sports? I know my life would be very different. Don’t get me wrong. I love my life and what I’ve done with it. However, I think most of us would change things and do a do over if we had the chance.
If I had a do over I would have stayed at Brown Institute and graduated with a broadcasting degree. Got a job in radio or television preferably in the cities. Then hopefully made it to the big leagues. My dream would have been to broadcast nationally. I know I would have probably had to move ten to twenty times. My dream was to always broadcast Minnesota North Stars hockey, or Minnesota Twins baseball. Now that would have been fun.
But reality was I moved back to my home town of Madison, got married and raised a family. I worked with my extended family in a business that my dad and uncles started for thirty years. I live in a nice house, was always able to put food on the table and pay the bills, took vacations and enjoyed small town living. I have wonderful friends and a great church family. So life has been very good to me. But for some reason I always look back and wonder what could have been.
So visiting with these kids at the job fair really got me thinking about the decisions that I made at that young age. You don’t know it at the time, but those early decisions really have a huge impact on the rest of your life.