If you were listening to talk radio in the 1990s, chances are you heard Bruce Gordon read the news on KSTP. He was a familiar voice on the local airwaves right up until . . . well, the time when he wasn't anymore. But that's radio.
It's an industry staffed by itinerants -- town to town, up and down the dial, as the WKRP theme song put it. But he didn't go. He's still here, but now he's helping to keep You, the Public, safe and sound. He's the director of communications for the Minnesota Department of Public Safety.
Which means what, exactly?
"We respond to media inquiries about topics involving our many divisions -- State Patrol, Homeland Security, Driver [and] Vehicle Services."
From Al-Qaida to getting your tabs: That's a wide range. Are you ever tempted to put out a press release that just says "EVERYBODY RUN, NOW"?
"We like to be a bit more specific," Gordon says. "They may run in the wrong direction. See, that's where the professionals come in."
What happened to the radio career? "There came a time -- I think this happens in the lives of many in broadcasting -- there comes a time when you think: 'Shall I continue on this path, which is insecure and volatile? What does it do to my family?' My time was coming to an end at a radio station in St. Cloud, and the options were Cincinnati or Kansas City."
Neither, you'll note, is based in Minnesota -- which is where he always wanted to be. So he returned home, went into public service, and bid farewell to radio. "When I was growing up, I would listen to radio under my pillow at night, so my parents wouldn't know I was staying up. I'd sneak a listen to 'CCO or WLS. It was always my dream to be in radio, so after some time at broadcast school I left Minnesota and went to a small station in Montana." He laughs and quotes Ted Baxter: "It all started at a small 5,000-watt station. It always does."
