Renee’s Radioversary and Why It Comes With Sadness

Today is my radio anniversary! It was a very happy day for me.  I got my VERY FIRST JOB in radio on this day in 1986. It was a radio station in Ellsworth. I was SO freaking happy. I got back in the car and was on my way back to my Mom’s house in Bangor.

Then it happened.

I was happily listening to the radio station I was going to start working for…and they stopped the music for the news that the space shuttle Challenger had exploded about a minute after lift-off.  It was January 28, 1986 and all seven astronauts on board died in the explosion. To make it feel just a wee bit more personal it was the shuttle mission with New Hampshire high school teacher Christa McAuliffe. She was chosen by NASA to be the first teacher in space. It still makes me sick to see that video of the shuttle breaking apart and going in different directions.

So that my friends is the reason I will always know the day I got my first job in radio.