By Barrett Golding 2010.06.23 3 Comments»
Yellowstone Public Radio’s Lois Bent passed on into that great audio control room in the sky last week. I remember late night at a PRPD party; I was three sheets to the whiskey (what else is new), talking to Jessie Thorn (TSOYA) and Jonathan Goldstein (WireTap). Lois came over to say Hi. She’s got phenomenal operatic pipes, so I asked for a song. She belted out a rousing version of Gershwin’s “Summertime.” Made my night, and that of all others w/in earshot.
A project of mine asks folk “How would you change the world?” Here’s Lois’ answer:
“Lois Bent- Change the World (circa 2003)” (1:51 mp3):
A little more Lois:
YPR personality Lois Bent remembered for humor.
[…] on Lois at Hearing Voices, Scanning the Dial, or Yellowstone Public Radio – Filed under: News — Tags: Lois Bent, […]
In her role as Operations Director at YPR, Lois had a firm grasp on the practical. Before the late Nineties, it didn’t take much for an NPR member station to – oops – miss a satellite ‘feed’ of a syndicated weekly program. (Even that term dates the start of my tenure in Public Radio Land…before there were satellite feeds, there was the U.S. Postal Service.) Even if you missed those first ten seconds of an hour-long program, the phone calls and emails would go out, as you sought another station ops manager with an ungoofed-up copy of the recording. You’d keep your fingers crossed that the busy ops person would be willing to dub a copy, real-time, and mail it (or, in Lois’s case, put it on the Greyhound bus) in time for your station’s scheduled broadcast time. For years, the dub in question consisted of an hour-long reel of quarter-inch tape.
Members of the Dubnet listserv will recall the countless occasions when Lois replied to these pleas with: “I’ve got it. It’ll be in the mail this afternoon.” When I’d talk with her on the phone, her calm, got-it-covered voice would make the haphazard aspects of station operations mellow just a bit.
Given how organized she was, I’ll bet Lois gave more often than she received – in that arena, and many others.
I also remember comparing notes with Lois about the demeanor of various candidates for public office, as they arrived for pre-election news interviews at our respective stations. Enduring giggle value in that topic!
Thanks for this. Very much.
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