Dialed in since 1977

Glencoe man has been ‘living on the air’ (and off) for more than 48 years

BY PATRICIA BUSCHETTE

patricia.buschette@gmail.com

Dale Koktan recently retired as Senior Account Executive Marketing Director. He is pictured in the KARP broadcast studio in Hutchinson. Koktan started in radio in 1977. Photo by Patricia Buschette

For Dale Koktan of Glencoe, radio started out as a vision for a lifetime career, and became a successful reality. And it all began with a high school term paper.

“I had always thought about radio and a career in radio broadcasting. When I was a junior in high school, we had to come up with a term paper on what kind of career we would like to pursue. I wrote about radio broadcasting.  I still have the paper somewhere.”

Dale’s career in radio took some interesting side trips, but the primary goal was never forgotten. He graduated from Silver Lake High School in 1974 and attended what is now Ridgewater College in Hutchinson for a two-year course for audio visual technology.

“From there I was accepted at the Brown Institute, the premier place to go for radio in the day,” he said. “I had a job at a recording studio in downtown Minneapolis. That job did not work out. However, that experience made me want to jump into a radio career. 

Dale had an apartment in Minneapolis and played in a band called Polish Playboys. 

“We were a polka band and hottest place to play was at the Riverside Ballroom in Carver,” he said.

Here is where fortune played a role.

“It just so happened at the Shakopee radio station they did a polka show on Sunday afternoons,” Dale said. “The son of the owner of the ballroom was going to help do the polka show on the radio station. They asked if I wanted to help. Well, I am going to school and now could actually do a radio show – that was pretty exciting.”

That schedule led from Sunday afternoons to being the sign-on announcer five days a week, Monday through Friday, and Sunday afternoon.

A format of tape was called reel to reel. The station would get radio shows and commercials on tapes like these. This format is now almost non-existent. Currently shows and commercials come to the station via satellite or the internet. Back in the day reel to reel tape was the standard. 3M in Hutchinson manufactured most of the tape. Contributed photo.

“A sign-on announcer means you get to the station at 4:30 in the morning and get the news compiled. You do the show prep, getting together whatever information you want to get on the air,” Dale said. “You get that from the AP (Associated Press) as you prepare for the show. You have to get up super early to get the transmitter going. In early radio, tube transmitters were the devices that generated radio waves to transmit signals.

“Everything was buzzing along, I am working at the radio station and going to school. However, they told me at the Shakopee radio station, ‘We don’t have a place for you, but we will give you a very good recommendation because you are a good employee.’”

Dale’s next move was to check in at KDUZ in Hutchinson.

“They had an opening for an announcer. I did the interview and, with good job references and friends associated with the radio station, they hired me. That was in November of 1977 when I started out as a nighttime announcer.” 

Dale worked from 5 p.m. to 11 p.m. six days a week. That led into being an afternoon announcer, and then to becoming a morning announcer – the sign-on person. “I went that whole route” he said.

Every year the New Prague radio station would come out with an updated rate card. Rate cards had all the prices for ads and shows. The rate card process is one thing that has not changed over the years. Today’s rates naturally are higher to purchase than ads in the old days. Contributed photo.

Dale got married in 1980 while working in Hutchinson. 

“I began looking at my career and wondering what I could do better.” he said, “In life you have to look at what your talents are and I knew that being an announcer was not my greatest forte, but I wanted to stay in the radio business. I decided I wanted to get into sales – advertising.” He would give it a try, he said, and added, that if it didn’t fit, he would try something else. 

After four years in Hutchinson, Dale accepted a job at radio station KCHK in New Prague. He and Becky moved there in 1981, anxious to become a part of a new community and to learn a new part of the radio business.

“Luckily, I had a boss who was a very, very good salesman. One thing he taught me was to go out there and make the calls. That was the best advice I ever had. You have to go out and call on people,” he said.

Dale remained in New Prague until 1987. Their family had grown to three children and they owned their house.

“However, I wanted to move closer to home,” he said. “It was calling me.”

Dale checked back in Hutch. There wasn’t anything open at the time, but things can change quickly, he said. An opening came up, and in 1987 he was back at KDUZ in sales, focusing on the Hutchinson and Glencoe area.

Dale stayed in the role of sales but in his words, “I still wanted keep a finger in the radio part of it and I recorded a lot of my own commercials. I went out and did my own remote broadcasts at parades, and that sort of thing. I could do that work and keep my feet in announcing.”

A bonus for him and for his clients was Dale’s creativity as he generated commercials. By doing so, he was more in touch with clients and what they wanted.

“I did sound effects,” he explained. A musician, he did a commercial including guitar and trumpet. “I sang a 30 second commercial for McLeod Power in Glencoe. They were just introducing satellite television at that time. It was near Christmas and I wrote my own lyrics to jingle bells. They used that commercial during the Christmas season for years. It is so dated, he said, but it is on tape somewhere!”

It is the modernization of broadcasting that was the real change in the years that Dale was in radio.

This late 1980s photo is of a live broadcast at an area farm. Dale is on the left, John Mons is in the center, and on the right is Joe Neubauer who was the McLeod county extension agent at the time.  Contributed photo

“This is outer space compared to when I first started. When I started in radio we had vinyl, then went to CDs then to digital on computers, so we had to tape hundreds of songs on the computer. In those days there was a lot of activity in the control room. Today you won’t find a shred of tape, reel to reel, cassette, commercials on CD. Everything is emailed unless we produce it. It is all digital,” he said. “The smartphone is a radio man’s best friend. One can broadcast over a smart phone – do remote broadcast, and email it to the radio station all-digital, with the same quality as recording in a studio.”

When Dale started in 1977 there was not one computer to be seen. 

“Everyone relied on manual and electric typewriters. My first touch with technology was to send a fax. I typed the commercial and asked a staff person to fax it. Her response? ‘Well, what is the matter with you? Why can’t you send a fax?’”

Dale soon learned how to fax material.

“We used faxes for a long time,” he said. “Later, we would write commercials on the computer and email them. I knew nothing about that technology. I had to learn how to use a computer. I didn’t have a laptop. 

“During the time when I recorded commercials. I was at a desk typing the text of a commercial. Someone asked me, ‘What are you doing on a typewriter? Why don’t you use a computer?’ I was reluctant at first – it was a DOS program. I bought DOS for Dummies, then got a Windows computer that used Microsoft programs. I took a community workshop to make certain I was on top,” he said.

This late 1970s photo illustrates the concept of “rip and read” and is from the first year Dale was in radio. He was an announcer and was tasked with reading the news at the top of every hour. “Our news came from a clickety clackety Associated Press teletype machine. News, weather forecasts, and sports came from that machine. If it was a major or breaking news type story a bell would ring to catch your attention. I think the saddest news I pulled from that machine was in 1980 when John Lennon of the Beatles was murdered in New York City.” Today the news comes from networks via satellite or computer. Currently, only local news is read by the local announcer. Contributed photo

“My kids were teenagers so they would help me with technology,” he said. “I asked our oldest daughter, ‘What is this Internet?’ We went to a library where we could set up 15-minute sessions on the computer.”

This (new technology) was so much easier, Dale explained. When one made a mistake on tape you had to “slice it out.” You would find the section, cut it out and reattach it.

“If in 1977 one walked into today’s studio they would have been confused,” he said.

There are times when the programming schedule is set aside.

“On Sept. 11, 2001, I was going to work. I had seen the planes on television before I came. When I arrived at work, people were standing in the hallway crying.”

The station turned to national programming, alternating at times for more local coverage of the disaster.

The long reach of radio became evident when the Koktans’ son was deployed in Afghanistan. Dale was recording a commercial that went on the air because someone had accidentally left a switch on. At that moment in Afghanistan, Joe tuned in to hear his father speaking. He called him, saying, “Dad, I can hear you on the air!” It was an unusual coincidence that Joe checked out the local station at the moment of that fluke broadcast.

After a number of changes of ownership in studios in the Hutchinson and Glencoe communities, KARP and KDUZ are now situated in one studio in Hutchinson where, until April 30, 2025, Dale served as senior account executive at KDUZ, KARP/KGLB.

As for the future?

“I am doing stuff I want to do. Some ask if I wanted to do part time. I will not – I am retired. We take day trips and I am doing a lot of gardening – lots of gardens. It is fun to do it. I love Hostas, we have over 100 varieties of Hostas, and we have lots of perennials and annuals.” Dale said. 

The future also includes travel.

“We are taking a trip to Rome to see the new Pope. We are lifelong Catholics, involved in our faith and we will be traveling with a priest friend to Europe.”

After 48 years and two months of creating information and entertainment on the air, Dale and Becky Koktan will focus on creating their own memories.