Chapter Two: Amazing Success Formula
Grahm was a great school. The faculty had some sure fire formulas for success that they shared with us.
Sworn to secrecy for decades, I have decided to pass along to you the Grahm magic primer for announcing excellence.
My old professors have all gone to the big microphone in the sky as has the institution’s founder, a nice man named Milton Grahm: So there is probably nobody left to yell at me for letting this cat out of the bag.
For free; you are now going to get a condensed version of a two year course guaranteed to get you a top radio or television gig.
The Author, Bill Russo, in the 1950s
Please allow me to first take you back about a half century to my classroom. There were about twenty students, fifteen were men. Just five young women were brave enough to try to break into what was then a male dominated work force.
The Professor was Howard Nelson. In addition to teaching at Grahm, he was a staff announcer of the CBS Radio Network. At the time CBS had an O & O station in Boston. (O and O meant that it was both owned and operated by the network.) The station was called WEEI and it was a news and entertainment station. Its staff numbered over 100 people. Today whole networks don’t even have a hundred workers.
(Note: WEEI today is the flagship station of the WEEI Sports Radio Network - a string of about a dozen outlets covering all of New England)
The WEEI of the 1950s and 60s was the biggest radio station in Boston and Professor Nelson was one of the top CBS announcers. He was in his mid fifties and distinguished looking in a ‘fat king’ kind of a way.
One of Professor Nelson’s pet peeves was news. Not the actual news itself but the way 99 per cent of the world pronounces the word.
He told us was that we had to pronounce the word ‘news’ in almost - but not quite - two syllables.
“The correct way to say the word,” he instructed, “ is to say Knee - ews”,
“Try it. Don’t say ‘Nooze’. Say ‘Knee-use'. When you go on the air say, ’Good morning, here’s the Knee-ews'.”
I was never sure that the professor’s advice on that point was particularly useful. But when he gave us the sure fire method for becoming an announcer, I knew my parents were investing their money wisely by sending me to Grahm.
After completion of the next section, you will be entitled to print out a copy of this genuine fake diploma and call yourself an ‘Announcer’.
In a nutshell, here is Professor Nelson’s method for developing announcers. Let’s go back to the classroom.
Professor Nelson enters:
Nelson: “Good Morning. Today is the first day of your announcer training. I am going to give you a bag of marbles. You will put said marbles in your mouth and leave them in for the entire day. You will practice reading aloud with your marbles in your mouth.
"You will return to school tomorrow and will recite a poem. With your mouth full of marbles you will say, “Peter Piper Picked a Peck of Pickled Peppers.” When you can say it correctly, you will take out one marble.
"You will return to college the next day and with all your marbles but one, you will recite 'She Sells Sea Shells by the Seashore.'
"When you can say it clearly and distinctly with your marble mouth, you will then lose another marble.
"And so it shall go. We shall meet anew every day and gradually take out the marbles from your mouth one at a time.
“When you have lost all your marbles, you will be an announcer.”
It worked, I lost my marbles, managed to avoid being committed and made a living for a long time just playing records and having fun. It was like I never worked a single day in all that time. Fun is never work and announcing work was always fun.
Some notable Grahm grads: Marc Summers of the Food Network and Paul Fusco, the creator of ‘Alf’.
In the beginning I mentioned Ryan Seacrest. He did not graduate from Graham Jr. College, but one of his top aides did. Tony Novia, Senior Vice President, New Media Development at RYAN SEACREST PRODUCTIONS graduated in the 1970s.
So that’s it. I have given you an announcing course that could change your life. No charge. The only thing you have to do now is buy yourself a bag of marbles and get talking.
Good luck
