To meet Mark Shannon was to love him. Or hate him. Or both.
I met Mark when he came to Oklahoma City in the early 1980s to join the fledgling KJ-103 radio station as one of the original crew. To work for KJ-103 in those days was like riding a fast-rising rocket ship. The Contemporary Hit Radio (CHR) station climbed the ratings in record time.
I came over from KOFM's sales staff to help start up the station, lured by the charismatic then-32-year-old station manager Mark Schwartz.
And as sales reps and on-air talent often do, Mark Shannon and I butted heads. We worked dozens of on-air remotes at places like Hudiberg Chevrolet -- me slinging hot dogs and Coca-Colas for the customers and Mark oftentimes dodging unwanted female admirers, escaping to the service department if necessary. But we got to be friends, sort of a team in some ways, to the benefit of both.
We worked together the first five years KJ-103 was on the air. After five years, we'd been through three general managers, three programming directors, three sales managers, and all of our co-workers had turned over. We were the last two of the original KJ-103 staff.
In 1986, I got married, had a daughter and returned to the station to find my account list irreparably damaged and a new rep they'd hired to be my successor. They somehow assumed I'd leave and be a stay-at-home mom. I don't know where they ever got that idea.
Mark was encouraging through all of that mess.
And in June 1987, I had a run-in with management when they decided to trim account lists, including some major accounts I'd gotten on the air before we even had ratings in the beginning.
I lost patience with it all. But first there was one person I had to tell. It was Mark, who was working the afternoon drive shift and was on the air at the time. And I walked into the control room and he knew something was wrong.
"And then there was one," I told him.
"Nooooo. No. NO, NO," I remember him saying.
I didn't see Mark a lot after that, but would run into him occasionally at an event and we'd catch up.
He had some pretty rocky dating relationships until he met his beloved Kris, whom he eventually married.
When I saw him on the family night at an Oklahoma City Gridiron show about five years ago, he was so proud to tell me that Kris was "still putting up with him after all these years."
And I snapped a photo of him another year or two later when he did a cameo in the Gridiron show, wearing a placard with "It's Really Me," after leaving WKY when they changed it to a Spanish-language station.
I totally didn't agree with his politics, but he was a heck of a good guy. And I'm going to miss him.
And then there was one.
