- Will you consider this?

Years ago, he would bring us up to date on all that was happening in Central Illinois and competed with me.

But today, he's come back for a visit with all of us.

(upbeat music) With humble beginnings and a curiosity that led to a lifetime commitment now, Bradley, well, married at Bradley, Mike Throop's gone on to further his own education.

And as Dr. Mike Throop, or do you want me to say Michael, he is an assistant professor of journalism and mass communication at Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas.

Welcome back to Central Illinois.

- Christine, thank you.

It's great to be back in Central Illinois, and it's great to be here with you also at Peoria PBS.

I'm really thrilled to be here.

- So, you were at WIRL for how many years?

- Well, there's two parts to that story.

I actually was there, I was there from February of 1974 and through late June of 1976.

I had been prior to that in Cedar Rapids, Iowa at a station which was pretty much like WIRL at the time, pop, Top 40 music, full news staff.

We were competing with the two TVs in town that had full-time news staff.

So, we were out on the street all the time, Very heavy news presence.

And I answered an ad in a trade publication for WIRL, and basically to make a long story, very long story short, was hired over the phone by the then news director, Ira Bitner.

He looked at my stuff.

We had a good conversation.

A friend of mine who was working at the time as a producer at Channel 19, a classmate of mine at Southern Illinois, recommended me also.

So, that's basically how I got the job.

But preceding that, I think it's kind of important to remember this, that preceding that, I had been at a very small station, about 50 miles north of here in Princeton, Illinois.

- Princeton, right.

- WZOE, still on the air.

I think there's two or three FMs that are part of that.

But at the time, it was just the AM.

And I started there Labor Day of 1969 through the intervention of one of my other friends from Southern, and basically, did it all for about a year and a half, went back to Southern Illinois.

But I learned all sorts of things there.

I learned how to work past my mistakes, which I tell people, "Go small to learn."

- Get there.

- Get your mistakes done, get them out of the way, learn to work with people.

We were talking before we started our show that my first day there was Labor Day of 1969, and basically I learned all the equipment on site and whatever, and guy handed off, headed out the door to his next phase of his life.

So, the next day I walk in, the operations director who had hired me said, "Oh, I heard you on the air, sounded great last night."

Oh, thank you.

And he said, "Have you ever done football play-by-play?"

And I said, "No, no, I never have."

And so he said- - (chuckling) We need you.

- "We need you, our first game on the air is Friday night."

Okay, so fortunately, he had a young guy who was going to the high school who knew everybody and did color for that.

And so somehow or other, I got through that first year of doing that.

I knew even less about basketball, but I did play-by-play for that and did another season of football before going back to school.

But I think the long story short part of this is, I guess I was too naive or too young to say, "I can't do this."

I just did it.

- Right.

- So.

the offshoot of this is somebody at the station said, "You should listen to the station that's down in Peoria.

They're really good, WIRL," 'cause I was listening to, in my spare time, WLS in Chicago for Top 40 music and whatever.

But they were doing the same thing and doing a very good job of it.

So, I always kind of kept that in the back of my mind, and sure enough, an opportunity came about four years later.

So, that's how I ended up in Peoria.

So I was here, as I say, it started in and went- - '74 to '76.

- '74 to 76, came back in August of 1990 as news director of WIRL, and then we were acquired and went on to work over at WMBD from late 1999, and we left in June of 2001.

So, I was here about 11 years for the second time through.

- Yeah, well, you know what, but this is a great place to- - It's a great market.

- Really, yeah.

Well, you were talking about how full news staffs and back in the day, and I'm showing my age here but, so you would hear it now on the radio, you would watch for some of the details, get a little bit fuller story from television that night on the news, and then read all about it in the newspaper the next day.

That doesn't happen anymore.

- No, and it's unfortunate.

And, you know, I think back to this, I was thinking about this the other day that when I started here actually in the '70s, the "Journal Star" moved away from an afternoon newspaper.

So, there was only one newspaper a day and this was in 1975 or so.

Maybe that was the beginning of it and we didn't know it, but the audience had changed, the people reading the paper had changed.

It depended on when they read it, that changed also.

So I think from print, that kind of did something.

- [Christine] So that kind of started the ball rolling?

- In my opinion, it had.

So certainly when I came back here, the market had changed, obviously, and talk radio had kind of moved into the music format spotlight on AM radio, especially.

And I think really the change for me came in 1973 when Randy Rundle and I paired up for WSWT, at the time Light Rock 107.

He and I did mornings for, well, about seven years.

And it was a great experience.

I moved over to the news side on WMBD when we were acquired and finished out my time here, and then went to Kansas City.

My wife had an opportunity to move back there 'cause we were there from '82 to '90.

So she had an opportunity to move back and I said, "Hey, you moved enough for me, so I'm moving for you."

And we just packed everything and moved to Kansas City, took her job.

- And you were on your way.

- And I got back into radio for a very short time, basically about February of 2002, and I left on my own volition in November of 2005.

So it was great, it was time to move on.

- Well you keep all that stuff up there.

Good job.

- It had such a major impact on me.

And I think to be able to do what I'm doing now in journalism Ascom, I mean that's changed too.

And we'll want to talk about that I think.

- Absolutely.

- The traditional modes, traditional models, have changed immensely.

And in fact, my doctoral dissertation is a case study, without getting too technical about it, but basically a case study on the effects of introducing digital media products and digital programming into a traditional liberal arts institution.

And did quite a bit of research at that time, and this was about 10 years ago.

Not a lot had been written.

Surprisingly enough to me, not much had been written about it.

- So what does that mean to us common folk?

- Well, I think basically that means if you're paying your kid's tuition, what are they getting?

Are they getting enough in-person time?

Is it gonna be on Zoom?

We'll talk about Zoom.

And I think I'll just maybe digress and say I think we had to, every other college had to, went to Zoom, turned on a dime.

There is March of 2020, we were zoomed up basically a week later.

And we stayed with that for the rest of the semester.

Did hybrid the next fall, kind of integrated out of that last fall.

We were pretty much live except for snowstorms or whatever.

I can do class from my house, for my classes during the day, I don't have to be up there.

And so I think it's like any other tool.

It's great, but it has its limitations.

You lean on it and- - You have to audit it.

- You're asking for problems.

- Right.

- And I can't speak for any other schools and I can't really speak for mine.

I'd say my own interpretation, my own experience has been, used properly infrequently as a product, not the sum total, I think for a communications tool, it's great.

Other than that, in-person is important.

- Well, it is on so many fronts.

So, you had this curiosity and just a thirst for knowledge.

So you went on after you moved away to get your master's correct?

- Correct.

I started my bachelor's and that was not online.

I started in 1998 while I was still here through City University of Seattle.

It was mailing in my homework, getting my grade and everything.

Finished that in 2002.

Knew I couldn't quit, so when I was in Kansas City, I worked at, started my master's in Public Affairs in fall of 2003, graduated in 2007.

And then as I say, started my doctoral degree in 2011, totally online except for two one-week sessions that are schooled in Boston during the summer.

So other than that, completely online.

And it's changed even now.

I think anybody can speak to this who's around.

It has changed even more for online schools.

You have online schooling, which is very, very big.

People are non-traditional students or who don't have time to sit in a classroom, there's that.

Traditional is huge.

I mean, we still need that interaction.

I'm missing it now.

I miss the interaction with students in a classroom.

I usually have 20, 22 students in my class, in my classes.

I miss them.

It's a great interaction.

And if I can impart something for them or get them to think about things, then I've really accomplished something.

- Well, you can really see, you can almost feel, it's almost palpable when you've got somebody who you know is really focused and zooming in when they're in person.

- That was difficult.

That was in the time we did that, and I will tell you this, Chris, there were times that I'd end that class for a week, the week would end, I would be in tears after we got off, because I thought, "I'm not with you."

- Right.

- It's the truth.

And it was just very, very difficult for me.

- Well, now you have made a lot of contacts with all of the places that you've been, and now you are teaching kids, this next generation upcoming.

So, you can still be in touch with some of these people and you can try to help place some of your students?

- I do.

One of my responsibilities is our internship program, which we're kind of building, which is good.

And I would also interject here, it's kind of interesting, I've been mentioning to a few people, our college, it's a faith-based school.

It's a small school.

We have 1,920 full-time students.

It's a residential school in a small town.

We're up in the corner of Northeast Kansas, basically, and it's beautiful campus, but it is a small school.

Some people can't handle it.

Some people who do, hang in there and do well.

But it's not for everybody.

But I'd say that the students whom I talk with are interested in getting their feet wet.

So I do have a number of contacts in Kansas City, and we try to figure out how given our distance to the city, as we know, $5 a gallon gas, going into the city anyway, first off you have to have a car.

So, some of these we can do online, and actually more and more internships that I'm working with people in Kansas City who are contacts, they're willing to do remote.

You don't have to be on site.

I had one of our graduates, this has been three or four years ago, move into a position in a public affairs realm, and COVID hit, and she immediately went online, and she basically stayed there.

They went back to the office for a while.

She changed jobs, her job currently, which is in the private sector is totally online, so she never has to go anywhere.

To which I'd said, "Well, I guess you're- - Saving money on the wardrobe.

- Yeah, no kidding.

You're saving money on your jammies.

You just wearing sweats all day.

Which she acknowledged as true.

- Right.

- But we're seeing more of that, and that's a whole nother thing having to do with employment.

And I think what students expect to be doing, they may not have any idea what they wanna do, great, figure it out.

- Figure it out while you're there.

- It's best to start that way, correct?

- I mean, I was blessed or cursed, depending on how you look at it, knowing I wanted to be in radio when I was nine years old.

- And why is that?

What led you to that conclusion?

- My mother was an inveterate listener of radio.

She listened to it all the time, and she listened to WGN on the air, WGN radio in Chicago.

And I very well, I was thinking about this, I well remember Saturday mornings, I'd be sitting in our little kitchenette dining area.

She had WGN on, and Pierre Andre, Pierre Andre, of course, his name claim to fame came in a Christmas story with a section about "Little Orphan Annie" with this decoder ring.

Anyway, that was the same Pierre Andre.

At this point, he was probably getting toward retirement age, but he did a Saturday morning show, Broadway show tunes, a scripted narrative around the show and whatever.

And I listened to him and think, "Oh, that's pretty cool.

I'd like to do that and everything."

So, fast forward a couple of years, I graduated from such as it is, I left grade school, getting ready to go into high school, one of my other favorite shows was called "Don McNeill's Breakfast Club."

- All right.

- Which was a network show on ABC radio Monday through Friday.

And it was basically an hour of laughter, conversation, music, interviews, whatever.

I really liked the show.

It was on WLS radio, which was they did this around their Top 40 format, which I liked also.

I thought, "I wanna be like those guys."

So, I got a ticket to go to the show.

So, my dad took me downtown into Chicago on the train on a Saturday.

And he said, "We're gonna practice this."

I'm 13, 13-years-old walking in downtown Chicago.

Think about that.

But this was a much different time.

- [Christine] Well, today it wouldn't work very well, But go ahead.

- No.

So I got off the train, we walked the two blocks to the hotel where the show was done.

"Okay, you know where that is.

Then you walk back two blocks to where my office is."

Great, so then I took the train with him on that following Monday, went to the hotel.

So, I was standing in line outside the room where they did the show, and they handed us a blue card and a pencil and said, "Fill in your information about you and whatever else."

So I filled out this card, handed it to somebody on the way in, found a seat on the, I remember this was on the edge of the row, not too far back, and I'm looking around and thinking, "Oh yeah, there's microphones here and there's people coming to this room and everything."

And so they kind of gave us a warmup of the program, and then the show begins.

And I think, "Wow."

- This is cool.

- This is cool.

There's Don McNeill and everything.

So we're going along and everything, and then I hear, "Is Michael Throop in the audience?"

Raise my hand, and said, "Come on up here."

So, called me up and said, "Okay, where are you from?"

"Morton Grove, Illinois."

Said, "Well, you got a joke for us, tell us this joke."

So I read the joke on the card.

He kinda laughed and everything, patted me on the back, sent me back.

They went into a commercial break and I was walking back to my seat and I said- - This is what I wanna do.

- "This is what I wanna do."

- Isn't that crazy?

That early in your life, just because... - Partly because my mother, God rest her soul, she was, like I say, listening to radio all the time, and just being around it.

And then the other part of this, I think, Chris, which is important, kind of as a sideline maybe, but important, is I learned how to make contacts with people who could introduce me to other people to- - Connectedness.

- Connect things like that.

And that's how I got my first radio job.

- It's called networking.

- Correct.

- It's networking.

I don't know if we had a name for it then, but that's basically what we did.

This is what I try to pass on- - To your students.

- To students.

I mean, there are life skills, no matter what area of study you're in, you have to do this.

You cannot be in a vacuum.

And I think our students pay attention to that.

It's kind of a nebulous thing in some ways, but you have to do it.

And because somebody introduced you to our school, just think about how that introduction can take you- - Came about, exactly.

- Introduction skills and people skills can take you forward in realizing what you want to do.

- In any pursuit.

- In any pursuit.

- Correct.

- And it may not be what you end up doing, but at least you started the process and you learn those skills along the way.

- Right.

So, what was your favorite thing in Peoria when you were here for those two little stints.

Little, well, long stints that you had here.

- Aside from meeting my wife here?

- Aside from that, that was very important.

- Which was a major part of my life.

Working at a full-service newsroom and a radio station.

It was just when I got here, I mean, it was us, WXCL, which was still doing news then.

And then, of course, WMBD, which kind of married TV and radio people together.

We were on the street getting stories all the time.

- All the time.

And how many people were in the news department then?

- In our news department, we had, actually, we had four people, I think.

Yes, we did.

So myself, Ira, Tom Miller and Beth McCloth were working there at that particular time.

That's amazing to be able to do that.

So, I'd cover stories, cover meetings.

One of the things I remember was I learned how easy it was, and this is not a big secret, to be able to get an interview before something begins.

So for example, we'd watch to see, for example, who the Peoria Rotary Club would be having.

So if it's like a big guest, just get them ahead of time.

- Exactly.

- And we never had a problem with that.

Just off to the sides, took a microphone and do the interview.

If it was one of the big events, like the chairman of Caterpillar, which was I think the end of year meeting for the Rotary Club, that was a huge media affair, of course.

- Right, we all lined up and had all had microphones.

- Everybody lined up with microphones and it would be whoever was speaking or whatever, but that was the big deal.

I'd say that was probably the day-to-day excitement of being able to do things, talk to people, make contacts, and then be able to call them and do something.

- When you heard something.

- When I heard something- - Say, "What's going on?"

- Yeah, so I'd get a phone call or whatever, and be able to follow up on that.

And I think I was more interested in radio, with all due respect to my friends in TV, it was less technically challenging to me than radio was.

- All right.

- I could just turn on a microphone, turn on the tape, digital, whatever, do the interview.

So, I didn't have to worry about looking good.

- Well, yeah, at least from the waist up.

- Yeah, I mean, seriously.

Well, I know that story, too.

I know how that goes.

- (chuckling) Exactly.

So, any regrets about all that you've done to date?

- No, no.

I mean, the short answer would be no.

I mean, I really paid attention.

Interesting, that's an interesting question though, because I paid attention to what was going on around me as best I could for my age and whatever, and having better listening skills I think made a huge difference in being able to succeed in what I was doing.

- Do you think, and let me interrupt really quickly.

- Yeah, sure.

- Do you think kids today have as good of listening skills?

There's so many distractions, iPhones, earbuds, all that stuff.

Are they really listening to what's going on in the world?

- I think it's more of a challenge.

I think for us as adults to break through to that, I think it's definitely an issue.

My syllabus states turn off your phone, but, Chris, I'll tell you, it's difficult.

- You see them texting.

- Yes, I do, and I mean, I remember it's like- - [Christine] Pay attention.

- Well, it's just they can't...

It's difficult for them to break the habit.

I'm okay with that.

I mean, I understand that it's difficult to undo yourself or unhitch yourself from that equipment.

And the thing is that, and I don't know this, but I'm not sure that this doesn't kind of meld into their workplace sometimes because they have their phones on the table right there.

- Right there, all the time.

- So I think they have a difficulty disengaging, but I also think that it's the more ominous thing is the inability to just engage period is extremely difficult.

You've gotta turn that phone off.

You have to turn your device off.

And it's almost impossible to do it.

"Well, I use it as an alarm clock."

Well, you know, okay, I got that part, but just put it aside.

- Right.

- Put it aside and talk to somebody.

- No phone zone, right?

- Yes, and again, I would be less than honest to say I'm winning that battle, but we're trying.

It's all I can do.

- Well, that's today's world.

- It is.

I think that there's good things with connectivity.

I mean, you think about this.

We can think about this that 30 years ago, cell phones, as we know them, were- - [Christine] Those big clunky things.

(chuckling) - The rock or the bag phone.

- Right.

- I saw a bag phone the other day and I was thinking about that.

And then they kind of got smaller and smaller and smaller.

So they went from, like this is a really big deal to something that you can't live without, or at least you think you can't live without.

- And who has programmed us to believe that?

- Cell phone companies, of course.

But I think there's usefulness in everything.

It is an issue to me, and I've had this happen, where students will write papers and send them to me on a Word document on their phone.

I said, "I don't think that's gonna work."

I have to explain to them why that's problematic.

For one reason, because SpellCheck screws it up and you have to have a formalized way of doing things.

I think that's the key here.

We're losing the ability to have a formalized and structured, you have to have structure, a formalized and structured way of delivering and receiving information.

It's a two-way street and that is a challenge.

- You gotta stick with it.

- Big challenge.

- So real quickly- - Yes, please.

- What's on your bucket list?

You've done a lot already.

What haven't you done that you'd still like to do?

- Well, I'd like to go to Rome.

I'd like to say hi to the Pope, say, "Hi, Pope," something like.

Actually, I like to visit some of the sites where our founders, St. Benedict, grew up.

There's a monastery in Nursia, in the northern part of Italy, I'd like to be able to visit that and also a couple of the other sites that are attached to the order, the religious order, Nursia Subiaco, and also Montecassino.

If I could do that, that would be fantastic.

I guess the other thing kind of in a more lightheaded, lightheaded, lighthearted way.

(Christine laughing) Maybe lightheaded too.

- Well, right.

- There is a train trip that my wife and I have talked about through the Canadian Rockies run by Canadian Pacific, all inclusive, whatever, and they put up the hotels.

You stay at a hotel every night.

And it's like a three, five, or seven-day trip on this train.

And I think that would be really, really cool.

Maybe as a opportunity.

- [Christine] You would disconnect for a while.

- [Michael] You betcha.

- How about it?

That would be a real vacation.

- [Michael] If we could do that with our son and daughter-in-law, I think that would be fantastic to do that.

That would be kind of like my dream thing also.

- Oh, that's fun.

- It is.

- So, you know a lot about the order that founded your college.

- I do, and it's...

They've been on site there since before the Civil War.

1855, they were called to come there and they began teaching in that location.

The first degree that was granted was an... Or correction, 1926.

And so we have a huge, huge, huge history in that area.

And as I say, I mean, since I've been there, when I started there, we had 1,100 students.

We now have almost 2,000.

- Almost 2,000, right.

- So it's been great in it's growth, and as I've said, we've had students from the Peoria area, which is great, and also Bloomington-Normal.

So, they hear about us or have contact.

- [Christine] It's all good.

- That's how we find out about them.

- Well, thanks so much for being here with us.

- Thank you, Chris.

- It was great to catch up with you.

I don't know if you remember his voice or not, but I don't know how you can forget it, that's for sure.

- Thank you.

- So, thanks for joining us.

Hope you enjoyed this.

Stay safe and healthy and hold happiness.

(upbeat music)