What An Honor, And Boyhood Dream; Townsquare Media Wins Marsh Nelson Media Award

I have always been a part of Grandma's Marathon. When I was a young boy, I would listen on the radio, or watch on TV (yes it used to be on TV, can't imagine what that took to do). I started volunteering to hand out water as my cousins ran in the race and always wanted to do radio and wished to be a part of the radio broadcast.

When I moved around from city to city doing radio, I would come back in the summer and volunteer to hand out water or whatever I could do every year. I dreamed of the day to be one of the broadcasters.

That dream came true when I first started working for another group. They covered the race and I was asked to help announce for the half marathon. That was my post for the next few years.

When I switched radio groups they had the marathon coverage. I made it known I wanted to be a part of it and my knowledge of equipment might help them. They invited me to be a "man on the street" kind of guy and interview people. I thought It was corny, but I did it because I was part of the broadcast.

I met a girl who broke her leg and it was her dream to finish the marathon, so all of her friends started training for the Grandma's Marathon just to finish for her. I met a proud Mom who had bad knees and couldn't run, so her son was running for her. I met a family who lost their Grandma, and they were there to cheer on Grandpa who was running in her honor. So many stories, I thought it was the great!!

Then without warning, the guys that ran the broadcast end of the race moved on to bigger and better jobs. When they gave me the honor of producing the race, I jumped at it. The greatest part was, not only could I use the great talent we had here in the building, but I could use broadcast professionals from the whole area to help me.

We used Dick Beardsley, Kerry Rodd, Mark Marette, Jon Garver, Tom Hansen, Stacey James, Rayman, Pat Puchalla, Kevin Pates, Steve Tanko, Ken Hayes, Carrie Tollefson, Doug Kurtis, and Charlie Mahler. I have been lucky to be the guy that questions the runners as they finish and present human interest stories.

We now have great equipment, great talent and with changing times we have even been able to post pictures in real time with Nick Cooper and Tony Hart.

This year Grandma's Marathon is going to honor our company, Townsquare Media, with the Marsh Nelson Media Award at this year's luncheon. With all that I have told you in this blog, especially all the people who have been involved, you can see why it was the whole group that Grandma's Marathon honored.

This year, we expect to make the broadcast even better with more features to enjoy the broadcast either live on ESPN Radio 560 WEBC or streaming on webc560.com. Thank you to the awards committee and to all the people who have led or helped our broadcast of Grandma's Marthon.