My, how these 7 years have flown by, but it’s now time for me to move on.

I started radio in high school and I have been doing morning radio for 23 years.  23 years of being tired, always trying to get a nap, and never watching Conan. 

Earlier this year, I realized that no matter how much I love this job and the people I work with, I cannot continue this impossibly demanding schedule forever.  The scary thing was I had no idea what else I could do to earn a living.

So I started to ask myself – what else am I good at?  Yes, I am telling you today that I am quitting Majic in the Morning to play golf on the Nationwide Tour this January.

OK, not exactly.  What I have spent a lot of time with are storytelling and the internet.  I stumbled across a Masters Degree at Ball State in Digital Storytelling.  My wife has agreed to return to work full-time while I complete my studies.  During that time, I will be starting a company dedicated to using the power of video and the internet specifically to help churches during their capital campaigns.  Too often, donors fail to give because they do not understand how their money can be used to change someone else’s life.  This is beyond switching jobs for me; this feels more like I am answering a calling.

Thanks to Barb for fighting so hard to hire me 7 years ago; thanks to everyone else in management for convincing me you didn’t regret it.  Thanks to Andy for the energy he has brought the last 3.5 years – it makes leaving a bit easier knowing the show will still be great after I go.  And thank you, Jeannette: for letting me leave you for the 2nd time in 15 years, but this time, not weeping about it to the point of embarrassment.

My final day is December 21st.

It is with great sadness that I find it necessary to resign from the Majic in the Morning Show – again.  I know I’ve done this before and I came back, but I think it’s gonna have to be for good this time. 

As many of you have probably caught on during recent on-air discussions, my life has been a bit stressful as of late.  The stresses, along with the hours I work, have made it just too difficult to continue in this line of work.  Even my Doctor has suggesting that it’s time to give up getting up at 2:30 every morning, surviving on only 4 hours of sleep a night, trying to work and do all of the "mom" jobs required of me.  I think its best that I quit before my health – mental and physical – quits on me.

I will miss radio tremendously.  I’ve spent my whole adult life talking to residents of northeast Indiana through various radio and TV stations, most of it though, to the wonderful listeners of WAJI. 

My daughter was just 6 months old when I began working here, my son was going into first grade.  He’s due to graduate soon – keep your fingers crossed for me there – and my little girl isn’t so little now and her dedication to gymnastics means I have to be dedicated as well.  Those college scholarships don’t come easy you know.  I have shared so much of my life with you listeners, I feel like I’m leaving my family, but it’s time. 

I will soon begin my new career as a trophy wife.  Unfortunately it’ll be a while yet before I’ll get to sleep in as it’ll be a few months of 14 hour-a-day treadmill work to get down to even a lumpy size 8 – or 10, but it’s going to be my new passion!  Hopefully I’ll see you all some day at a Majic event with a smaller butt, and if the financing comes thru – bigger other things – I mean lips; I’m going to go for those collagen injections when I get my liposuction.  Until then I will miss you all very much.  Wish me luck on my new endeavor. 

It is with great sadness that I announce my resignation from Majic in the Morning. 

Over the last year I have found myself doing a lot of reflecting about what some of my goals are in life and where I want to go next with my career.

Officially, there are a number of possibilities I am exploring.  At some point, I want to go back to school and get my masters degree. I’m looking at other opportunities at other stations, as well as possibly starting over with whole new career built on the fantastic relationships I’ve made while working at Majic.  While I’m not sure what exactly my job will be, please know that I am leaving under my own accord.  You read about, or at least I do, personalities getting fired at stations all over country. 

“Budgets are really tight right now” is all I would ever hear while I was looking for my first job in entertainment.  However, that attitude was never the case while I worked here. From early on, this station always was looking for ways to hire me and keep me here, when every other station found ways only to say “Hey, aren’t you just the Regis and Kelly kid?”

Maybe that is the hardest part.  Saying goodbye to everyone who invested so much and took a risk on me.  Change isn’t the easiest thing to adjust to in our business.  Listeners get used to hearing their favorite personalities and adding to that mix can sometimes be hard to accept.  Every now and again, we play an old segment of something we’ve already done on the show and it is like flipping through the pages of a high school yearbook.  I always smile:
1) because we’re super hilarious and 2) because I’ve learned and grown so much, not only professionally, but emotionally since being on this show.  I look back at my first day on the show and I remember not being able to go to sleep the night before and wondering “Would I be the one to sink the ship of the number-one-rated morning show in the city?”  I also remember my first round of hate mail and phones calls I received and going home that day after work so upset I made myself sick.  That’s a story I’ve never told anybody.

There comes a time in your life when it’s just time to turn the page and discover what that next adventure will be.  Whether it is a job, or a relationship, turning the page is always hard because we all fear, at least a little, the unknown.  There is great solace in knowing what is ahead.  For me, I guess I look at what’s next as an opportunity to take an adventure that I may not have to ability to take ever again.

Thank you for laughing with us over the last three and half years.  I love each and every listener for letting the three of us into your homes and into your lives.  And I love you guys.  Dirk and Jeannette, thanks for the memories. I’ll miss you two the most.