Wisconsin Public Radio�s morning host ready to hang up his mic

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: 77 Square published this nice writeup: : : 41 years later, Wisconsin Public Radio�s morning host ready to hang up his mic : By LINDSAY CHRISTIANS | The Capital Times : : Thousands of people all over the state wake up every morning with Jim Fleming. : Fleming chooses the soundtrack as they start their day: Mozart, Haydn, Boccherini, Gershwin. His voice, cadenced and comforting, introduces each symphony and concerto. : But after Thursday, Dec. 3, Wisconsinites will have a new morning companion. Fleming, after nearly 41 consecutive years at Wisconsin Public Radio, is retiring. : �It�s very common for people to form a relationship� with announcers, Fleming said. �It is a very intimate medium. Television is controlled in a box, radio is all around you. : �You ride with people in their cars. You sit in their kitchens with them. Radio is very personal.� : Fleming hosts Morning Classics, broadcast statewide and heard locally (WERN/FM 88.7) from 9 to 11 a.m. and is a reader for Chapter A Day (12:30 p.m. and 11 p.m. on WHA/AM 970) during the week. On the weekend, he hosts To the Best of Our Knowledge (broadcast on both stations). : (Chapter A Day is pre-recorded; from Dec. 10-Jan. 1, WPR will broadcast Fleming reading a set of three Christmas stories by Charles Dickens). : Radio hosts become celebrities by voice alone � Phil Corriveau, director of radio at WPR, estimated that nearly 440,000 people tune in to WPR at least once a week, and Fleming broadcasts in the morning, the equivalent of �evening prime time.� But while Fleming can go out in public without worrying he�ll be recognized, that only lasts until he opens his mouth. : �I�ll walk up to the counter at Walgreens, and after talking with the woman for a moment, she�ll say, �Do you work for Wisconsin Public Radio?�� Fleming said. : Listeners may feel like they know their favorite radio announcers, which can complicate things when Fleming appears to fans in real life. Fleming remembers a woman indignantly insisting he wasn�t who he claimed to be. : �She said, �I know what Jim Fleming looks like, and he doesn�t look like you!�� Fleming said, laughing. �I learned early on that you open the mic and you talk to one person. It doesn�t matter how many thousands of people there are.� : Fleming started at WHA-FM in October 1968, when he was a 19-year-old college student at the UW-Madison. He was an English major, and he worked for the first few months at the station as a volunteer. : �Christmastime came, and nobody on the full time staff wanted to work weekends or evenings,� Fleming said. �So they paid me $1.65 an hour.� : He did written intros and outros to taped programs, playing tracks chosen by the UW-Madison School of Music. He took one brief break: as a conscientious objector during the Vietnam War, he worked for two and a half years as a psychiatric aide in Connecticut. He returned to the radio station in 1973. : In those early years, Fleming said, hosts weren�t allowed to play any music that had received air time within the past six months. : Now, things are a bit more flexible. Fleming has his favorites � he loves Bach, and speaks fondly of Franz Schubert�s Arpeggione Sonata � but he also knows he has an obligation to play music that should be heard, audience favorites that he�s grown tired of. : �I�ve now heard thousands of hours of music,� Fleming said. �There is music that after hearing it once or twice, you decide you don�t ever need to hear that again. Certainly in radio � there is music that is appropriate for a time of day. You don�t play a full Mahler symphony at 7 in the morning.� : Though Dec. 3 is Fleming�s official last day as an employee on the seventh floor of Vilas Hall, listeners will still hear his voice on pre-recorded episodes of Chapter and To the Best of Our Knowledge on weekends. Cheryl Dring, who recently joined WPR as music director, will take Fleming�s place on Morning Classics. : While he�s relieved to have some time to study photography and take a cruise with his wife, Fleming expects to remain involved with WPR in some capacity. : �I can�t imagine we wouldn�t want him to be with us, whether it�s volunteer work or reading,� Corriveau said. �We simply don�t know at this point.� : �I have come here nearly every day for 37 of the last 41 years,� Fleming said. �Radio is one person talking to another person. I used to joke with people ... I have been in more people�s bedrooms and bathrooms than anybody else I know. I�ve taken showers with people, slept with people. I�ve been in their kitchens, I�ve been in their living rooms, their shops, their cars, their basements. I�ve been for long walks with people. You do feel as though you�re forming a relationship.� : IF YOU LISTEN : Hear Jim Fleming's final broadcast on Thursday from 9 to 11 a.m. on WERN/FM 88.7, which will include a live performance before a studio audience starting at 10. : Morning Classics airs weekdays from 9 to 11 a.m. on WERN. : To the Best of Our Knowledge is broadcast Saturdays and Sundays from 9 to 10 a.m. on WERN, and Sundays from noon to 2 p.m. on WHA 970 AM. : Chapter A Day is broadcast weekdays at 12:30 p.m. and 11 p.m. on WHA. : For more information, go to wpr.org.

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