WTMJ’s Sandy Maxx joins John Mercure to discuss her family’s radio legacy, growing up as a punk, and more in today’s WTMJ Conversations. Listen in the player above.
A partial transcript is provided below, courtesy of eCourt Reporters.
JOHN MERCURE: I want to ask you about, you shared a clip with me of your dad, and it made my heart happy. Your dad, professional broadcaster in Kentucky, well accomplished broadcaster. How did that influence you?
SANDY MAXX: It was wonderful, because radio was always treated like a real job. There are a lot of families that treat their family members who want to get into radio like, okay, you’re running away to join the circus, when are you going to get a real job.
You know, so it was wonderful growing up with my parents, who talked about before, I had a happy childhood, my parents were just great, music fans, music lovers, good to each other, just really fun and really supportive. My parents wanted me to grow up simply to be a good citizen. They encouraged me to try things, to do anything. I started dancing at an early age, but they didn’t necessarily want me to become a prima-ballerina. They saw the value similar to how a lot of kids play sports.
JOHN MERCURE: Yep.
SANDY MAXX: I just was in the arts playing piano and doing dance because it can give you poise and confidence and teach you to work with other people and use your brain, your right brain and your left brain, creatively and problem solving.
JOHN MERCURE: Both of them.
SANDY MAXX: Yeah, so that was my childhood. And we moved to Louisville because my dad got a job, at WHAS AM, which is in Kentucky. That is the WTMJ of Kentucky.
JOHN MERCURE: That’s the big station, yeah.
SANDY MAXX: Yeah, so to have radio in my DNA, thanks to my dad, it’s just wonderful. And he would be just over the moon. He was a news junky and would always have one of the 24-hour news channels on and never, ever left that part of his career behind.
