Munsey Business

Television personalities, you invite them into your home, you eat dinner with them nightly, you crawl into bed as they watch from their perch on the TV stand, you make them a member of your family, but who are they, really? In order to help answer that question, I travel back to my childhood, explaining how I grew up in a small rural community in North Dakota, was raised in a family with 9 children, 6 boys and 3 girls in a three-bedroom house. I worked for my dad, who was in the restaurant and bar business, employing my brother Mike and I, feeding construction road crews, picking up new language skills when we were eight and nine. Cleaning the ashtrays in the gambling room of the men's back bar in a private club, running errands and picking up bar talk at the age of 15. Bartending special events, trading jokes with the patrons at the age of 16. As the original designated driver, driving the drunks home, listening to them babble and collecting big tips at age 17, all helping to explain how many of my life experiences that developed my personality were the reasons for my success in my 51- year broadcasting career. I wrote this book to tell the story of my life in broadcasting and all of the fun that my career had brought me. As you read it, you may want a career in broadcasting, mine was very exciting and full of different twists and turns, from AFVN in Vietnam to interviewing celebrities and local folks about their lives, their careers and their needs in the community. Because of the high child drowning rate in Phoenix, I started a water safety program in 1980, teaching people the danger that water poses to their children and how to protect against losing them, I called it, "Watch Your Kids Around Water." The safety program was on the air for 38 years. As the weatherman, people had always greeted me with, "How's the Weather," shortly after starting the water safety program people would always greet me with, "Watch Your Kids Around Water," it never changed.