When callers ring in to Radio KIKS-KIOL’s Trading Post Friday morning they’ll hear a familiar voice — for the last time. WAGNER WAS raised in Minneapolis and attended radio broadcasting school at what then was Brown Institute.
Friday is Rob Wagner’s last day at the station where he’s worked most of his adult life.
He started in September 1993, calling an Iola High football game his first week on the job. He’s been known as “the voice of the Mustangs and the Fillies,” ever since.
“It will be hard to leave,” said Wagner, 43, but a new venture awaits, one that has been on the drawing board about a year. He and a high school buddy recently purchased a Gambino’s Pizza franchise in Winfield.
“We’ve never run a business before, but we’ve done a lot of research,” and they will have advantage of taking over a restaurant that has been in business for several years, Wagner said.
To get a first-hand feel for the pizza business, Wagner worked part time at Iola’s Pizza Hut last summer, and was reminded of the familiarity that has come from his broadcasting.
“Several times when I answered the phone, the caller would say, ‘I know that voice,’” he recalled.
“I’ve enjoyed Iola and made a lot of good friends here,” he said. “I have mixed feelings about leaving.
“Jim (Talkington, his partner on sports broadcasts) is a good friend. We’ve developed a rapport; we each seem to know what the other is going to say and when.”
This football season — the fourth winning one since he’s been here — was a delight to follow, Wagner said.
His most memorable time behind the microphone came in 2006 when the Fillies won the class 4A state basketball championship.
“There were a lot of good players on that team, several who went on to play college basketball,” Wagner recalled.
One of the more memorable football games was scheduled for Friday night in September 2001, but canceled because of lightning.
“It was played on Monday night,” he said. “The next day was Sept. 11.”
Experiences with Trading Post also are etched in his memory.
“You have a core group of people that call pretty often, and then, over time, the group changes,” he said. “Kind of like a generation has gone by.”
Perhaps the strangest sale offered by a caller came recently when a woman dialed up saying she wanted to sell her undergarments.
His time on air led to associations strong enough that he has attended funerals of some Trading Post regulars, he said.
He worked a year in Wisconsin before Mike Russell, who then owned the Iola station, called the school to inquire about a broadcaster.
Wagner got the job.
Sports broadcasting was his dream and he got the opportunity immediately.
“We were working six hours a day (on air) then but it has changed a lot with the smaller market stations,” Wagner said. “Local personnel have been cut in favor of network feeds.”
When Wagner leaves Friday, Mike and Monica Norris, station owners, and Russell will be the only full-time employees.
Norris has advertised to replace Wagner and “he’s had a slug of applicants,” Wagner said. “Getting a job today is pretty competitive.”
While he will give full attention to the pizza business in Winfield, Wagner said he may get back into broadcasting part time, allowing, “I’ll probably want to keep my foot in the door.”
There was a time that big-market broadcasting had an appeal, Wagner said, but not now.
“Society has become so obsessive about celebrity that I don’t think I’d want that,” he said.
Wagner era ends
