End Of An Era

This milestone must be noted: after about 25 years on the air, the Morning Show with Dale Connelly and Jim Ed Poole at Minnesota Public Radio will come to an end on December 11, with Tom Keith's (Jim Ed) retirement. It's not really a surprise to me. These guys hung in there moving over with the Current's alternative rock format a couple of years back, doing what it is that they do. They made an honest effort to adjust some things to try not to stick out of the format like a sore thumb, yet not completely lose what the show is, and what so many of us loved for all these years.

Dale and Jim Ed are special to me. I met them on my maiden voyage to St. Paul, MN in 1987, a couple of years prior to my move. I had been in contact with an MPR volunteer and signed up for answering phones on the membership drive during my visit. Both these guys made an effort to find out who the person from Connecticut was helping out with the phones. Over the years they have obliged so many of my requests for songs to play on my birthday and did them with great creative humor. I even had my own time slot for when it would be played (well, most of the time). I got up at ungodly hours and made it to the Minnesota State Fair for most of their live broadcasts for years until the year I moved to Nashville. (During one of the two times my late dad visited me in Minnesota, I took him to the fair for the live broadcast of the Morning Show and he talked about one of the skits for years afterward.) They even were kind enough to play some of the artists whose work I sent to them. Both Dale and Jim Ed have been good, supportive friends.

I understand that Dale Connelly will be offered other creative opportunities at MPR. Dale is one of the true comic geniuses of the business and I trust that whatever comes his way will showcase his tremendous talents and bring his work the wide audience it deserves.

Jim Ed/Tom, enjoy your retirement. Besides being one of the most naturally gifted voice actors and sound effects persons around, you also have some of the finest people skills of anyone I've ever known.

I hope that I will be available to hear this show when it is broadcast, but if not, I do hope MPR will archive it accordingly.

Thanks, Dale and Jim Ed.