The LuLac Edition #3786, May 21st, 2018

MEDIA MATTERS

SUE HENRY NOT AT WILK ANYMORE

Sue Henry and your blog editor. (Photo: LuLac archives)

There was a Facebook post earlier this afternoon from Sue Henry indicating that she will no longer be on WILK. The stunning announcement was a surprise to the legion of fans she has had through more than a decade and a half on the station. .
Sue was always on my radar because of her wonderful Media columns in The Citizens’ Voice newspaper. Her biting wit and dry humor made her articles a must read.
As a Talk Show host on WILK, she was very kind to LuLac and to me personally when I promoted my books. Through the years we had our philosophical battles on politics but always ironed them out with an annual Chinese meal at Peking Chef or Yo Hi.
On air personas sometimes are just that. It is the facade that shields the performer, entertainer. Host, whatever you want to dub them. But with Sue, what you heard was what you got. At times she could be prickly but who wouldn’t be with some of the people she had calling in.
Talk Radio was only one part of Sue. Her shows on WRKC FM at King’s are listened to by baby boomer bloggers like Gort, Marc Cour and me. Her classes at King’s are filled with current broadcast professional who learned from her commanding and personable style Sue also was demanding of those students in a the most positive way you can think of, just look at the awards WRKC FM won through the years. I don’t see many other professors going on trips to get recognition for er students.
Now this part she might not like but it has to be said. Sue’s friendship to L.A. Tarone through his lifetime and in his final days impressed my family to no end. She was his advocate, his friend and (God I better duck next time I see her) his angel as he transitioned from this life to another. There aren’t many people like her, constant in motion, seemingly everywhere to promote the good in people. Her three hour stint was punctuated by hours of community involvement. Show prep to her was showing up in the community. 
She is devoted to her three children, guiding them in a way where they could find themselves and is the type of person who is reliable in every sense. In this day and age, for many, that is a tall order. For Sue, that came naturally. 
I have no idea why she’s gone at the time of this writing. Broadcasting is a fickle business. People who get the bug and stay in the business know that right from the start. Personalities all have a shelf life. Nothing is guaranteed in the media career you choose. Newspapers get sold, radio stations change format, obladi, oblada life goes on. But to paraphrase the late Governor Bob Casey’s mantra on making an impact, “In the end, what did you do when you had the limelight?” well that answer my friends is easy. Sue Henry grabbed it, embraced it, and used her platform for only the best things this area has to offer.
9 am to noon will never be the same again.

RICHARD GOODWIN

Richard Goodwin (Photo: UPI) 

Richard Goodwin died today. He was a speech writer for various Democratic Presidents and power brokers putting poetry in his words and making them look more insightful than perhaps some of them were.
Goodwin’s wife, Doris Kearns Goodwin, the Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer and historian, said he died after a brief bout with cancer.
He joined the Kennedy administration in 1961 and stayed on with Lyndon Johnson after JFK’s death. He wrote speeches for both of them along with Al Gore’s concession speech in 2000. Goodwin worked on the Bobby Kennedy campaign and was at his bedside when he died. That totally aggravated Johnson at the time but never stopped him from having Kearns Goodwin work on his memoirs.
Speech writers are those men and women who toil in the shadows putting words into the mouth, literally of world leaders. Esquire Magazine wrore, “He made Presidents sound like Presidents”
God we can use that today.
He was 86.