For 45 years, Larry Moon Thompson has been a fixture as an on-air personality on radio stations throughout the country, including cities like Denver, Las Vegas, Houston and Minneapolis. Moon and his radio partner Staci Matthews were ratings gold for their entire run together on KS95 in Minneapolis. Now in retirement, Moon, a Marconi award winner and Minnesota Broadcast Hall of Famer, reflects on his career, his health and the current state of the industry. And through it all, Moon says trust makes for a successful team on the radio.
Larry Moon Thompson - Minnesota Broadcast Hall of Fame
Experience Rochester, MN
For 45 years, Larry Moon Thompson has been a fixture as an on-air personality on radio stations throughout the country, including cities like Denver, Las Vegas, Houston and Minneapolis. Moon and his radio partner Staci Matthews were ratings gold for their entire run together on KS95 in Minneapolis. Now in retirement, Moon, a Marconi award winner and Minnesota Broadcast Hall of Famer, reflects on his career, his health and the current state of the industry. And through it all, Moon says trust makes for a successful team on the radio.
Larry Moon Thompson - Minnesota Broadcast Hall of Fame
Experience Rochester, MN
The growing destinations podcast is brought to you by Experience Rochester. Learn more about Minnesota's third largest city, which is home to Mayo Clinic and features wonderful recreational and entertainment opportunities, by visiting experiencerochestermncom.
Speaker 2:We didn't talk about my MS on the air for years and you couldn't tell I had MS unless you hung around me long enough. But when you're on the radio, nobody can see a stumble. Nobody can see. You know whatever problems you may be having.
Speaker 1:Welcome to the growing destinations podcast, where we take a deep dive into destination development and focus on a wide range of topics, from tourism and entertainment to economic development and entrepreneurism and much more. I'm your host, bill Vaughn-Bank. For 45 years, larry Moon Thompson has been a fixture as an on-air personality on radio stations throughout the country, including cities like Denver, las Vegas, houston and Minneapolis. Moon and his radio partner, stacey Matthews, were ratings gold for their entire run together on KS-95 in Minneapolis. Now in retirement, moon, a Marconi award winner at Minnesota Broadcast Hall of Famer, reflects on his career, his health and the current state of the industry. And through it all, moon says trust makes for a successful team on the radio. Larry Moon Thompson. Welcome to the growing destinations podcast.
Speaker 2:I listen to this podcast every week. What are you kidding me? I?
Speaker 1:love that this is going to be fun. Welcome. We're glad to have you you retired from radio in 2019 after more than 45 years. We're going to take a deep dive into your amazing and successful broadcasting career. First, let's learn a little bit about you where you came from and how you got started in radio.
Speaker 2:I was born and raised in Cheyenne County, nebraska. The population there was maybe 6,000 people and my dad had a family farm and he also worked an office job and I went to, you know, all my school years there, elementary, junior high, senior high, same with my brother and sis. It's the home of Cabela's, my hometown, if you've ever heard of Cabela's. I grew up with their whole family and they just sold to Bass Pro shops for 6 billion and I'm not getting any of that action. I told them I was wide open to receive. I said be giving, here I am, you can be charitable. But they had a little radio station in that town, one. It was 1340 am and 99.7 fm, I believe K-S-I-D standing for Sydney.
Speaker 2:Okay, I had a friend that worked there when he was in high school and I thought how cool is that. He wanted to be a engineer, loved electricity and wattage and amperage and bulbs and transistors and how radio frequency towers could broadcast so that people could receive them in their cars or whatever. He was just a nerd for electronics. But since he worked there, even at 15, 16 years old, the boss didn't have anybody to work there and he needed occasional help for weekend shifts to play music or do news for a couple hours no big deal. So I talked to the guy and he says I think we're going to have an audition. We're going to need some more help down at the station. I go really that sounds way easier than cleaning the chicken pen right or whatever. And so I went and before our audition, with two other guys, I got a bottle of Everclear and I put Everclear in Coke and we all had a big drink and then we went to the audition. They were slurred. I was not. I got the job.
Speaker 1:How did you not get slurred? And they did.
Speaker 2:I was the one pouring. I just didn't pour anything in mine and a lot in theirs Right. Yeah, so you know, learned the business there, worked every horrible shift whenever it was like Christmas Eve.
Speaker 1:And this was when you were 15, 16?.
Speaker 2:I was 16 years old, 16 years old wow 1974. And I got to do the station ID at the top of the hour. That was a big deal. So imagine here is your work day, the whole time, once an hour, for eight hours. You get to do this KSID AM and FM Sydney, nebraska. That's it. I got to do that live and that was it right. I haven't stopped talking since.
Speaker 1:I was just going to say. It launched you into an amazing career and you and I met each other in the early 2000s when I worked in marketing at Valley Fair Amusement Park in the Twin Cities. We did, and you started an afternoon show on KS95 in Minneapolis. Before we spend some time discussing your stellar career in Minnesota, tell us about the other markets you've worked in, because they've been some big markets.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, that's been great In radio. It's really hard to keep a job. A lot of people might be able to get a job, but then it's. You know which manager hears. You know the quality of your voice. You know what are you going to say. What's your personality type. They have certain demographics they need to reach and the only way to get them is by plug in somebody in that speaks their language or somebody that can fake it. That's what I did, okay.
Speaker 1:I For 45 years, yeah for 45 years.
Speaker 2:I faked it. I started in that little town. I told you about Sydney. Then I got an agriculture job doing pork, belly reports and things like that at an agriculture station in Grand Island, nebraska. So I went from 6,000 audience to a town of about 50,000. Lasted there five years, went back to my first station for a couple of years, went back to Grand Island to a country station. I'd never played country music, didn't know any of the artists. I sounded like an idiot. I didn't last long. I also wouldn't wear a tie and I smoked in the studio and they didn't like that either.
Speaker 2:Left there, went to get another agriculture job at a station in Ogallala, nebraska, a population about 4,000, but the guy owned three or four other little small stations where we kind of shared information. So I did that for a little while. That was the worst job of my whole career. I hated it. Left there, went to Omaha. When I went to Omaha I worked for a guy named Bill Cunningham and Bill was a showman. We had a top 40 station and the only rules were don't lose the license, right, and we could do big promotions. For example, we did a bumper sticker promotion where, at the biggest mall in this town of Omaha it was called Crossroads Mall, 72nd Dodge, I believe If you came through our checkpoints at the mall we'd put a bumper sticker on your car. The 98,000th car to get a bumper sticker on their car won $98,000. Wow, back then, back then Huge money.
Speaker 2:In the fine print of the winners agreement. You got 10,000 a year for 9.8 years.
Speaker 1:Okay, well, that's still a good deal.
Speaker 2:It was 98,000. Do you know how much of a traffic jam we caused for like a week? People were getting into fights. I mean it was bananas, but it was a great promotion. Worked there for two years, ended up going to Denver, colorado, wanted to get a job in Colorado Springs but didn't think I was qualified. Sent a tape to a guy in Denver and you know the whole Moondoggy thing went right from Omaha to Denver and they tease.
Speaker 2:That was your name on the air. Yep, moondoggy was my name Back then and I was Moondoggy for eight years, was number one pretty much throughout the entire eight years. They moved me to Afternoons and then they fired 23 of us on the same day when ABC sold the radio station. So you know that was. We were all out of boxes, we had not the hauler stuck with. Everybody got fired on the same day. So left there, went to another station called Big Dog 92.5, did country there, left there, went to 100.3, kmzq in Las Vegas. That was a crazy town to live in and a great. What a great town to be. There was so much stuff going on in that town. A lot of these towns I'm telling you about are very small. There's nothing to talk about. If a cow or a dog gets loose, you report that, but in Las Vegas, I mean, it is happening.
Speaker 1:How long were you in Las Vegas?
Speaker 2:One year. So Vegas was fun. Ratings went so fast, so high, so fast. One of the companies that I had beaten wanted me to leave town and they had a bigger job in Houston, texas. It was the sixth biggest city in the country and it was their biggest radio station in the company. That was when it was nationwide broadcasting, that's when an insurance company ran a bunch of radio stations. Well, it was a great, well-known, huge radio station and I got offered a job there so that I would get out of town, leave the market.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I would leave. And it was there 10 years. We had great success there. Couple of things we did there Raised $200,000 for fallen police officers after they were killed in the line of duty, got very heavily involved with the Coleman Foundation, raised for the cure and stuff like that. Got a guy married. On Oprah, we had a firefighter stand with a sign on a busy street that says honk, if I'm cute, and his number was listed and we ended up getting that bid on Oprah. Interviewed Oprah. Interviewed Elton If you had one name, I interviewed you Bona, madonna, whatever. I mean. We did big stars. That lasted 10 years and when it ran out I finally had three job offers at the same time One in Memphis, tennessee, one in San Antonio, texas. The other one was in Minneapolis and I landed there hard and for 17 years we had a hell of a run.
Speaker 1:Well and again, as I said, that's when I met you. So let's focus more time now on your 17 years in Minnesota. And you've really changed the landscape. You and your partner, stacy Matthews, changed the landscape of radio, especially afternoon drive. How did your partnership with Stacy Matthews on KS95 come about?
Speaker 2:and the uniqueness at that time of bringing morning drive to the afternoon it was kind of strange, because I was in Los Angeles visiting my son and when I got on a plane to fly back to Houston I heard a very familiar voice, a couple of rows that had me in the plane and I looked and it was a country guy that did a morning show against me and I'd known him from different fundraising events, stuff like that, and he was holding the Marconi Award, which is the best show in the country award. And I go, dude, where'd you get the Marconi? He goes. Well, the National Association of Broadcasters convention was in LA and I just won with my partner and it's the coolest thing, I go, can I touch it? Right, he goes, you can hold it. And he said you know something, you're going to win one one day. I go. Whatever, nobody gets these things.
Speaker 1:It's like when it's a big deal.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's like when an Academy Award OK, so get back to Houston and I'll be darned if they don't tell me I'm being terminated in a few months. They got rid of my partner, they kept me. They wanted to keep me till the end of my contract. And so now I said well, when can I start looking for work? And they said now.
Speaker 2:When I was in LA, before I got on that plane to hold the Marconi Award, I saw a guy I thought I knew it was Layton Peck. Layton Peck ran KS95 for the Hubbard Broadcasting Group here in Minneapolis. He and I used to be drinking buddies right In Omaha. We worked together in a couple cities and so I Googled him. I knew he was up here. I sent him an email and I said were you at the LAX Hertz counter last week? And he wrote me back. And he goes, he goes, you've gained some weight. I wrote him back you lost all your hair. And so that began. That rekindled our relationship.
Speaker 2:He said you want to come to Minneapolis and do a morning show in the afternoon? That's every afternoon guy's dream, because in the morning you get to talk and do your shtick, the afternoon it's shut up and play the music. Ok, they don't pay. Multi-talent shows in afternoon drive they never have. Now companies are smart enough to get it. Now companies are starting to do it because of Harvard Broadcasting's idea. Well, if they love that kind of a show in the morning, why wouldn't they want to? They've got to go both ways to get home and to work.
Speaker 2:So they introduced me with a phone call to Stacy, and I had many conversations with her and I did not get it. I didn't hear it, I didn't feel it, it wasn't going to happen. I didn't like it. She was nervous, she thought the same thing about me and that's where the magic was, because if you're too similar, a show will never work. If you pretty much disagree on everything, it's got a way better chance Because there's some texture about it. If everybody said, well, look at that wall, that wall is bright blue. I love bright blue, well, I do too. Next, but if you say no nothing there.
Speaker 2:Stacy and I were very different. She was highly educated. I barely got to high school. She knew a lot about pop culture. I knew nothing. A lot of guys in my business were threatened by women on the air and if you are a male female team, there was the male and his sidekick. I did not want that for my partner because I wanted her to be where I was. That is what is going to make her feel appreciated. I wanted Stacy to be the star. We were trying to appeal to women. If we got men, that was great, but we needed to dominate in women. And the reason we did get men too was because I was kind of a dude's dude. I shot guns, I rode motorcycles, had a lot of stories about a lot of evil things.
Speaker 2:And some of the guys kind of thought that was okay and Stacy and I killed it. I featured her in a bit called Smarter Than Stacy, which has now been copied by 5,000 stations across the country. I would ask questions of a listener and then I bring Stacy back in and she had to try to answer more correctly and it kept the audience engaged because they had to find out if Stacy did better, whether or not they could win a prize by being caller nine. It was a simple. It was simple gadget work like a dream, and I'm glad we did it.
Speaker 1:You and Stacy worked together for 17 years. You were number one with women for nearly all those years Incredible. And number one with adults for 10 of those years. Pretty impressive From your perspective. What makes for a successful team on the radio.
Speaker 2:Probably one of the things you got to start with most is trust. And Stacy didn't know me and I didn't know her and I had a lot of experience in big cities and markets and I'd seen a lot of stuff and I knew what worked and I knew what didn't work. And she came from a much smaller city she was living in St Cloud, so she hadn't had a lot of the exposure in the many, many years I'd been doing away before her. And I told her you know, if you trust me, let me drive the ship and stop me. If you don't like where we're heading and I'm going to do things that you're going to wonder what in the world could I possibly be thinking? And that's why I want to do them. And we would go into a show and she would see what I had come in and she's like, seriously, are we really going to do that?
Speaker 1:You have always been known as a jokester or prankster, or maybe many other. This is a good one.
Speaker 2:So they're opening a new amphitheater called Fiddler's Green. It's still there. When they were opening it, a lot of the neighborhoods homes didn't want loud concerts in their neighborhood. So they would hire sound engineers to measure the decibels of how loud the concerts would be, and would that impend on the homeowner's value of their homes? Okay, so all of these homeowners banded together and, no matter who was playing, they would call and complain at this. You know countywide complaint number.
Speaker 2:And so what I did was I waited until I knew the Denver Symphony Orchestra was going to play that night. Right, and I went on the air and I said, okay, they've been. You know, complaining about rock and roll. Every time there's a show tonight it's the Denver Symphony Orchestra. Here's a number I want you to call it to complain that it's too loud. No, you know there's things rattling off people's cabinets in their homes. You know the cellos are way too loud, the violins are too hot and I just kept pumping this on the air. So some of these stunts that I did didn't always go great, but there were many of them that were very Beneficial.
Speaker 1:You know fundraising especially yeah, you and Stacy, you were really big with the Susan G Coleman race for the cure.
Speaker 2:Yes, we were the leading team During the entire run. We had it up to 1200 members. We brought our own buses to race for the cure. So you know we had our own HOV lane for just the moon and Stacy buses and great relationship. Stacey was diagnosed with breast cancer. She became almost like the poster child for breast cancer awareness and so we used her you know disease, if you will to educate and there was a lot of people that came to us and said I found a lump or a problem because of what you guys said on the radio and that was meaningful and, you know, took away some of the dumb stuff. I did same with the MS Society. You know we talked about we didn't talk about my MS on the air for years and you couldn't tell I had MS, unless you hung around me long enough. When you're on the radio, nobody can see a stumble. Nobody can see, you know, whatever problems you may be having. So eventually you know that started in 2005.
Speaker 1:So early into the afternoon drive show with you and Stacy. You were diagnosed with MS.
Speaker 2:Yep. One year in she got breast cancer and in just a few years Later I got MS.
Speaker 1:How do you balance your health and Keeping a show number one?
Speaker 2:It was a lot of work. I prepped five hours every day for you know, basically a four-hour show, and we did run some recorded stuff that helped me out a little bit. But Stacy also put in her share of. You know, read, read, read all you can, and then you know what can you do with the same story. The KDWB is gonna do with it. Okay, how can I make it better than Dave Ryan? How can I make it better than Tom Bernard? You know, how can I make it different? How can I make it memorable? And then you know, it comes into a. Does it fit our brand? Right? Because KS 95 is basically a family radio station where it doesn't ever get too dirty. The key is to push it as far as you can. You don't want to become too user-friendly. You got to have a little bite about you, but you know we did topics and phone calls about that.
Speaker 1:Be number one for so long? Did it just make you hungry to do more stuff or grow the audience even bigger or compete with other stations with a different demo?
Speaker 2:I Kind of wanted to be syndicated. That's what I kind of wanted to be, because a lot of guys they do that and Our company felt that you might not be giving a hundred percent to Minneapolis, st Paul, which is where their license was, if you're going to be broadcasting in 30 other cities. So they said let's just focus on what we do and do it the best we can. Ownership group that I work for was amazing, best I ever worked for. If you took the goodness of all of those companies I ever worked for and stacked them into one pile, however, broadcasting would be 10 times better place to work. There was just a family that made you feel like family and for that hats off.
Speaker 1:Technology has certainly changed radio and I know you still keep up on the trends. What are you seeing moving forward?
Speaker 2:Well, because of the way everything is streamed now, digital content is completely different, as it was five years ago. People listen to music through YouTube, spotify, pandora, apple Music Prime. I mean you can get music anywhere. That's why the owner talent is so important. The content is really important. And then, after you take commercial radio stations and how they've been deluded by every other source on the planet, now throw in a couple of million podcasts. There's some good ones, there's some really good ones.
Speaker 2:I like podcasts. Podcasts allow people to get a little deeper and you still have to have some kind of an idea where you're heading. I did a podcast for almost 100 episodes and it got to be a lot more work than I wanted to do. So I recently have taken a siesta Not to be saying I won't come back. I like to be heard. I still have things I want to talk and whine about, like can we go to tickets? Let's go to Ticketmaster per minute, ok. I can't get disability seats for tickets at concerts and stuff. And do you know how hard it is for anybody just to get tickets? The ticket brokers have all the bots buying everything and it's hard to get tickets. I want that stop. There are several things that I'm going to run for office on Ticketmaster B, number one.
Speaker 1:Looks like your first topic of your next podcast. What advice would you give to aspiring on-air talent?
Speaker 2:Don't quit because everybody else will. And here's the reason I say that when you go into a radio station, get a job. If you're lucky enough, you're probably not going to get paid almost anything. You're probably going to have horrible hours. Most people want to advance in life and have a family at home, and for you you've got to start starving and just wait for people to cave because they will go away. And if you don't get in trouble at work, you do what you're told, maybe somebody will hear something special in you and that can then be a seed that's planted in a garden that will one day be an amazing thing to look at.
Speaker 1:What are some proud moments from your 45 years in radio.
Speaker 2:Here. It was all the stuff we did for the Children's Cancer Research Fund and Gillette Children's Specialty Health Care, ks95 for kids. Man, those were some times. I met some dear friends. I still hang out with some of the kids and that's been amazing. My affiliation with Can Do Canines I have a service dog and a dog right now is retired. She's older. Imagine a black lab that you have for seven years that's never barked once, ever not when there's a knock on the door, not when there's fireworks, nothing.
Speaker 2:And the race for the cure, that thing. When we started doing it together, stacey and I were asked what charities that we favored when we were hired and they said give us two. And the first thing I said was breast cancer and the second thing I said was abused children. Stacey's was pets number one, she's a cat, crazy cat lady and number two was breast cancer. So we thought, hey, you know, let's do the breast cancer thing. So we did and after we, you know, met everybody over there and it came to an agreement about what our parts would be to help them. Stacey was diagnosed. It was just, it was almost like meant to be, and if you could have heard that on the air when she announced that she had it. She didn't tell me, she just said she had an announcement she wanted to make. Wow, that was emotional. Anybody that heard that that didn't lose it has no pulse because that was something else. And those, some of those moments, you know, were lifesavers for others.
Speaker 1:Another emotional time was your last day on the air.
Speaker 2:Oh man, it started with a proclamation from Governor Tim Walz that it was moon day and I have that award right up here in my office next to me. That was super awesome, and we had all these people that had left me messages, a lot of guests and a lot of you know calls, and they had put together all these different tributes and saying goodbye. That was really something I worked on a long time.
Speaker 1:Moon, we have some audio from your last day at KS95.
Speaker 2:You know I learned a long time ago at doing good radio is and that's making people feel, feel laughter. You know, feel joy in your voice. You know in that you have real joy, you love what you do. That's me and what you've heard. And you know you let people, if you're a listener, be your best friend and that's what I've tried to do over the years.
Speaker 2:And you know something I think I did that you know, being truthful about stuff on the air, about stuff that's not easy, like when I lost my mom or when I was diagnosed with MS, when Stacy had breast cancer, you know, but we're not just voices on the radio, we're humans and thank you for letting me be all human all over you. Okay, I want you to know that I appreciate you. Let me tell all my stories. You know I wanted to be a storyteller. That's what I've always tried to achieve and you know you've taken me in your car, you've put me in your house. You let me visit you in your office. You took me on your boat and I have had this incredible life and if I had to do it all over again, I would do it exactly the same way, with the exception of the chronic illness. So that was quite a way to say goodbye.
Speaker 1:Moon, it's great to have you back behind the mic. You've had such an incredible career. I've enjoyed many conversations with you and the storytelling is amazing. We just want to thank you again for being our guest on Growing Destinations.
Speaker 2:Well, thanks for having me on Upward and Onward. Hold on, we don't know where we're going. Make sure your airbags are ready to be deployed.
Speaker 1:Thank you for tuning in to the Growing Destinations podcast and don't forget to subscribe. This podcast is brought to you by Experience Rochester. Find out more about Rochester, Minnesota, and its growing arts and culture scene, its international culinary flavors and award-winning craft beer by visiting experiencerochestermncom.