KONG Morning Man Celebrates 30-Year Anniversary

Ron Wiley laughs when people ask his age. He tells them, “I started in radio in 1967, you figure it out.” April 1 marks three decades doing mornings, six days a week, on KQNG-FM, 93.5, Kauai, HI. Former boss Terry Gillingham, RVP/GM Ohana Broadcasting Company, met Wiley in 2014. “Ron is indefatigable, he is always there. He is passionate, compassionate, smart, and well-informed. He is probably the most dedicated air personality I have ever worked with.” It was a genuine “Two Tickets to Paradise” that put Wiley in a job many have dreamed of.

Radio Ink: How did you end up in what mainlanders consider paradise?
Wiley: It was the mid 70s and I was working in Tucson, Arizona. A woman of considerable means invited me to a party where she told me it was a progressive party and to just go to the airport where I would get instructions on what to do. When I got there, there was a one-way ticket for me to NYC and it was leaving in 35 minutes, in those days you could get on a plane in 35 minutes. I got on that plane and never went back to Tucson. She paid for everything. I went with her from NYC to Boston then to LA where we had fun at Disneyland. Then we flew to Honolulu. I stayed there and she decided to move on. She wanted to leave, I didn’t. I got a job at the number one station at the time called KGMB Radio. l was at a promotional event in the parking lot. They were giving away two-dollar bills that had just been reissued. I was standing next to a guy connected with the promotion and I said I could really use a job. He sort of laughed because I had hair down to my butt and a beard. He took me inside and said can your run this? It was a Collins board, and I knew exactly how to run it. The next day I became on-air producer for the number one morning guy. I was heard by people throughout the islands and job offers started to come in. I bounced around to an alphabet soup of other island stations and finally landed at KONG in 1989.

Radio Ink: How did you get started in radio?
Wiley: It was 1967, I grew up in abject poverty and was fortunate enough to get a scholarship and went to LA to get an FCC First Class Radiotelegraph Operators License. License in hand, I started working at a Mexican-language, daytimer — KXEW in Tucson. I signed on the station in the morning and the DJ was always late. He liked to drink a bit. The very first day he was late so I just put on a 45 then he showed up. The second day he was late again and when I went to put on a record, one of the turntables failed. I didn’t want dead air so I turned on the mic and started talking while I cued up a record on the other turntable. I said in Spanish “Buenos dias…esta es la ‘W’ mas grande del todo el mundo” (Good morning. This is the biggest ‘W’ in the world). I introduced a song, in Spanish, called “I Love You.” Immediately the phone rang; it was a woman in tears, lamenting about what that song meant to her. I was hooked on radio, right at that moment I got totally hooked. What got me hooked was the woman’s response, I got the whole essence of what we do, it was intimate, the woman was tearing up on the phone with me and calling me by name as if I were part of her family. I had only been speaking for just a few moments. And that’s been the whole thing for me ever since. Immediate, intimate, interactive; I’ve always called them my three I’s. Well, the morning guy finally showed up and I asked him if I could do this and he said sure. He was late every day and I eventually took over his show.

Radio Ink: What are some of your most memorable moments on KONG?
Wiley: For me the biggest ones are emotional ones. I still recognize weddings, anniversaries, and birthdays for people on the air. We celebrate things that make people happy. I also still do lost dogs. I like it when someone lets me know that they found their lost dog thanks to a mention I made. Other memorable moments, unfortunately, deal with traumatic events. In 1992 Hurricane Iniki hit and wiped out about three-quarters of the island. We were on the air, live, during that. It took down every other radio station except ours until late in the evening when our tower finally collapsed. The next morning, we went out to the transmitter site and took regular wire, attached it to the transmitter and stretched it to a tree about 300 yards out. We were back on the air on AM. I stayed in the radio station for almost six weeks, because there was no place to go. We didn’t have electrical service for more than a month. It was all generated power at the station and at the transmitter. We also had no advertising. The owner at the time decided to stay on without the revenue coming in. Some of the other stations on the island started to come back up, but went dark again because they didn’t have any ad income. Also their people weren’t going to work without being paid. I wasn’t paid, nor was anybody else. We kept going. We ate C-Rations, people brought us food. We opened the front door next to our studio and propped it open with a mic stand. The governor, the mayor, National Guard, Red Cross, phone and electric companies just walked in. To this day that door remains open to the street; a tiny street in our town of Lihue.

Radio Ink: I understand you are a full, hands-on radio guy.
Wiley: Yep, I run my own board, research my own news, and do my own newscasts. We had a newsperson and news director for years but budget cuts eliminated that. So out of necessity I started doing it on my own. We do have a newsperson middays who does her own news and records things for later in the day. I’m considered the News Director, the Music Director, the Program Director, and the Air Staff Supervisor (laughing), the A-S-S. I’m also the PD for our Classic Rock station.

Radio Ink: What changes have you seen in radio and what does radio need to do to move forward?
Wiley: I think folks will always need immediate, intimate, interaction with human beings. That’s how radio will survive but it will also be extremely important as people start to feel less powerful, less able to connect. When people are listening to radio it’s still that hot medium where a person completes the scene in their mind. Hearing other voices is important. I take live phone calls with no delay. They are phenomenal as people connect with the people they hear. I’m hoping more radio stations will see that their job is like social media, not a jukebox. Almost all of the number one stations have some character, some personality, some sort of presence in their community. So the big change is that radio is being misdirected to specializing and finding one place to be. To be afraid and operating on the fear of losing is wrong. Radio needs to operate on the hope of gaining. Take a chance, take a risk.

Radio Ink: Any advice for someone considering going into radio?
Wiley: I do speaking engagements at middle schools and high schools and I tell them, do not do this. This is not for someone to just go do. If for some reason you find some kind of calling and some sort of fortuitous situation where you are just able to walk in, if it all comes together for you, then those are messages from everywhere to do this. Listen to those messages. Please, don’t just go do this because we have enough of those guys who think, “Oh I’m going to be on the radio, sort of like you. Be on the radio, smiling and happy.” It’s got to be a calling, now more than ever, because the forces are against you.

Radio Ink: How long are you going to keep doing this?
Wiley: I’m asked that all the time and I say I will not retire. People say, “Do you mean you intend to work until you die?” I tell them I don’t intend to die, what kind of intention is that. I have some papers signed with my wife in case it happens, but I don’t intend to retire or die.

Radio Ink: So another 30 years?
Wiley: Sure, I just have to have a voice and half a brain.

Congratulate Ron Wiley on 30 years at KONG [email protected]
Thanks to Terry Gillingham, RVP/GM Ohana Broadcasting Company for introducing us to Ron.