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Mike Lowell

Mike Lowell
RL's News Correspondent and Photog -
Mike "on-the-mic" Lowell
Education
Nordonia High School1988 Graduate
Baldwin-Walace College1993 Graduate
Broadcast History
WBWC-FMBerea, OH
Michael, or "Mike on the Mic" (as in microphone) as he is generally known, was dragged kicking and screaming into broadcasting by Todd back around 1991. Todd and Mike first met while opening and subsequently becoming Student Managers of the new B-W campus facility, the Student Activities Center - or the S.A.C. Todd and Mike were the in-house DJs - the SAC Attack DJs as coined by former boss and now-retired Dean Ralph Carapellotti. After working together for a year or so, Mike was curious as to what made Todd tick (and he already knew that it wasn't Todd's watch, but that it could be a bomb planted in Todd's brain...he is from Pennsylvania, ya know!), so he accompanied Todd to a WBWC staff meeting or two and eventually signed up so he could take advantage of the course credit which B-W offered for participation at the station.
Mike started off with news features for the award winning NewsPulse show and then moved onto production of features and promos. While all this was going on Mike popped in and out of Brian and Todd's first show together, AMOK in the Morning. Here and there he did news and features including Fun With Cooking With Mike on the Mic Lowell and several of Todd's off the wall comedy bits. Brian, Todd and Mike then all ended up in a B-W Broadcasting class together. Of course, they combined their immense talents (Todd and Brian's, not Mike's) with a couple of other WBWC members for the final group project. The tape, to be representational of an entire day's programming at a station which we created, was to be in the range of 15-20 minutes. After 47 minutes of playing in front of the class, they received a standing ovation by instructor and entire class -as well as an "A" for the project. This of course led to Todd getting Mike - and Marcie, his new bride (Marcie on the Mic Lowell [still about the microphone...]) - to sign up for DJ training classes.

After 10 weeks of training and a little of Todd's help with his audition tape, Mike got his broadcast license. Although he never took an honest to goodness "format" air shift, Mike found himself helping out with many of Todd and Brian's productions. His favorite was the Halloween Special where Todd went "out on remote" - the front porch of a B-W residence - and passed out Halloween treats while interviewing the kids and parents. Mike had to sit back at the station and fend for himself picking music, communicating back and forth on the phone line which linked the remote location to the station, and running a sound board that he had learned in DJ training, but not used for over a year before getting the ten minute crash course from Todd. It went all right, but wow was he sweating! What fun!

After graduation from B-W, Mike worked for the summer over night in the College Union building and was able to sneak up to the station before Todd and Brian arrived for the morning show and power up the station for broadcast as well as do the early 6:30 AM news for them. A few times when neither Brian or Todd showed up he took the station on and ran the show until one or the other arrived. That fall, Mike left the air when he accepted a job offer elsewhere.

Mike, Todd and Brian remained in contact and when Brian and Todd started up Running Late, The Original, Mike was asked to stop in here and there to do news and just talk. He enjoyed this opportunity very much, but as he always worked on Mondays, it was tough to do the show until 3:30 AM overnights on Sundays and then get to work at 8:30 AM. He didn't get to visit as often as he liked, but enjoyed when he was able to.

When Running Late, The Next Generation came up, Mike jumped at the chance to be on the show again. The show, moved to Saturday nights/Sunday mornings, was not a problem with work schedules so Mike was able to visit much more often, although with a wife and two children at home, making up for lost sleep and needing to do "family things" did restrict the number of shows he was available for.

Overall, Brian and Todd have been very patient and caring teachers and friends. Mike is always known for saying, "I don't have any friends. They're too expensive." He has decided to make an exception for Todd and Brian. They have been inspirational (always positive and willing to listen), caring (not criticizing his terrible reading of the news here and there) and being good friends in and out of the studio.

Outside of the broadcast world, Mike is a semi-professional photographer who has worked for several local photo labs and portrait studios. Many of the photographs on this website are images as seen through Mike's eyes and camera lens. He is also husband to Marcie and father to Jacob, born in 1996 and Emily, born in 2001. He is currently exploring education through the eyes of a substitute teacher.


"Sure Todd, add more work for me!!!


Mike Lowell