…and today marks the first time since 1974 that my job intersected with that of a funeral home. I was joined on the radio this morning by Andrew Ferguson of the Andrew D. Ferguson Funeral Home in Uniontown. Before today I never interviewed a funeral home director or the owner of a funeral home but I did have a run in with a funeral home owner and that was back in 1974 at my first radio job in Logan, West Virginia. I worked a Sunday morning shift and one of the features that we did were funeral announcements and they were sponsored by the Honaker Funeral Home. Since I was the first person to read the announcements for the day I also had to update them. Well, guess who forgot to update them? You got it. So instead of me reading on the air that a funeral was going to be today, I said tomorrow. Turns out one of the deceased was a Logan County big wig and it didn’t take long before the funeral home had to go into damage control. The next day I was told the radio station was about to lose the account because of my screw up and was told to go down and apologize to Mr. Honaker. When I got there Mr. Honaker was very pleased to see me. He had a big ole smile on his face and escorted me in his office and told me to sit down. Then next thing I know I’ve got this shot gun pointed at my face and Mr. Honaker telling me that I wasn’t going to make that same mistake again, now was I? Here I am, all of 19, only a few weeks into my first job in radio and I’m thinking, that was a quick career. Well, the radio station didn’t lose the account and needless to say I never messed up those funeral announcements again. So, thanks again to Mr. Ferguson of the Andrew D. Ferguson Funeral Home for taking the time out of his day to join me on the radio and for his great sense of humor because everyone knows being in the funeral business that the competition is pretty stiff.
