8.13.20 Bee-otch of the Day: a certain northern Michigan radio station owner

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Name: guess who?
Age: guess!
Occupation: radio station owner
Last Seen: Petoskey, MI
Bee-otched For: a secret we learned about that particular person from long ago

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It's always nice to learn from the past. 

Back in the olden days, if you were done with a newspaper, you threw it away, used it to burn wood or used it to line a birdcage. It wasn't worth it to many to keep yesterday's news.

However, old newspapers are a link to the past. Without them, we wouldn't know what was going on back in the day. We wouldn't know where people shopped or what existed way back in olden times.

Thankfully, many websites have archives of old newspapers. Even better is that some of them are free! One site I've been checking as of late is one that's run by a cemetery in Petoskey in northern Michigan. They have faithfully digitized THOUSANDS of newspapers - mainly the Petoskey News-Review - dating all the way back to 1874. 

Thanks to that site, I know a little more about the history of the Petoskey region. I know that there was an old Kroger downtown that became a short-lived IGA in the 1950s. There was once a prominent supermarket called Crago's in town that would become the town's Oleson's and is now Kilwin's. Up in Harbor Springs, the current IGA was once called Mac's Super Market and there was a paper that devoted its back half to the opening of the then-new IGA in Alanson. Back in 1952 when that IGA, Doyle's Supermarket opened its doors, it was a whopping 2,300 square feet. Today, there's convenience stores that dwarf that by many leaps and bounds. 

Aside from retail, The News-Review had TV listings. I even found an article about WPBN-TV 7 Traverse City finally agreeing to carry The Tonight Show in 1956. They only carried the first third of the program since NBC allowed stations back then to air the show in thirds in case they chose to close at midnight, which WPBN-TV did. Of course, 7&4 did eventually clear the 12-12:30 a.m. section of the show, but it wasn't until the late 60s when they finally decided to air the whole program. They might have been the last NBC affiliate in the country to do so.

Of course, there were nice photos of Summer life in the Petoskey and Charlevoix regions. Lots of people swimming and eating ice cream. Yes, the region is usually hopping this time of year and it might still be, COVID-19 and all.

On the radio front, I decided to type in some call letters in the search engine. I found some old radio ratings (KHQ was #1 throughout much of the 80s) and some old ads for KHQ, WMBN, WJML, WWPZ and WKPK. I even found an article where KHQ was suing WKPK for infringing on their image (i.e. they were called '107 KPK', they used the "one hit after another" liner, etc.) and won. 

For shits and giggles, I typed in the name of someone who has been a figure in northern Michigan media for more than 40 years. I've heard some, um, not-so-nice things about this person. I was expecting the News-Review to only publish your typical Chamber of Commerce shit about said person. But, boy, was I wrong.

And if I ever asked that person to drive me, I'd shoot myself.

In 1983, said person got into an accident in front of the Arby's in Petoskey. A 21-year-old woman named Melody Speigl was injured when she was getting a Beef 'n Cheddar when said person smacked into her as she exited the parking lot. Now, granted, from the sounds of things, Speigl was probably at fault. She was probably more-focused on her Curly Fries and Jamocha over caring for the safety of others.

But, that's not all, folks! Twenty-four years after that accident, said person ended up spending some time behind bars for a DUI. 

According to the News-Review, said person "was sentenced to serve 36 days in jail with credit for one day served, five days community service work in lieu of jail time and 30 days held in abeyance, six months probation and pay $1,260 in fines and costs on a charge of driving while visibly impaired."

So, who was this person who fucked up and spent some precious time supposedly in the Emmet County Drunk Tank? Why, it's none other than Patricia MacDonald-Garber, the owner of several northern Michigan radio stations including 106 KHQ, Lite 96.3, 104.5 Bob FM, 96.7 The Bull and several crappy AM stations including  1240 WATT in Cadillac, aka "Rush Radio". 

Yes, a woman owning a radio station named after the asshole who called Sandra Fluke a "slut" some years ago. Kinda reminds me of this old Far Side comic. 

For some reason, I never thought that Trish would ever be the type that would be locked up in jail. Hell, I knew that she was somewhat religious (on her Facebook profile, she's wearing a cross). Not to mention the fact that KHQ tends to play the "super censored" version of some songs ("sex" is muted on Post Malone's "Circles" and ironically, "binge drinking" was chopped off "Black Beatles" from Rae Sremmurd). But since KHQ has had a long history of canning certain songs long before Trish bought the station (when they were hits, tunes like Digital Underground's "The Humpty Dance", "Tic-Tac-Toe" by Kyper and others were edited out of their Sunday countdown shows like American Top 40), it was no wonder why in the 1990s, the now-defunct 106.7 The Peak was a much-better station.

And sadly, Trish now owns what's left of that station, with a new format coming soon.

Now, I do wonder WTF this wasn't news when all this happened in 2007. Granted, radio station owners aren't all famous and most drunk driving arrests don't make the 6:00 news. Hell, I wonder if many in the media community even knew that Trish was a jailbird. AFAIK, it was never even discussed on Michigan media message boards at the time. Well, now we all know.

And oddly enough, a few years after Trish was busted, Citadel GM Matt Hanlon got busted for the same thing. Yet, it made waves in the radio industry and made it onto The Grand Rapids Press. Yet, Trish's sentencing only made it to the court blotter. 

My theory, too is that the media up north is too nice to idiots like Trish. After all, radio stations do advertise on TV stations and other media. Heaven forbid that either 9&10 or 7&4 arrest on Trish's bust because it's no big deal. 

It kinda reminded me when one of the owners of several radio stations in the UP got busted for drunk driving some time ago. Marquette NBC affiliate WLUC-6 had the story on their website, but took it off. Part of me thinks that it was a cease and desist order because that company, Sovereign Communications reportedly is having money issues and is selling off all their Marquette stations. 

You see, a business owner is a celebrity, especially if it's their name of the company, like MacDonald-Garber Broadcasting. Usually to avoid negativity, they'll do shit like give money to charity or local events like festivals. If somebody spreads the truth about that owner, they're simply biting the hand that feeds them. But since I've been blogging about Trish on and off for over 20 years and have not been given one order from her to stop, well, it sucks to be her.

Look, if you do bad shit like drinking and driving, you deserve to have your ass handed to you. I've heard horrible stories about people getting killed in drunk driving accidents while the drunk driver gets to live. In situations like these, I'm happy that a cop found Trish and slapped cuffs on her. However, I think her $1,260 fine was simply chump change for a rich woman like her. The only good thing about Trish's DUI is that she ain't the first media personality to be busted for it, nor sadly, she won't be the last. I just hope she learned her lesson.

And judging by KHQ's bland, watered-down playlist these days, I wonder if she got plastered on Schlitz. 

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