Jack gets over the line again – –

A very odd coincidence happened on Monday evening.

I’ve been producing and presenting a weekly Celtic music show on the NPR station in Johnson City Tennessee for nearly twenty years now (WETS.fm). It’s called ‘Celtic Clanjamphry’ and initially airs on their main FM and HD1 channel on Sunday evenings and then repeats on their HD2 channel on Mondays and Saturdays. It then goes out on WEHC.fm here in Virginia on the following Sunday. Because I record them ahead of time with the enormous help of my engineer Dirk, I’m never quite sure which episode is airing any particular week. I got a message on Monday morning from a listener and so I checked the Monday evening repeat to check which one was going out.

But – –

A few months ago Wendy started working part-time for West Virginia Public Radio as a producer and presenter for their show called ‘Inside Appalachia’ which goes out there on Sunday mornings and is then re-broadcast on a whole host of other NPR stations from Ohio to Georgia, and Kentucky to North Carolina. One of the stations that takes it is – yes – WETS.fm in Johnson City!

Last week her first program came 2^nd in Best Feature at the AP Virginias Broadcasting awards, out of more than 400 entries from all over Virginia and West Virginia which was very exciting! Her latest story is all about a 10 year search for the maker of hand thrown clay mugs. It’s quite a moving story!

On Monday past, at 8pm I went to the WETS website to check which of my programs was being broadcast on HD2. Lo and behold, to my surprise they were airing ‘Inside Appalachia’ on their fm/HD1 channel at exactly the same time, and it was Wendy’s mug story! So we were both on the same station at the same time!

So I went to Wendy and told her this and with a big grin on her face she said, “Hmm, which one shall we listen to?”

I’m a smart husband…..