DriveTime: a romance with radio

By María Eugenia Guerra

When I sat down with Ruben Villarreal and Luis Villarreal of Amigo Broadcasting to discuss that I would host a daily one-hour radio show on the company's talk radio station KLNT 1490 AM, I felt the challenge of doing something I had never before done, and with the challenge came the subtext of doubts about my ability to pull off an hour of live chit chat. Writing was one thing; talking unedited into the ether was another. Where oh where were the steely nerves Coach Batey, my driver's ed teacher, had attributed to me the summer I became legal on the streets of our city?
My clever friend Raul Gutierrez, a man who thinks on his feet, came up with the name "DriveTime." Lucinda Williams provided the bumper music, and my friend Tom Moore collected the cool tunes with which the show exited.
A bad case of nervios and dry mouth prevailed for the first couple of months in the small, dimly lit studio at 505 Houston Street, the cringe-ometer going off the dial with utterings I believed sounded incredibly and irretrievably stupid. When I felt I had said something particularly unintelligent I consoled myself with, "No one is listening." On breaks, Ruben, my unflappable co-host, would try to ground me and give me tips for not sounding nervous.
Practice never made me perfect, but as the show moved along from its January 14 inception, it became easier to do. A lot of great guests helped, too. There was the occasional "Yup" and "Nope" guest who could not be enticed to speak in long, complete sentences, but on the whole the show ended up evolving into something I enjoyed in interviews with folks I found interesting and was happy to have occasion to meet for the first time.
The irony of punctuating Amigo's ultra-conservative talk radio format (Rush, Dr. Laura, Sean Hannity) with a one-hour burp of my lefty perspectives was not lost on me. Ruben, a political conservative with whom I respectfully disagree on numerous issues, was the perfect counterbalance to my views on the war in Iraq.
At the heart of what Ruben and I did week in and week out was to visit with individuals who make a difference in our city and beyond. I met some incredible Laredoans along the way and had memorable on-air conversations with them and with many I have known as a journalist. We heard the perspectives of a number of selfless individuals who serve our community generously and with the best of intentions -- notably environmentalist Dr. Jim Earhart of the Río Grande International Study Center, Oscar Muñoz of the A&M Colonia Project, Alfredo Castillo of the Regional Food Bank, Carol Sherwood of Habitat for Humanity, Sister of Mercy Rosemary Welsh, and Nancy Umphres of the Zapata Wildlife Rescue. We heard from educators (Randy Koch, Paty Cantu, Dr. Ray Keck, Dr. Jerry Thompson) and parents, and we heard from individuals who have fostered cultural and literary events in our city. Poets read their work on DriveTime. Make-A-Wishers Glen Jackson and Les Norton ran away with our show one afternoon as Ruben's hand fidgeted over the dump button. City Manager Larry Dovalina and Webb County Chief of Staff Raul Casso apprised us on several occasions of the directions in which local government moved. Former Mayor Aldo Tatangelo told us where we had been, as did matriarch Josephine Brand. Texas Monthly's Joe Nick Patoski and Medicine Man Tony Ramirez brought us a narrative of the brush lands.
Among the guests who stand out in my memory are political activist Diane Wilson (Code Pink) -- a woman whose ideals, Ruben opined, were the mirror image opposite of the conservative right ideals espoused on the rest of the station's programming. And there was also our last guest, acclaimed poet and citizen of the world Naomi Shihab Nye. But the guest who most gave us pause and made us think often and fast -- me, Ruben, and Al Guevara who co-hosted with me on occasion -- was Malia Watson, an erudite and articulate wordsmith, a woman possessed of a vocabulary built over a lifetime of reading. What incredible good fortune the Laredo Public Library has to have her in its employ.
So why the sudden move to go off the air with DriveTime? The circumstances that define how much time I have to dedicate to my newspaper business and my family pretty much made the decision for me. Though I loved the time on the air, the time it took to book guests and prepare a bit proved more than I could manage.
All of this to say that I really loved the opportunity to host the show and especially to get to work with radio professionals of the caliber of Ruben and Al. Very special thanks go to Luis Villarreal who has left the door open to possibly resume DriveTime at a later date or to go to a morning format with another local talk show.