Here’s Part 2 of our interview with Jeff Rohrs, who worked weekends and vacation fill-in shifts at 97X from 1987-1991. In this part of our chat, he talks about the community of music lovers at 97X, the great program directors during his tenure, his scary sighting on the Party Patio, his side hustles (DJ… and grocery bagger), and “Balogh University.”
Jeff mentions former 97X program director Kerry Gray, and former DJ Ken “Mr. K” Glidewell.
Sadly, both Kerry and Mr. K have passed away.
Jeff Rorhs was hooked on 97X from the very first song he heard on the station. In fact, he attended Miami University mostly because of 97X, and he was so determined to work at the station that he played polka music at his hometown radio station just to get on-air experience. All that polka-playing paid off – he wound up working weekends and fill-in shifts at 97X for his entire college career, from 1987 through 1991.
In this episode, we talk to Jeff about that first song he heard, how he scored the weekend gig, his unfortunate mispronunciation of an artist’s name, how he pissed off Doug Balogh, the longest song in the 97X library, the bands he championed both at 97X and on his music video show at Miami U., his MTV regrets, and the Violent Femmes concert at Bogart’s when it started raining on the stage.
Jeff still has a special place in his heart for 97X, as witnessed by his description of the station in his LinkedIn profile:
Here are the photos of the Violent Femmes show at Bogart’s back in 1990 when it rained on stage.
