Published: September 25, 2009 12:11 am      

ADAMCZYK: In praise of your line of work

Pretty much every profession does this sort of thing, only with less reliance on videotape. It dedicates an evening to honoring luminaries in the field, and by extension, congratulating itself for whatever it does. Nurses, plumbers, paralegals, teachers, those in the scribbling arts like the newspaper business, gather regularly to hand out trophies, eat and drink together, acknowledge successes with smiles and laughs and contemplate the challenges of the future with furrowed brows and cautionary optimism.

Thus did the local radio and television business convene this week in the cavernous downtown studio of WNED-TV, a room big enough for all the egos it contained, for the annual Hall of Fame awards organized by the Buffalo Broadcasters Association, the historical and archival wing of the local airwaves. I showed up, too.

Celebrity in Buffalo is generally reserved for athletes and broadcasters; a Sabres defenseman and a Channel 4 weatherman have roughly the same status out here, in terms of airtime and face time, autograph hounds, young people eager to learn the skills required to replace him or her or the enthusiasm in a hello when spied in the street. There are more local colleges with journalism and broadcasting programs than there are with hockey teams, and their graduates think they’re beginning a career trajectory that will end with Katie Couric’s job.

So if your idea of a brush with fame is Kevin O’Connell, Jacquie Walker, Joanna Pasceri, Don Paul and/or Rich Newburg, you shoulda been there. There was no lack of booze, roast beef or conversation. Oh boy, can these people talk.

They were in attendance to honor their peers, as any affinity group would on a night such as this, and anoint them members of their Hall of Fame. If you’re old enough, you remember television’s Marie Rice and Don Polec, and radio’s Fred Klestine. Also enshrined were voiceover impresario Pat Feldballe, who can be heard in advertisements for Valu Home Centers, Paddock Chevrolet and the Time-Life series of rock and roll oldies on CD, and Randy Michaels, who began his career as an unpaid engineer at Buffalo’s WBFO-FM and now is chief operating officer of the Tribune Company.

There is nothing like a Buffalo success story. Each had local memories built into his or her acceptance speech, and a lot of praise for the unique nature of Western New Yorkers. And a lot of funny stories; I wish I knew Ms. Rice when she began her career as “Misty,” contralto-voiced jazz disc jockey at a Pittsburgh radio station, and Mr. Polec, when he was the manic comic relief of Channel 7’s “Eyewitness News” with Irv, Rick and Tom.

It was a great night for the broadcasting industry, for those in it and those who watch and listen to too much of it (and, no surprise, the microphones worked), and it was over by 10 p.m. (these people understand deadlines and tend to work crazy hours, and several of them had to get back to the studios to perform the 11 o’clock news). But glamour aside, many lines of work engage in a night, or an afternoon, of glad-handing and celebration such as the one the broadcasters threw for themselves.

I’ve been to Town of Tonawanda Chamber of Commerce luncheons that looked exactly like this, except the practitioners and politicians there were less adept at the rostrum. Many high school athletic departments host a post-season event with evident similarities, except the jokes tend to bomb and the kids would rather be elsewhere.

The radio and television people think their chosen line of work is special. Perhaps it is; it has to be in one’s blood for a person to stay in it (a reason it attracts people willing to endure low pay or no pay, draconian bosses and an unsettling lack of job security). You could say that about a lot of businesses — nursing, the military, publishing, the list goes on — and if you think broadcasting tolerates a certain amount of nuttiness, consider your own career path and the number of times you could begin a story with “you wouldn’t believe what goes on around here.”

A night of honors such as this has the salutary effect of bringing all members of a profession into a room to celebrate their own success and survival. Every line of work is important, admirable and a little screwy, and a party for the most respected members of the group is just an elaborate version of stopping at a bar with one’s colleagues for an after-work beer. Same collegiality, same sense of inclusion, same acknowledgement of respect.

Honoree Michaels tossed a joke into his acceptance speech. His young child said, “When I grow up, I want to be in radio,” and Dad responded, “You can’t have both.” Use that gag about your own profession; wouldn’t it be just as funny?

Ed Adamczyk is a Kenmore resident whose column appears every Friday in the Tonawanda News. Contact him at EdinKenmore@gmail.com.