THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, August 28, 1994 TAG: 9408260236
SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER PAGE: 03 EDITION: FINAL
LENGTH: Medium: 76 lines
Pity poor Dave Desler, the versatile and creative engineer at WFOS FM-88.7, the radio station operated by Chesapeake Public Schools.
He finally took his first real vacation in ages and what happened? He got called back to the job every few days.
The man hasn't taken a lengthy vacation in ages, according to station manager and program director Dennis McCurdy. He takes a day here and day there but never a big break from his busy station duties.
So he finally began his vacation - just relaxing at home - last week and before you could say ``Holy Marconi!'' the station got zapped Sunday around midnight with either a power jolt or lightning spike.
``The main board was not operating at all,'' McCurdy said. ``We had no satellite link and no Mutual News service. All we could do was play music and read the AP News wires.''
He said the broadcast staff was stuffed into the station's tiny production room.
``Even astronauts wouldn't want to fit in that small space,'' McCurdy said.
So whom did they call to get WFOS out of another jam? The vacationing Desler, of course.
``I hated to do it; I really did,'' McCurdy said. ``First, I went through everything to see if I could spot the trouble, but I couldn't. Poor Dave. He's just trying to enjoy his vacation and we've called him in five times already.''
Desler finally arrived, brought the entire station back on line and promptly returned home to salvage what was left of his vacation.
``The moral of the story is `do not be a station engineer,' '' McCurdy said. ``They are married to their transmitters.'' THEY CAME, THEY SAW, THEY SHELVED
Leave it to Chesapeake folks to roll up their sleeves and help out when there's a need.
A couple of weeks ago the Chesapeake Central Library's circulation storage room was knee-deep in books. It seems the spacious new Central Library was enjoying record-setting summer success. Patrons flocked to the Cedar Road facility like bathers to a beach.
Because of the library's popularity and an interest in summer reading, the main branch had a backlog of about 15,000 books that needed to be put back on the shelves. That meant it would be a seven-day wait before any particular volume made it back to the shelf, said Central Library manager Chuck Anderson.
The library's staff and volunteers were already stretched to the limit, so an appeal was made for help over the weekend of Aug. 12.
Chesapeake answered without hesitation.
``Before 9 a.m. that Monday morning I already had six calls to help,'' Anderson said. ``We had a total of 62 people volunteer, and we're getting calls every day.''
Anderson said the new army of volunteers took to the task and shelved the entire backlog of books.
``We're all caught up. We're now down to the usual one-day book turnaround,'' Anderson said. ``Now the rest of our staff can concentrate on the library duties they were trained to do.''
But things are going to get worse when school starts. That's when the library's circulation goes through the roof.
Anderson said many of the new volunteers will make themselves available for the fall/winter rush and the parents of many of the younger volunteers will take their place on the volunteer staff when the youngsters go back to school.
``We can always use more volunteers,'' Anderson said. ``There's always things to do and always books to put away.'' MEMO: If you want to help volunteer at the Chesapeake Central Library, call
547-6461 or 547-6578.
by CNB