Originally posted Wednesday, November 14, 2018 by RODNEY HO/rho@ajc.com on his AJC Radio & TV Talk blog
94.9/The Bull helped out an Atlanta banker who lost a fifth-generation wedding band at the UGA/Auburn game in Athens this past Saturday.
A woman named Michelle from Waynesboro actually found the band and began sending out notices on Facebook seeking the owner. Once the Bull's Jason Pullman and Kristen Gates began talking about it on Monday's show and posting the query on Instagram and Facebook, the ring owner Stuart Howell heard about it through his mom and was able to get his ring back.
A 2013 UGA grad, Howell on air said it was chilly that day and his ring finger may have shrunken to the point that the ring had gotten loose. As a newlywed, he hadn’t properly sized the ring. So it disappeared partway through the game.
“Needless to say a moment of panic,” he said on the Bull Tuesday. “I immediately began my search. I retraced my steps.”
Stadium staff and attendees helped him out but they had no luck. He went home worried he had lost it for good.
“The ring was actually very sentimental for me,” Howell said in a follow-up interview Wednesday. “It dates back to the mid-1800s. Oddly enough, my grandfather who wore it was captain of the Georgia football team in 1937 and my grandmother was Miss UGA. Losing it at Sanford Stadium, I was devastated. If it had to go, this was the most appropriate place. But I thought it might have just ended up in a trash can.”
He woke up Monday morning and his mom Barbara Hartman said she saw a Facebook post about the missing ring and wondered if it was his.
When he saw the post, it had 30,000 shares, which shocked him. “I definitely think the radio station spreading the word helped because it went viral and got around eventually to my mom,” he said.
Howell is putting together a care package in mind for the kind Samaritan as a reward and hopes he can meet her in person to thank her at a future UGA game.
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For the 10th year in a row, the Bert Show collected enough thank you letters from Americans to provide at least one to every American military troop member stationed overseas on Thanksgiving.
The total this year: 189,000. Bert Show producer Tommy Owen organizes the event with a committee of volunteers who spend weeks vetting every letter. The postal service sends the letters to troops gratis.
My colleague Helena Oliviero corresponded with Maggie Perkins, who now teaches sixth grade social studies at Campbell Middle School in Cobb County. Perkins is one of many teachers who participate in the Bert Show's Big Thank You annually.
The project became especially meaningful to Perkins while teaching in north Florida, near Eglin Air Force base. Many of her students there had deployed family members and almost half of the students were in military families. “That's when I realized that for me, as an America, the sound of jets was a sound of strength and freedom...but in many countries, the sound of jets approaching is terrifying,” she said in an e-mail.
Each year she has between 125 and 155 students, and each one writes at least one letter.
She said many students connect personally with the project. “Many of them have never considered the fact that we have been involved in ‘conflict’ in the Middle East since before they were born...which is mind-blowing to me. Their level of comfort and freedom comes at the cost of men and women serving for long periods of time away from their families. As we write these letters, students usually approach me with stories of their family members who are actively serving or who have served. These stories are always really special, and help me grow closer to my students,” she said.
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For three straight years, News 95.5 and AM 750 WSB has been No. 1 in the Nielsen monthly radio ratings in October.
V-103, which has righted its ship since Frank Ski came back, was a solid No. 2 overall and No. 1 among 18-34 and 25-54 year olds.
It was a terrible month for 94.9/The Bull, which saw its overall ratings fall to 2.9, its worst month since January, 2017 and tumbling to 17th place behind Rock 100.5 (3.0), Praise 102.5 (3.5) and Hot 107.9 (3.5), which also had a relatively poor month. The Bull’s rival Kicks did just fine with a 4.0, good for 10th place. Kiss 104.1 bounced back to a 4.1 after a dismal September.
Alt 105.7 hit another low, falling to 22th place with a 1.3. The station was at a 2.7 in January, 2017 and has seen steady drops since then.
92.9/The Game, despite the Falcons’ wobbly performance to date, is performing solidly, pulling in a 3.9 rating, tied for 11th with 90.1/WABE-FM. That compares to 3.4 in October, 2017 and 3.2 in October, 2016.
680/93.7/The Fan is doing better than last year as well, with a 2.0 rating vs. 1.5 a year ago.
