45 years and they’re not done yet. But the Utah Broadcasters Association did come to Logan late Thursday afternoon to induct KVNU’s Al Lewis and Jennie Christensen into the Broadcasting Hall of Fame. Before the induction ceremony that was attended by colleagues, friends and residents, both Al and Jennie sat down with For the People’s Jason Williams. The program originated from the induction site, the Riverwoods Conference Center in Logan.
“It’s really special for me to think that I’m going in when Jennie goes in. Because she and I are the ‘long-tooth’,” Lewis said.
“I think we figured out this morning it may be close to a month (or close to two months) a little bit longer at KVNU than I’ve been. I came in August in 1972 and she was, maybe she’s thinking somewhere around June or July after she had spent at least 10 years, she figures, with the Herald Journal.”
Then, despite telling Williams many times off-air, “that the journalist shouldn’t be the story” when asked to be interviewed, she did agree to talk to Williams about her news-gathering years on KVNU and related an experience from early-on in her career.
“One morning we got a call, in the middle of the night at the house…that’s what they would do. There was a fire at a house down on the west side. I didn’t hear it, I slept through it.
“And my good husband, he looked at me and he said my hair was in rollers and he just didn’t want to wake me up…I was sleeping so peacefully (so) he’d go down and see what it was like. When I woke up at the normal time in the morning, I said ‘I think our house is on fire. I can smell smoke’,” Christensen laughed.
“He had gone down and they needed some help and the fire chief had thrown him a hose and he helped put the fire out!”
Of course Al Lewis is the long-time ‘Voice of the Aggies’ and also an early morning KVNU radio host providing news, weather and regular twice-hourly sports reports during morning drive.
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