Happy 40th birthday to NPR’s Morning Edition. We came close to never hearing the show.

Above, original staff member, Jay Kernis edits tape for Morning Edition in the late 1970s. 
George Geesey/NPR

When I received an email alerting me to the 40th anniversary of Morning Edition, I couldn’t believe it. How could 40 years have passed since I first heard that show? I’d started listening to NPR when I was in my 20s…

I did the math; I added a couple of years for good measure. And, yep, Morning Edition is 40—I’m older.


An early photo of Morning Edition’s staff. Stan Barouh/NPR

I won’t attempt to retell the story of one of radio’s finest storytellers, you can read it here. However, there are some fun audio files that I’ll link to because they’re spread over quite a bit of NPR real estate. A favorite of mine is the first one below. The bloopers file. Listen to Cokie Roberts’ basset hound, Abner, demanding his breakfast outside her home broadcast studio. The unscheduled appearance turned Abner into a public radio folk hero.

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Find your local NPR station here and consider donating if you’re able. In the current political climate, your support of Public Broadcasting—both radio and television—is more important than ever.

By Stephen Brockelman

As a Sr. Writer at T. Rowe Price, I work with a group of the best copywriters around. We belong to the broader creative team within Enterprise Creative, a part of Corporate Marketing Services. _____________________________________________ A long and winding road: My path to T. Rowe Price was more twisted than Fidelity’s green line. With scholarship in hand, I left Kansas at 18 to study theatre in New York. When my soap opera paychecks stopped coming from CBS and started coming from the show’s sponsor, Proctor & Gamble, I discovered the power of advertising and switched careers. Over the years I’ve owned an ad agency in San Francisco; worked for Norman Lear on All in the Family, Good Times, Sanford and Son, and the rest of his hit shows; and as a member of Directors Guild of America, I directed Desi Arnaz in his last television appearance— we remained friends until his death. In 1988 I began freelancing full time didn’t look back. In January 2012 my rep at Boss Group called and said, “I know you don’t want to commute and writing for the financial industry isn’t high on your wish list, but I have a gig with T. Rowe Price in Owings Mills…” I was a contractor for eight months, drank the corporate Kool-Aid, became a TRP associate that August, and today I find myself smiling more often than not.

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