“I mean, you wouldn’t know it on the air because he doesn’t necessarily do it on the air, but he’s constantly cracking jokes in the daily course of conversation.” “He cracks a lot of jokes,” she affirmed. I took the opportunity to ask her a few questions about her departing colleague, such as inquiring about a side of Olsen people may not know from his on-air persona. Coincidentally, she is a two-decade PRE veteran who had worked with Olsen longer than anyone. I wanted to get a feel for what a lifelong career in radio was like, and I wanted to dig deeper into the personality of someone whom I’d heard had a killer sense of dry humor that rarely, if ever, surfaced on the air.Īs I walked into the PRE building the next day, which is located inside Barker Hall on the campus of Craven Community College, I was greeted by Kelly Batchelor, PRE program director. I contacted him the day before his departure and set up a meeting for the following morning. Naturally, the first thing that crossed my mind was “hey, that would make an interesting story,” and I jumped at the chance to do one last interview with PRE’s longest running employee. So imagine my surprise when, not even a month later, word quietly started spreading that Olsen was retiring.
I had a fun time chatting with Ben Donnelly, PRE’s general manager, and George Olsen, host and producer, as well as getting to know much more than I’d anticipated about the inner workings of broadcasting and how one man’s idea blossomed into one of the most prestigious stations in the region. A few months ago, I wrote a story about the origins of Public Radio East (PRE).