Racine Journal Times — It’s pretty safe to say that WRJN radio will never be quite the same now that News Director Tom Karkow — surely one of Racine’s most familiar voices — and his wife, news reporter Janet Hoff, have retired.
Friday was the last day for the couple who had comprised the AM station’s entire reporting team since 2004. For Karkow, it had been a 39-year career with WRJN (1400 AM).
“I always wanted to get into radio, because I wanted to be a disc jockey,” he said. “… I got into news because there was a big fire in Racine; I was working at (W)FNY at the time. And I started reporting on it, on the air. I was doing that, and I thought it was kind of cool. So, I kept doing more of it. Eventually, the guy who had been doing news at FNY got fired. And I took over.”
Karkow, now 62, got his job at WRJN, 4201 Victory Ave., upon the recommendation of Gary Suhr, when the late Al Gelsone, who was having health problems, had to leave. Suhr, the station’s sports director who also did news, had recognized Karkow’s initiative.
“He’d recommended me because I’d shown up at meetings; I was trying to learn what this was all about and finding out about it. He recommended me, and there I was in July ’79, until (Friday).”
Karkow became only the station’s third news director since the station created a news department in 1969.
“The job was: You did news … and I also had to fill in on the board doing disc jockey stuff when they had vacations,” he said. “Later on, I would go to court just to see how it worked. That was really fascinating, seeing how the court system worked.”
Janet Hoff
Hoff, a native of Martinsburg, Va., attended Indiana University in Bloomington. There, she worked for the college radio station — which was pumped into the dorms but did not go out over the airwaves, she said: “Because of all the limestone buildings, It was hard to get radio stations, so it was pretty much the one everyone listened to.”
She wrote trivia questions for the Thursday night show and then became the traffic director, which has nothing to do with streets; she made out program logs. She also helped do a sports show, and then started doing the news.
For her junior year, she changed her major to telecommunications. It was the first time she’d really figured out what she wanted to do.
Back in Martinsburg, Hoff joined a startup radio station and eventually took a job in Kenosha, at WLIP. She and Karkow married in 1984.
Hoff went to work for the American Red Cross for a couple of years, and during that time was a stringer for WRJN. In 2004, she joined full-time.
Dedicated team
Karkow is generous in his praise of Hoff’s contributions at WRJN, which is now owned by Magnum Media: “This whole thing, whatever we did, whatever success we’ve had, it would not have happened without her being there. No question about that. Because what we did, one person cannot do it. It has to be a tag-team operation.”
The couple have been so dedicated to writing and broadcasting the area’s new that they have not taken a single vacation together in the past seven years. (Magnum has posted a single news reporter job opening to replace them.)
“She’s better in the field, and I’m better in the studio,” Karkow says. “She just gravitates to people. And she’s able to communicate, I think, better with them out in the field than I am.
“I’m more just there for: What’s the story?”
Karkow thinks he fits better behind the microphone. And, when he’s broadcasting, does he think about all the people who could be listening to him?
“No,” he immediately replies.
What does he think about with the mic right there?
“Don’t screw up.” Karkow laughs, then adds, “especially if you’re talking about a literacy story; oh, dear God, don’t screw it up.”
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