This past weekend I interviewed my old buddy and pal Vince Argento (photo: with his daughters) about his radio career for Chicago Radio Spotlight. One of the stories I made him tell was the heartwarming story of how he met his wife Liz. Well, Tom Taylor at Radio-Info.com was looking for stories of finding love through the radio again this year for Valentine's Day (he printed my story last year), so I sent him Vince's story. He printed it this morning. Here it is in case you missed Chicago Radio Spotlight or Tom Taylor's column...
WLUP, Chicago Production Director Vince Argento found love by fax…
“After I left Steve Dahl's solo show, Dave Logan, the PD at the Loop, put me on the air with Stony (Tony Frothingham) to do entertainment reports on the Loop FM. We went out on our bikes with our cell phones and reported from street fairs and art festivals and interviewed whoever we found. Near the end of the summer they did a promotion called ‘Win a trip to Woodstock [the 1994 version] with Vince and Stony’ Listeners were invited to send a postcard or fax to the station. When it was time to pick a winner, Stony reached into the box and pulled out a fax that said: ‘From Liz O’Malley’ and it was on O’Malley Brothers stationery (her father’s company). I still remember what Stony said - ‘Look, it’s a chick that owns her own business with great handwriting.’ Not too long after I joined John Records Landecker’s show, I told John I was going to propose and he said ‘You gotta get that on tape.' So I wore a wire hooked up to a portable DAT machine and wore a lavaliere microphone, and recorded the whole thing. We played it on the air the next day, and then over the years we played it any time there was a story about romance in the news. We also played it every year on Valentine’s Day. Jonathan Brandmeier played the tape on his show when I worked for him, too. That ‘chick’ has now been my wife for eleven years.”
