My name is Lowell C. Smith.  I got the name Lucas Foxx back when I was Dj'ing clubs in 1985.
While I was still in high school, I was a counselor the the Fone Crisis Center on the 
campus of Kansas State University.  I used my real name.  One night a client of ours went 
through the phonebook and called every Smith in Manhattan, Kansas until they found one where
a Lowell Smith would answer the phone.  She told me she swallowed a hand full of pills
but wouldn't tell me where she was.  I was 17, alone in the house, with only one phone line;
no backup.  Most of us didn't have Cell phones in '80's.  

When I started clubbing and trying to get into radio, I didn't want people looking up my 
name in the phone book so they could bitch me out for not playing their favorite song.  And
it was going to be easier, now, because I was 18, out of the house, and had my own listing.

So I started calling myself Lucas; from my initials LCS.  Put 2 vowels in it and it's Lucas.
I added Foxx when I finally got into radio, the following year.  Lucas Smith was too messy,
Lucas Clark is tongue twister.  So I settled on Lucas Foxx.  It sounded cool, Micheal J Fox 
was very popular at the time, and I was a Sanford and Son fan.  Lucas Foxx- 2 X's.

My radio carrer is on my Resume and in my Demos.  Here's who I really am.

I grew up in a politically divided house that had one interesting connection: the 
Senior Senator Robert "Bob" Dole.  

I used to consider myself fiercly independant.  My mom was adopted by State Senator 
Theodore "Ted" Appl (no 'e'); who was State Representative Robert Dole's Democratic 
opponent when Bob Dole ran for his first national office. Bob Dole beat beat my 
grandfather, and rest is history; my grandfather is a footnote.

But my grandfather left a big impression on me.  Somewhere out there, there is an 8mm 
film of a light airplane that was landed in my grandfather Appl's wheat field, just south 
of his house, in a blizzard, to fly him into Topeka, Kansas for a floor vote.  Apparently, 
the people who chartered the plane were so pissed off at him for the way he cast his vote, 
they made him find his own way back home to western Kansas.  It had something to do with the 
Right to Work Act.  As the story goes: the train had to stop in Manhattan, Kansas, because 
of the snow.   Since it was his alma mater, he caught a Kansas State Basketball game, probably 
met up with some old friends and caught the first train the next day.  A very principled Democrat.  
He was one of my greatest role models.  

One of the children my grandfather adopted was my mom, Elda Smith-Nichols.  My mom was, literally,
run out of the city of Lacrosse, Kansas while she was still a highschool student in the 60's, for 
a paper she wrote supporting minority rights.   Right On!  As I was growing up, she was a long time 
member of Communications Workers of America; where she went on to become a paralegal, defending 
workers in Houston, Texas before moving up to the Washington D.C. area and marrying M.E. Nichols,
Vice-President Emeritis of C.W.A.

On the other side of my family; and the Bob Dole coin; was my grandfather, and namesake
Lowell C. Smith.  He met Bob Dole through his work as a newspaper publisher in several
small Kansas towns.  He was a Dole supporter all of his life.  And that is the extent of my 
6 degrees of separation from Bob Dole. Sorry.  That story kind of fizzled out, didn't it?

It's not going to help if I mention that these polar opposite connections to Robert Dole
all came together because of a broken condom at a drunken party, is it?

Bob Dole bought advertising from my grandfather, Lowell C. Smith; a first generation newspaper printer.   
Bob came out to my grandfather's shop and visited when running for office. And my grandfather was a 
loyal Republican.

The legacy my namesake-grandfather left with me, is my love for news and the non-fictional
written word.  As my grandfather was printing newspapers, my grandmother proof read, and my 
father grew up to read a newspaper, cover to cover, until the day he died.  Literally;  it was
joke at his funeral- "only Laurel could find a newspaper in the middle of the Caribbean."  While
I was growing up, my dad was the advertising manager at the Manhattan Mercury, and I had paper 
routes.  From an early age, I read newspapers while I was rolling them for delivery.  I'm still an 
avid reader, but now its online and easier to research.

My political awareness began in 1976.  It was the bi-centenial, and probably about 
the time I started throwing newspapers; but the thing that hit me was the the 
televised funeral for Hubert Humphries.  I think it was raining or they had interupted
my morning cartoons or something, but I remember watching it and being amazed 
at all the important people that had come out to remember the guy.

1976 was also the year Walter Modale gave an amazing speech at the Democratic National 
Convention when he accepted his nomination as the Vice-Presidential candidate.  I remember 
watching it with my Grandparents Appl.  I was only 10 years old and it gave me chills, the 
way it moved me.

So I've been "globally" aware from an early age.  I was rooting for Jimmy Carter in
1980, but I don't know if I voted for Mondale or Reagan in 1984.  When I turned 18
in August of 1984, I made sure I was registered to vote.  The Reagan team did a good job
of making Walter Mondale look weak.  There were things I liked about Reagan, but there
were a lot of things I didn't.  My choice was probably a last minute one, and probably
had something to do with how I thought the candidates would handle the Soviet Union.  
I didn't think Mondale, and his domestic agenda, was strong enough in the face a 
Moscow that was in the midst of a power struggle.  Reagan, however, hadn't even met 
with any of them, and that pissed me off.  So, I don't know who I voted for. 
Ronald Reagan later quipped, "they kept dying on me!"

I originally registered as Independant.  But I think I voted for Bush the 1st.  I knew 
him from what I had learned from my studies into the history of Intelligence; which to me 
was the history of the world.   I knew he had been an ambassador and an interim DCI.
I was supporting Paul Tsongas in the primaries of '88.  But he lost and I don't recall 
what swayed me that year either.  I was still 22 and hadn't stopped drinking yet.  

I didn't like Clinton from the start, I was supporting Paul Simon in '92.  And
I ended up voting for George Bush Sr. over Clinton, because I didn't know what I
know now.  Having said that, while it annoyed me that he started his Presidency
with Gays in the military, it irritated me more that he didn't even get a chance
to issue any business before they started jumping on him.  And over time, he won
me over.  

I didn't get a chance to Vote for him in '96, because I had just moved to Virginia
that year and the motor voter system failed me.  I went to the polls and they didn't
have me listed.  I made a big stink and talked to someone on the phone from the 
board of elections, but walked out before security walked me out.  I still had some
doubts about Bill Clinton, but, even though I liked Bob Dole - Bob Dole was kind of
a family choice (Bob Dole was really good for Kansas), I couldn't find a reason 
not to vote for Bill Clinton.

So, I never did vote for Bill Clinton.  I've heard that G. Gordon Liddy read an email
on the air that I had written to him saying, "I would have voted for Bob Dole, if 
Motor-Voter system hadn't failed."  I wouldn't have, but I didn't think he would 
read it if I had said, "I would have voted for Clinton"; and I wanted to make the 
point that the Moter-Voter could have cost Bob Dole votes in Virginia, too.  

My point in all of this, is that while I spent most of my carreer in Music radio
programming, my heart was always in the bigger picture that News/Talk radio offered.
My entire life,  I have always followed the news, I watch C-SPAN and read alot.  I 
read mostly non-fiction.  In my late teens and throughout my 20's, I was facinated 
by intelligence agencies.  Most of what I know about history is what I've learned 
from my studies of the history of clandestine intellegence.  With that background, 
I feel that I've a unique persective on what you see and hear in the news.

On the Air, I have been somewhat cartoonish, but my audio cartoons have always had an 
intelligent edge to it.  Kind of like a Warner Brothers cartoon in reverse: adult 
entertainment the kids can enjoy.  That's a bit of an exageration.   But I was always 
up on the news and my bits were very topical.  Though I spent most of my carreer in 
rock music formats,  I would occasionally do bits about things I heard on NPR or on 
C-SPAN.  I would tell the audience that, "I watched C-SPAN (or PBS) so you don't have to."  
I'm sure I didn't coin that, but I have no idea where I got it;  I used it my whole carreer.  

As you can tell, I don't have much political content on my Demo; only a couple of things from
the late 90's through the war in Afganistan.  I never actively saved any of the air-checks
where politics were involved.  I didn't think I would need them.  And there wasn't that 
many in the first place.  It was music radio.  If I would have bored my audience with 
an account of how their representatives in Government voted, I wouldn't have gotten 
nearly the ratings I did.    

But my carreer goal was to do mornings in a major market, where I could be a little more
"high-brow" and slowly mix in more important things.  Then my goal was to slide from that
chair into an all talk format.  I just ended up at the wrong places at the wrong time.

In Manhattan, Kansas, where I had a morning rock show that took HUGE young female numbers 
from the local CHR (an ability that followed me my whole carreer).  The sister station was 
a News/Talker with a live morning and afternoon  show.  The problem was that this was the 
time when they were giving away the Rush Limbaugh show, and boy the PD and Sales manager 
loved that.  I would tell them, "you know he is just making this stuff up, right?"  And 
they'd give me the old, "oh, yeah, I know, heh heh heh"; just like my grandmother and 
her National Inquirers: "Oh, yes, I know it's fake. I just like reading the stories."

After that, I spent a brief time at an AM/FM combo in Iowa.  But it didn't take me long to realize
that I didn't want to be there so I packed up and moved east, where I landed in Richmond, VA.

I was real excited when ClearChannel bought Jacor and brought their programming in.  Jacor stations
had been clobbering Clear Channel rock stations all over the country, and I was hoping they would
clean some of the cobwebs out of our station and save it.  I was the only jock on that station that 
won all of his ratings battles and got all of my ratings bonuses, but I was just the Night Jock to 
them; from Wherethehell, Kansas.  We didn't get what I'd hoped for when the former Jacor people
took control of the national programming for ClearChannel.  We got the headhunters; who came in to 
help cut the local ClearChannel budget 40% two years in a row.   I'm not real good a math, but that 
sure seems like an awful lot.  I ended up being the first jock fired and the last jock fired.  

I was "fired" three times by the same ClearChannel group.  The first time was when ClearChannel gobbled 
up AM/FM, and we had to divest a station.  They called us all in and said, "thanks for playing, goodnight."
The next day they called us all back in and said, "oops.  Heh heh.  Wrong Station.  Sorry."

Then, I was replaced for shock jocks Mikey, and then Kramer and Twitch; all out of San Diego, believe. 
The ratings plummeted.  I was only fired for 3 hours though.  In the time it took me to drive home and 
throw all of my station paraphenilia in the dumpster, they called and said the production staff and 
the morning show wanted me to stay on.  Great! My dream, right?  Ummm no.  I was to produce their 
bits and run the board. They couldn't believe how fast I could move through a digital editor.  These 
were a couple of guys who made a name for themselves using the Premier Networks Call of the Days, and 
insisted, even to me, that they made them all themselves.  Within a couple of months, they whacked 
almost every one, including half of the morning duo, and I became the "Morning Crew" of Jeff McKee 
and the Morning Crew.  Which was about a step and a half lower than being a Woody.

God bless Jeff McKee.  He threw in my name every chance he got, even though programming wanted him 
to call me Crew.  I believe we would still be on the air today, if Jeff were on my show instead of 
the other way around.  The guy is a very funny man, but he had no idea what had happened in personality 
radio in the previous decade.  But we did his morning show, and we couldn't even beat John Boy and Billy.  
Jeff was doing a Johnny Carson style variety show all the way up to Sept. 11, 2001.  If they could have 
fired him on 09/11/01, they would have.  I often refer to them as the al Qaida.  My last show was on the 
1st anniversary of 911.

Everyone remembers where they were the morning of 9-11.  My 9-11 memory was standing in the studio at
the close of the morning show and looking up at the TV and seeing the first tower in flames.  Then 
seeing the second plane hit live on television.  We spent more than an hour trying to convice the 
headhunter (excuse me) Program director to let us back on the air.  But he couldn't see the logic in
it.  After all, we had perfectly good mid-day show voice-tracked by Jay Philpot.  We couldn't dump
him and waste all his hard work just because of a couple of airplanes flying into New York's
World Trade Center, could we?   ....um...yes?  In fact, no one listening to our station heard anything
about it until 12:00, when the powers that be finally decided to simulcast our AM News/Talk station 
downstairs, WRVA.  Of course the main reason they wouldn't let us back on the air was that they were 
getting ready to fire him.   The rest of the week, we threw out the format, to the dismay of the PD.  
He never did grasp the gravity of 9-11.  I'm sure he has by now; in the way a dead stick falls in behind 
the wake of a motor boat.  It didn't matter to Jeff.  He knew he was on his way out.  They had been picking 
away at him for a full year.  By the time 9-11 came around Jeff McKee and the XL-102 morning only 
had a 2 hour show: 6AM to 8AM.  Jeff McKee went out in style.  That week, we did nothing but put people 
on the air and bring in guests to talk about what everybody but our PD was talking about- 9-11. 

But, back to our story.  In the meantime, ClearChannel had brought all of their Richmond signals into one 
building; including WRVA, a capital city AM News/Talker.  And, I heard they were bringing in some hot shot 
Talk programmer from North Carolina named Randal Bloomquist.  I tried to approach him discreetly about the 
possibilities of doing a part time show to get my feet wet.  No luck.  Worse luck.  In the time it took me 
to walk upstairs, he called up my PD, the headhunter, who had to call me in to chew me out for trying to 
get a job behind his back.

Bloomquist was a dead-end for me anyway.  He gutted WRVA, put on a couple of local right wing-nuts and 
filled the rest with syndication.  He gave Kathleen Wiley a shot at radio, though.  You remember her
claim to fame?  She was the Virginia Socialite that added her name to the list debunked women who 
claimed to have been "touched inappropriately" by Bill Clinton. Bloomquist was, also, the first person 
to raise a flag with me about Fox News.  I came down to the news room one night, and found a sign on the 
television that threatened termination for anyone caught changing the channel off of Fox.  I thought that 
was pretty odd.  None of our stations were Fox affiliates at the time.  I was told they weren't even allowed 
to flip over to Headline News.  Of course, it makes perfect sense.  Its a News Department.  What would they 
need News for? They could make up their own.  Anyway, that really sticks out in my mind.  The last I heard, 
he was running a ClearChannel Talker in Washington D.C. into the ground.

Anyway, on September 11, 2002, the one year anniversary of 911, I did my last show.  I was told not to
make a big deal and just read the liners.  The next day the format was dumped, and I thought the third
time was the charm, so I grabbed my severance check and left.  Had I fought for my job and stayed on 
another week, the headhunter would have been gone.  And, again, I would still probably be working there
and their ratings might have survived what ever crappy programming they were feeding us.  

Over the years I had recieved some pretty positive response and a lot of EOE cards to fill out, but no
job offers or even interviews.  Randi Rhodes summed it up when she was talking about her love life and
men being attracted to other women.  She said she had wondered what all of these women, "have got that
I don't got?  Proximity!"  I wasted 6 years trying to get my job in Richmond, Virginia, and never recieved
any response.  As soon as I got there I got the first job openning.  Go figure. 

I thought, with my digital editing and studio experience, I'd be a shoe in for XM radio.  It was just up 
the 95 corridor, close by; and, with as many calls that I got from the Washington area, and my ratings in
Richmond, I thought that surely someone working there might have heard my show.

I did get some good feedback from Dave Logan, Lee Abrams, and Eddie Webb from XM Satelite Radio.  I think that
one of those guys who responded was one of the VP's at the start of Air America Radio, but I didn't find that 
out until he left after a few months.  I don't know if that was good or bad.  I know he gave me some good 
advise, but, because of one of the bits I did, he thought I was too hard on the listeners.  Of course, 
anyone who heard my show would know that that was not my schtick.  That was my problem at ClearChannel,  
I didn't scream and insult my listeners enough; I wasn't a shock jock.  I didn't need to be. 

"The only thing shocking about me is reality, baby."

My broadcast computer skills did come in handy.  They got me the job I have now.  I jumped at the first
job I could get; while still hoping I'd get a better call before I started.  I still had 6 months of 
unemployment left, but, as I've never been too long without a job, couldn't handle the insecurity of 
not having a job; and it was sizable pay increase. But for me, it has never been about the money.  It 
has always been about the Art and about serving the listeners.  Now, I'm in Quincy, Illinois.  A long 
way from anywhere.  And I wakeup every morning wondering what might have happened if I had waited, 
until my unemployment ran out, to give up on radio.