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Local disc jockey pledges:
I’m not leaving till Agswin
By Craig Sutherland
Reporter
It is 10 o’clock at night.
Randy Davis, morning disc jockey for Bryan-
College Station’s KTSR, is stretched out across a
lawn chair. He is dressed in a bathrobe and slip
pers. Although the sun set hours ago, he is still
wearing dark sunglasses. It is strange attire for
an interview.
It is all made stranger by the fact that the inter
view is taking place 35 feet above the ground on a
billboard platform.
Wednesday morning, Davis set out to spark
enthusiasm in Texas A&M football fans by climb
ing atop a billboard on Texas Avenue, next to the
Townshire Shopping Center in Bryan.
Davis has sworn not to leave his post until
A&M wins its first game. “When I first got up
here and looked down, I was scared to death,’’
Davis says. “But after about 30 minutes, I got
used to it. Tm not bothered by heights. It’s falling
that scares me.”
After losses to Nebraska, Louisiana State, and
Oklahoma State, A&M opens conference play
with its first home game of the season against
Texas Tech on Saturday afternoon.
It is only the fourth 0-3 start in the school’s his
tory. Across the billboard is Davis’ statement, “I’m
not leaving’til they win. Gig’em Aggies.”
“It was going to say Tm not coming down ’til
they win,’ ” Davis says. “But then someone
pointed out I’ve got to come down to use the
bathroom.”
U Rent M has since loaned him a portable toi
let.
He says he also plans to take his showers on the
ground using a garden hose.
After a few phone calls and a couple of pleas
over the radio, Davis’ roost now has many of the
comforts of home.
GTE hooked up a phone; others have donated
everything from a tent to a television set.
Friends, fans, and several restaurants have
brought Davis meals.
“This thing has just taken off,” Davis says. “E-
verybody has been so helpful. I wish I could get
my phone at home hooked up as fast as they did
this one.”
If the Aggies win oYi Saturday, Davis will have
spent approximately 80 hours on top of the bill
board.
If they lose, he says, he will stay there as long
as it takes for A&M to post its first win.
A&M fans are known for their dedication to
their school, However, Davis attended the Uni
versity of Texas and says he only recently has be
come a fan of A&M.
“At first, it was real hard to understand all of
the traditions,” he says. “But I like schools rich in
traditions. That’s why I went to UT.”
After Davis graduated from South Lake High
School in 1982, he spent four years at UT, but
left after landing his first job in radio in 1984.
“I didn’t see the use in staying in college when
I all ready had the job I wanted,” he says.
Davis stayed at KEYI 103, an adult contempo
rary station in Austin, for two years. Then, he
said, he left for Jackson, Miss, because he wanted
to “find himself.’’ While there, he worked for
WYYN 96.3 before moving back to Texas in Au
gust 1987 and joining KTSR, another adult con
temporary station.
Although Davis has always worked for radio
stations that play adult contemporary, he says it is
not his favorite music.
“I prefer top 40,” he says. “But I like a lot of
the stuff we play at Star 92.”
Because of the adult contemporary format,
Davis’ audience is mostly women, 30 to 40 years
old. He says that at first, it was difficult to relate
to women that age because he was only 20. But
now at age 24, with a few years of work behind
him, Davis says he is more comfortable with his
audience.
He says that for him, the most important part
of being a good disc jockey is just being himself.
Davis is best known for his improvisations when
he takes calls on the air.
“Hardly anybody does live calls anymore,” he
says. “It keeps me on the edge.”
Davis attributes his on-the-air personality to
his family. y-
“I was raised as an only child,” he says. “When
you’re an only child, you’ve either got to be crea
tive or psychotic. I guess I’m a little bit of both.
“My dad’s a salesman. He could sell snow to
Eskimos. He’s where I get my b.s. “My mom is
very outgoing. So is my dad. That is why they’re
divorced now.”
If Davis’ humor reminds his listeners of David
Letterman, it is not surprising. Davis says “Late
Night With David Letterman” is his favorite tele
vision show.
“I’m a ‘TV-aholic,’ ” he says. “I watch six
hours a day, minimum. I watch Letterman first
and foremost. I like Batman, and I watch Green
Acres twice a day.”
Davis will have plenty of time for television as
he keeps his vigil in the nest he has built on the
billboard.
Father Knows Best’ star reforms
after drug addiction, time in prison
(AP) — Through the course of
several years, Laurin Chapin went
from America’s perfect little sister
on the 1950s TV comedy “Father
Knows Best” to a drug addict and
prison inmate.
Chapin — Kathy Anderson or
“Kitten” to her TV father played by
Robert Young — became a has-been
at 14, married at 16 and a heroin ad
dict by her early 20s.
She spent three years in prison
and bore two children out of wed
lock.
The show cast was almost a family,
she said, and when the series ended
suddenly, she wasn’t prepared.
“They never even said goodbye,”
she said. “We left one Friday night
and got a letter that we were not to
return to work. It was total abandon
ment.”
Today things are better. She has
found solace as a born-again Chris
tian and as a high school science tea
cher in this small central Texas
town.
“In Killeen, of all places,” said
Chapin, 43. “It’s neat. I’m not their
token actress. My friends here love
me for who I am now, for what I do
now', not who I was.
“I tried a lot of philosophies be
fore I found the peace Td been
looking for,” she said. “But when I
did, my life changed. There was a
boldness that I had not had before
— the ability to say: ‘This is where I
have been. This is what I have come
through.’”
Her once brown hair is strawberry
blond, her face angular and unf
reckled, her childhood chubbiness
trimmed down now in tight jeans
and T-shirt. But when she breaks
into her cheek-splitting grin and
pealing laughter the kid Kathy An
derson comes through loud and
clear.
After the show ended, she tried to
return to school, but it was a disci
pline for which she was unprepared.
“I never went to school longer
than a month, and it was hard to ac
climate, to talk their lingo and try to
fit in, especially when you’re a movie
star, and the kids think you’re con
ceited,” Chapin told the Dallas
Times Herald. “They don’t make
friends with you, and I was an inse
cure child who didn’t know how to
relate to other children.”
At home, Chapin’s mother was a
creative, classically trained pianist
supportive of her daughter’s ambi
tions. At the same time, Chapin said,
her mother was a hard-drinking
housewife who subjected her chil
dren to verbal abuse. She said her
relationship with her father was
even more turbulent.
To escape, at the age of 16, she
married a classmate she had known
only 30 days. During their marriage
of only three years Chapin suffered
seven miscarriages and became ad
dicted to heroin.
“It was real easy for me to get into
drugs, to try to deaden the pain of
life, to take away the hurt I had been
through,” she said.
After seven years of heavy heroin
abuse, Chapin was sentenced to
prison for attempted forgery. “I
floated in the real seedy side of life
from 14 up to 26, caught up in the
free-sex, free-drugs, free-love so
ciety.”
After three years in thd^ California
Institute for Women, Chapin en
tered a drug treatment program,
spending a year with “The Family”
Group.
“It helped me to build new
strengths in myself and to realize I
didn’t need drugs in my life,” she
said.
Friends introduced her to Chris
tianity, something she always had re
jected, she said, because she believed
Christians were squares. But she said
the religious experience trans
formed her.
“I had lived in fear, in low self-es
teem, but as I allowed Christ in, all
those things that had made me
afraid and ashamed were softened
and released and healed.”
She has shared that message
through numerous speaking and
television appearances, including
one that landed her an invitation
from a Temple pastor who asked
her to head his women’s ministry.
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