September 10, 2003
Regular radio personality
Merlin Dumbrille on the air 52 years at WTCM Newstalk 580
By Carol South
Herald contributing writer
The voices coming out of the box were magic to a young Merlin Dumbrille.
Falling in love with the medium of radio when he was eight years old, Dumbrille has spent 52 years at WTCM Newstalk 580. His smooth, comfortable voice is like having a pleasant chat with a visitor in the living room. Dumbrille has cultivated this informal style over the decades, which includes 40 years hosting the weekday Farm and Orchard Time program.
"I talk one-on-one, I never try to think, 'Well, I'm addressing 500 people or 300 people' because I want to communicate, I want to get through," said Dumbrille, a native of Traverse City who still owns the Central Neighborhood home he was born in. "I never talk down to people, but I try to make it the simplest terms possible."
Although he began getting a paycheck from the station when he was 17 years old - when he was graduated from Traverse City Senior High School in 1951 - Dumbrille had already been hanging around the station for years. Watching and listening, welcomed by congenial operators at the station, he absorbed the tricks of the trade and even logged occasional air time.
"I got to know the control room operators, Gordon Charles was one," recalled Dumbrille. "Bud Hicks, the sports announcer, he used to do the morning program and I would go down in the morning before I went to school and read some of the cards on the air."
Dumbrille credits his father, Leon, with the inspiration to radio. Leon, a piano tuner and movie projectionist, took his young son to the station one day while on a tuning job. There the boy met founder Les Biederman, who, noting his avid interest, jokingly offered him a job when he grew up.
"Ten years later I was back again," Dumbrille said.
Dumbrille also recalls watching the WTCM tower go up with his father.
"That was where my fascination started, to see the radio tower and all that it meant and the equipment," he said.
Dumbrille has a knack for being in the right place at the right time, where things are happening. This has served him in good stead throughout his life, including getting tapped as Cherry Festival Prince while a student at the Elmwood School, his outgoing personality capturing judges' attention.
After high school, Dumbrille planned to head to East Lansing and study at Michigan State University. Hanging around at the station one day, however, he struck up a conversation with Glenn Loomis.
"He said, 'We're going to open a college here and you should stay," said Dumbrille of the nascent Northwestern Michigan College. "I thought about having a job, and here's the radio station and I started putting it together and said, 'You know, this doesn't sound bad.'"
He decided to stay in Traverse City and learn on the job, enrolling as one of the college's first 55 students. Because of his work schedule, he took three years to complete his associate's degree.
For 13 years, Dumbrille pulled the night shift until in 1963 Warren Mikula, another WTCM broadcaster, went to television. Dumbrille began broadcasting Farm and Orchard Time that year. The next year he started working at a television station as morning newscaster. He stayed with the television gig for ten years, continuing at WTCM as well, until a strike ended his TV career.
"The reason I'm not there today is the union came in and they wouldn't let me cross the picket line and, of course, I called Les and he said just let it go, don't make a fuss," recalled Dumbrille, who was never tempted to make a permanent jump to the new medium.
Meticulous preparation and dogged fact-checking have been integral components of his broadcasts over the years. Declining to call himself a perfectionist, Dumbrille nevertheless strives for perfection - or something as close as humanly possible.
"I wanted to be the best and what I was doing, mediocrity was not a part of me," he noted, saying he had many lessons in doing whatever was needed, including deciding to mop the control room floor Sunday mornings.
Now 70 years old, married for 49 years to his high school sweetheart, Dumbrille is still charging ahead in radio. He believes the medium is more relevant than ever, with its portability and accessibility keeping it popular. He eagerly embraces technological changes, jumping in as the station's equipment evolved from the old 1941 Collins equipment and the days of steel needles that required changing after two or three plays.
"When you're busy doing something you love, you don't stop to think about time," Dumbrille said. "When I say 52 years, to me that sounds like an eternity but when you're actually living through it and doing things in incremental steps, you don't notice it. Now the weeks go by so fast."