Dan Mandis

Jeremy Levy here with you this week to write about one of my favorite talk radio personalities, and a person I consider a mentor in Colorado radio- Dan Mandis. I first started listening to the work that Dan Mandis did back in 1998 or 1999. Back then, he was a producer for the Dr. Laura Schlesinger program. He engineered and orchestrated the music for that show. This was a pretty difficult title to live up to. My favorite moment on the Dr. Laura show was when she did a Thanksgiving joke show. She invited listeners to call in and to tell a funny joke. I can’t remember off hand any of the funny jokes, but she told a couple to Dan, and Dan laughed pretty hard.One day I was listening to the Dr. Laura Show, and Laura announced that Dan was leaving the show. This was pretty hard for him, but it was for the best. One of his kids was sick, and the treatment that they had to go through was in New York. It must have been hard for him to say goodbye. He thanked all of the listeners, and that meant a lot to me.Dan and I are very similar in that he and I were introduced to talk radio at an early age. Dan’s father would often have talk radio on in the car, and Dan was hooked from an early age; just like I was.  After Dan left to move to New York, I thought I had heard the last of Dan Mandis. In the transition program at the Colorado School for the Deaf and the Blind in 2007, I was looking for a job in Colorado radio where I could develop some research skills. My teacher and I called around to different radio stations, and we called KVOR 740 on the AM dial. My teacher asked to speak to the program director, and luck would have it the program director was Dan Mandis. He told my teacher, that he had a teacher who was blind when he took some radio broadcasting classes. Dan was very delighted to hire me as a research assistant at KVOR radio. I would look on the internet with my lap top using a screen reader at news websites, and pick out important news stories for the news anchors and talk radio show hosts to put on the air. Then I would print them out and get them from the printer and give them to Dan.  This was a really fun job for me because I felt like I was helping Dan Mandis out, and I was in the radio environment where I could interact with different radio people. Dan seemed very happy to have my help. One day while working at KVOR, I got to meet Laurie White who was the co-host of the news program in the mornings. This was a really big thrill for me. After a couple of years in the transition program, I moved back to Parker Colorado and my time at KVOR was finished. I will always be grateful to Dan Mandis for giving me a chance and hiring someone who was blind to help with researching current events.After moving back to Parker, I tried to keep in touch with Dan Mandis, but after a while we lost touch with each other for about a year or so. Then I read in an internet news article that Dan Mandis had moved to Denver Colorado and was programming 630 KHOW, and AM 760 radio. He was also doing a Saturday afternoon or morning show at 850 KOA radio. When I heard this, I e-mailed him to let him know how thrilled I was, and that I knew KHOW and AM 760 radio would be in great hands with his programming abilities. He was excited to hear from me. I always enjoyed listening to his Saturday shows because he wouldn’t talk about just political topics. He would talk about fun and serious topics. He would talk about bullying at school, and he would also talk about himself, which I thoroughly enjoyed.Dan believed in listening to the listeners opinions. He didn’t shout them down, or talk over them like some of the hosts do.After he took over at 630 KHOW, and AM 760, there was an incident with one of the hosts at 630 KHOW, and Dan Mandis being the program director had to decide what to do about the host and the incident. This was very difficult for him because he considered this particular host a mentor to him, and someone who he always wanted to be on the radio with. I sent him an encouraging e-mail about how much I really enjoyed the host, and that I hoped that things would work out. I also recommended a different host for the morning show, and that would be Mandy Connell. In a way I feel like I played a part in bringing Mandy’s show to Colorado. Dan appreciated my suggestion. Some people might think that this decision wasn’t a good one, but I really think that Dan had really good programming skills. It seemed to me that KHOW was going through a transition period when they were trying to find the right host to take over the morning show on the station. One of the shows I really enjoyed was when Lois Melkonian, a previous favorite of mine, auditioned on the station. I appreciated Dan making that happen, even though she did not become a regular host.One Saturday morning I tuned in to KOA radio expecting to hear Dan Mandis on the air, but Ross Kaminsky was on the air. Ross explained that Dan Mandis would no longer be on the air on KOA radio. Dan called in on that show and he explained that he had taken a different job in Tennessee. He would be moving to Tennessee to take a programming and an on air job on one of the big talk radio stations in Nashville Tennessee. I did some research a couple of weeks later and found his show on WTN radio 99.7 FM radio. That’s where Dan is now.I have always considered Dan Mandis to be a genuine, and a gentle person as a radio talk show host. He has a wonderful personality.Thank you Dan Mandis for giving me so many wonderful memories, and for giving me the wonderful opportunity on KVOR radio. Thanks for tuning in.Jeremy Levy