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INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. If youve lived in central Indiana for a while, youve probably heard Bernie Eagans voice come through the radio at work, at home or in your car.

Bernie is the afternoon radio personality from 4 to 8 p.m. on Soft Rock B105.7. Hes also been working at Emmis Communications, which also owns 93 WIBC, since 1981 and has only been on two radio stations this entire time. Before joining B105.7 as their morning radio personality in 2002, Bernie had worked as a DJ at Lite Rock 97.1 WENS, which is now Country 97.1 HANK FM.

But if youve listened to Bernie over the past 36 years, you may have never known this entire time that he is blind.

It doesnt matter. It doesnt add to the show, it doesnt take away from the show. If it made a difference, they probably wouldnt have hired me, says Bernie who says he focuses instead on talking about the music, station events, upcoming concerts and things that he says his listeners can relate.

Because Bernie may rarely, if ever, mention on-air that he is blind, he says his listeners are surprised to find out when they meet him.

If youve never met a blind person, people dont know how to behave, says Bernie.

His wife Teresa drives him to and from work and helps him to the studio to start his show. Once she sets up the computer for him, hes ready to roll.

A lot of times shell help me with transcribing things. Shell read them, Ill write them down. When youre blind, theres no question there are certain things that somebody has to help you with and she is just great, says Bernie.

Shes [also] a much better driver than I am, says Bernie jokingly about Teresa, whom he married in 1995.

Bernie also takes the music logs for B105.7, which tells a radio DJ the order the songs on the station will play, and transcribes them into braille to print off and use for his show.

Bernie had gone to the Indiana School for the Blind and Visually Impaired through high school and knew that he wanted to work in radio as a teenager.

I went down to what use to be Indiana Central College, now the University of Indianapolis. They [have] a station, WICR, and so I used to bug those guys because I used to live very close. My mother took me over to the station and I went in and started telling the [DJ] how to do his show because I was 14 years old, so I [thought I] knew everything. And [the DJ] finally said to me, do you want to take over the show? Of course it scared me unbelievably, and I said, sure! Bernie says the WICR DJ showed him how to run the equipment, and he had his first taste of being on-air.

From there, Bernie went to Ball State University to study Radio Broadcasting and worked at several stations in East Central Indiana including WERK, which is where David Letterman also got his first start.

In 1981, Bernie applied to work at a new station called WENS, and was hired by Program Director Rick Cummings, who is now the President of Radio Programming for Emmis Communications. Bernies first day on the air was July 11, 1981, which was one full week after WENS had debuted as an Adult Contemporary format on July 4.

After nearly 36 years on the air in Indianapolis, does Bernie have any plans of slowing down anytime soon and stepping away from his passion in radio?

Im not really sure. Im going to work here, if I can, until I retire. Then after that, well see what happens.

CLICK BELOW TO HEAR BERNIE EAGAN TALK WITH 93 WIBCS C.J. MILLER ABOUT OVERCOMING THE CHALLENGES OF BEING BLIND AND WHY HE DECIDED TO GO INTO RADIO BROADCASTING.

93 WIBCS C.J. MILLER REPORTING.

Twitter: @CJMillerWIBC

Photo Credit: C.J. Miller / WIBC

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B105.7 Radio DJ Bernie Eagan on Overcoming Challenges of Blindness - 93.1 WIBC Indianapolis

This entry was posted on May 23, 2017 at 7:42 am and is filed under Blindness. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed. |