User:Spyneyes

Rick has a wide area of interests and is a contributor to Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects. He was born on December 6, a long time ago in the small community of Clearfield, Pennsylvania. Rick lived for his first few years in Philadelpha, P.A. but moved at the age of four to the Maryland suburbs of Washington D.C. just six miles from the White House. He knew from the age of 12 when listening to his first transistor radio that he wanted to be on the radio. Among his first influences were The Joy Boys on WRC radio in Washington. One of the co-hosts of that show was Willard Scott who later went on to be the Weatherman on NBC-TV's Today Show. Rick's broadcasting career began at the age of 15 when he worked at his first radio station as a board op on a Classical Music F-M station in Takoma Park, Maryland. Rick went on to work at several other radio stations in the D.C. suburbs including an overnight stint with nationally known controversial and combative T-V talk show host Morton Downey, Jr. on WWDC. Rick joined the Air Force at age 19 and served as a firefighter before being accepted as a staff announcer for American Forces Radio and Television. During his stint in the Air Force and while stationed at Vandenberg Air Force Base Rick worked part-time as a radio D.J. in nearby Lompoc, California. He served in South Vietnam as a crash firefighter at Danang Airbase before his discharge and went on to school at Brigham Young University. Majoring in Broadcast Journalism Rick continued working part-time in radio. While in school he began working in television at KBYU-TV as a news anchor and producer on the popular Utah Now broadcast. Rick interned at KTVX-TV in Salt Lake City where he worked in television production for their two evening newscasts. After college he moved to Billings, Montana where he helped to put KHMT on the air for the first time and worked as Promotions Director. He then went to Missoula, Montana and KECI-TV where he worked as a news reporter covering Missoula County news and was the station's sports anchor. Later Rick would move to Bend, Oregon where he reported, produced and co-anchored news casts at KTVZ-TV.

Rick later worked at a News/Talk station in Yakima, Washington. Before moving to Yakima in the summer of 2005 he lived on the west side of the state as a long-time resident of Federal Way.

See some factoids about Rick in the userboxes below ...

