Dave Glover - Talk Radio Host St. Louis MO

Tune in to hear our interview with Jim Parke, Chief Petty Officer/ Sonar Chief, Navy 1940-1957
He will be talking to us about his experience on the day the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.

*USS Oglala ( a mine layer ship from which they had just unloaded 300 mines prior to the attack.)
*Abandoned 2 ships because of the attack; the Oglala and then later on the 7th the California.
*Looked eye to eye with a Zero Fighter Pilot as he flew low to the water by the Oglala.
*Immediately assisted a fellow crew member who had been shot through the cheek while being strafed.
*After the attack while back at sea doing his job in 1942 was credited with detecting a Japanese Sub that was then sunk by a US destroyer.
*Taught NAVAL ROTC over 2 years at Harvard .
* While cruising to San Diego through the Panama Canal learned they were headed to the Korean War where he was for 6 months.

St. Charles Suburban Journals

By Sarah Whitney
Saturday, October 17, 2009 9:19 AM CDT

Dardenne Prairie Mayor Pam Fogarty gets it.

She got it even before Dave Glover, host of the Dave Glover Show on 97.1 FM, moved to her small city near O'Fallon and Lake Saint Louis.

"He would talk about Dardenne Prairie on his radio show," she said. "That piqued our interest because not a lot of people knew about us."

Plenty of St. Charles County residents call themselves Dave Glover fans who get it.

Between 100,000 and 250,000 people in the St. Louis area tune into the show 4-7 p.m. every day expect Sunday to listen to the Dardenne Prairie resident and his crew of Tom Terbrock, Rick Sanborn and producer Becca Mathiesen. Of those listeners, the highest concentration lives in St. Charles County, Mathiesen said.

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When Glover takes calls during the show, it's not unusual for a caller to tell Glover he gets it.

The phrase was coined two weeks after the show first aired on Oct. 16, 2000. Glover read a Web forum that flamed his show.

He took the criticism personally and ranted on-air about his humor and how some people just don't get it.

"I've always had a weird sense of humor," he said, while explaining the phrase's origins earlier this month. "I wouldn't call our humor obvious."

The next caller told Glover, "I get it," at the beginning of the call. Glover said he responded, "Thanks, man," and they moved on with the conversation. "Then the next person said it, and the next person said it, and 10 years later we have a T-shirt."

Happy hour

This month marks the start of the show's 10th year. It's the longest running afternoon show in the St. Louis market, to which the show was broadcasting Glover's unique brand of humor long before 97.1 FM Talk became known as the area's conservative talk radio station. Glover, however, said his show is not political.

Glover described his listeners as smart people - doctors, lawyers and accountants - who catch his show on the drive home from work. Listening to the show is like listening to a group of people during happy hour, he said.

"It's about smart people being stupid," he said while sitting in an office chair outside the studio.

For the past three years, Arbitron Radio Market Rankings has listed Glover's show as St. Louis' No. 1 afternoon radio show with listeners ranging in age from 18 into the 50s. Even before that, the show reached the No. 1 ranking in St. Charles and Jefferson counties, Glover said.

Terbrock said Glover's ability to simultaneously be smart and silly is what makes the show so successful.

"He can be an immense brain and he can be a stooge, and that's what makes it work because it's coming from a smart dude," he said.

Glover credits the show's success to his honesty and ability to find humor in the mundane activities in life, like going to a pumpkin patch.

"Everyone is funny, everyone is silly, and everyone does stupid things; to pretend we don't is silly in itself," he said.

The Natural

Most people who listen to the show know some things about Glover without having met him because he routinely tells funny stories from his life.

He got into law school on a bet in a bar. He moved to Dardenne Prairie about three years ago with his wife, Maureen, and their two children.

He used to have his own Wikipedia page, but somebody said he wasn't famous enough to keep it. He plays in a band, but didn't play in his high school's band. He's best friends with Rams' quarterback Marc Bulger, and donates his own money to local charities.

Listeners also know Glover has no formal radio training.

"I simply do the type of show I would like to hear," he said.

Glover has a law degree from Washington University. He got his radio start on the Steve & DC morning show, doing law advice segments.

"It's the American Dream," Glover said of how he landed his gig.

He was in the station to settle some advertising bills when he walked by the conference room where producers were trying to figure out what to do for the station's new afternoon show.

As Glover walked past the glass windows, he said, he either flipped them "the bird" or mooned them and walked off. He couldn't recall which. But one guy came running after him and asked if he wanted his own show.

After Glover was selected for the show, Terbrock, then a producer for the station, learned Glover had no radio experience. Terbrock said his first thought was, "Oh my God, what are we going to do?"

"But he turned out to be the... quickest, most brilliant person I've ever produced or been on the air with," he said.

Glover's lack of experience worked to his advantage, Terbrock said.

"It's kind of good he didn't have radio training, because some of the radio stuff from back in the day is still used, but it's not as needed and he's proving that," he said.

'The Duke'

Fogarty described Glover as a "regular guy" who is true to himself.

"The show is not a bunch of fake stuff to get publicity or to make the show go better," she said. "He doesn't color things up... he says things like it is."

Glover was the first person who came to Fogarty's mind while she was brainstorming with fellow St. Charles County Salvation Army board members on whom to select as an inspirational speaker for this year's Tree of Lights campaign kick-off event in November.

"What makes it inspirational is he talks from his heart when he gives a speech," she said.

Fogarty and Dardenne Prairie aldermen were so impressed with Glover's impact on their community that they christened him the "Duke of Dardenne Prairie."

"There are a lot of people who have come up to me and said, 'Mayor, I heard you on his show. I heard about Dardenne Prairie on his show,'" she said. "When you get that kind of publicity, it's really priceless."

She also sees him fast becoming a "mover and shaker" in St. Charles County because of his charity work in the community including for Habitat for Humanity, the Salvation Army and Phoebe's Fund.

"You'll not think of Dave as the Dave Glover radio show host," she said. "You're going to think, 'I'm going to go to Dave Glover because he's given his time back to the county.'"