[July 05, 2011] Farmington radio intern has a voice that carries Tweet FARMINGTON, Jul 05, 2011 (The Daily Times - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- She's only an intern, but she mans the microphone like a professional. "What do you want to hear?" shouts Sarah Dinning, a summer intern at a local adult contemporary radio station. She calls out from a small backroom lined with stacks of CDs and decorated by a Krispy Kreme cap and a photo of a has-been rock band. She rotates in a swivel chair, checking on song requests, tapping a myriad of buttons, and making sure the burrito man who comes around on Thursdays is in position to go on air in three, two, one ... "You're listening to 94.9 KWYK," she says in a sweet tone, with a subtle sass, waking up thousands of listeners in the Four Corners. It wasn't more than a few weeks ago that Dinning, a Piedra Vista High School graduate, didn't know her music trivia, much less did how to record, produce, write and advertise on the radio. Now she can do it all. "She didn't even know who Prince was," said Nolan Crowell, the station's Thursday morning "burrito man." But Dinning, a journalism and mass communications major at the University of New Mexico, has made up for what she didn't know before, her coworkers said. In fact, as the first ever intern for the KWYK Morning Show with Dana, she's carrying on a significant legacy -- that of a live disc jockey. Since the mid 1990s, radio deregulation has threatened the jobs of live disc jockeys, also known as DJs. When corporations buy out locally owned stations, they often replace disk jockeys with automated processes to save money. Farmington still has several stations with live DJs, including 94.9 KWYK, which is family owned. "Running the show is so cool," said Dinning, a fresh face in a vintage industry. "I'm hoping she wants to do it the old way because the old way is fun," said Dana Childs, her mentor and the prime host of the morning show. The "old way" is the way of the disc jockey, spinning around to navigate the dials and sprinting back to the microphone seconds before the signals hit the air. It's choosing each song by hand, taking requests from local listeners and inserting regional news in between. The "new way," on the other hand, is leaving all that to a machine, a machine sometimes crosscountry from the listeners. "Local communities suffer because there are no more live DJs anymore," Childs said. She's made a few goofs, Dinning admitted, but it's all part of the process of developing her personality and voice. Voice is not something that all youth have the opportunity to share, she said, so she takes any chance to take over the air waves. "You just have to be willing to embarrass yourself," she said. Jenny Kane: [email protected] To see more of The Daily Times, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.daily-times.com. Copyright (c) 2011, The Daily Times, Farmington, N.M. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For more information about the content services offered by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services (MCT), visit www.mctinfoservices.com. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]