WHERE'S CHARLIE HODGE?: HEY' I'M THE NEW GUY

Hello, my name is Michael Wells. You probably already knew that if you read the by-line. I am originally from Mayfield, Ky., but for the past six and a half years I mainly lived in Murray, Ky.

My wife's name is Tonya and we have been married since Nov. 24, 1995. We met at Murray State University, from where we both hold degrees. She is from Wardell, Mo.

My wife graduated this May from Murray State with a degree in Electronic Journalism and she did so with honors. I graduated with my bachelor's degree in Radio/TV and Organizational Communication in May of 1994. I received my Master's in Journalism from Murray State in December of 1995.

Here's a little on why I got my Master's. I couldn't find a job that paid more than $5 an hour in my chosen field of TV or Radio. The Journalism Department at MSU offered me an Assistantship if I would come back to the Master's program. Facing a life of low wage jobs, I decided to consider the Master's program. I wanted a different Master's, but no one else offered me money to do it.

I took the money and entered the Journalism program. I did have a lot of fun in the Master's program. I wrote for the MSU Sports Information office. I got to fulfill a life long dream by doing play-by-play at six 'Breds baseball games. (Actually, the dream was after I had played 25 years with the Cincinatti Reds and had amassed every batting and pitching record that was imaginable, I would retire and the organization would get me a cozy job doing play-by-play)

Anyway, it was fun. And instead of commercial breaks, I played Elvis songs. I also got to realize another dream, I got to be the P.A. announcer at a couple of games. (Pinch hitting for Pedro Borbon...Manny Mota...Mota)

Anyway, back to the short biographical info.

On March 24, 1995 at 11:11 p.m. in the Omni CNN Center in Atlanta, Ga. I asked Tonya to marry me. She said yes. It was time to let the world know, and it was time for me to lose my minimum wage midnight shift security guard job and assistantship and find some real employment.

I got a job taking portraits at a national chain department store. Let me do you all a favor, stay away from any job that requires you to make a fool out of yourself in front of many to make a misbehaved, illmannered little brat smile. As a matter of fact, I would always ask if such responsibilities could ever possibly be asked of me at any job interview in the future.

Another problem with this job (to add insult to injury) was they didn't pay me. So, I in a sense formed my own union and told the head honcho that I wasn't going to work another second until I received all of my back pay and expense checks.

The big man in charge kept telling me that the check had already been sent to my home. I told him, "as soon as I see it, cash it, and put it into my bank, I'd come back to work."

I really didn't want to ever come back to that job. So during my strike, I decided not to pickett and instead I went looking for other employment. And if ever the stars were aligned for a person they were aligned that fateful day last July. I had two newspapers and a TV station wanting to interview me. An old friend also called and asked me to come back to work for him building trusses until I could find something else. What a lucky day. I immediately called the portrait people and told them how much I regretted leaving, but a paycheck, in my book, should be standard equipment and not in the options package.

Of course, I may just be out to lunch on that whole paycheck thing. Oh well, call me a rebel, I thought there was some kind of law that abolished slavery.

I did finally receive all of my money from that company, and as I suspected the checks were post marked the day after I went on strike.

Okay back to the story at hand. I worked for the truss building place for a month, until I was hired by a newspaper in Benton, Ky. Someday, I will tell you the struggles of TV boy in the land of newspapers, but for now I'll just give you a morsel of the trouble I went through. First off newspapers use still cameras and they don't use videotape, and for the life of me, I never found where they kept the microphones at that newspaper.

And to end this mindless babble, I sum up with I worked for that other newspaper for nine and a half months and I took the job here and hope to do a good job and hope that I can find plenty of interesting stories for you to read about. I'll also try to catch you up on me, so that someday I can write a column that is topical and not just the boring life and times of a writer from Mayberry (that's the codename for Mayfield).

And hopefully someday, I'll have the opportunity to explain the title of this column. Anybody out there know where Charlie Hodge is?

Michael Wells is the new editor of the Jackson USA Signal.