P9
April 2012
In
the world of talk radio, where very little
figures to shock the listening audience
anymore, there is this:
A Nashville-based host who goes by the on-air
name of
Wally
and calls himself “the needle for
the Christian bubble” is graduating from GCU with
a master’s degree in leadership
and
a perfect 4.0
GPA, earned online.
Even Wally is stunned. And he can’t believe how
much he enjoyed it.
“I learned how to manage people differently,” he
says. “I’m very task-oriented, but others aren’t
necessarily that way.
“I’m using things I learned all the time now. The
people I work with catch me and say, ‘You’re just
using school on us, aren’t you?’”
Wally, 43, is the host of “The Wally Show” on
weekday mornings on WAY-FM, a network of
Christian radio stations across the country. The
5-year-old show is especially strong in Tennessee,
Colorado and Florida and popular with a wide age
demographic (25-to-54). Wally was recruited to
GCU by the Christian marketing team as part of a
national partnership agreement with the network.
He doesn’t mind sticking it to Christians. He’s
one himself, but he’s not fond of his more literal-
minded listeners.
“We were talking today on the show about movies
you said you had seen – but hadn’t – because you
wanted to sound cool,” he says, “and a guy called
and told me how lying is wrong and it’s against
what’s in the Bible.
“This guy and I would never be friends. He said, ‘I’ll
be in heaven.’ And I said, ‘If you had anything to
do with it, I wouldn’t be.’ God bless the pointy little
heads out there.”
Wally, who got his start in mainstream radio, calls
Christian talk “the hardest format I’ve ever done”
because of an audience that often doesn’t know
how to take a joke.
“Nuance means everything in this,” he says. “When
you say what you want to say and make fun of
something, it comes down to how you say what
you say.
“People (in the radio industry) respect that I’m
doing something different. They’ve heard so much
bad Christian radio that it stands out.”
An online education was something different as
well. Homework became a late-afternoon ritual
for Wally and his 13-year-old daughter, who
could see that he never made excuses for why he
couldn’t study. He says he even kept up on his class
assignments during mission trips to Africa and
Southeast Asia.
He describes adjunct faculty member
Taylor Carr
as a “phenomenal” instructor. Carr says Wally was
a model student.
“Wow, was I impressedwith his level of involvement,”
Carr says. “He seemed to already have a strong
grasp of servant leadership, so he was a leader
in class discussion. And he seemed to be making
practical use of the course concepts, which as an
instructor is exactly what we hope for.
“My impression is he’d be a good guy to work for.”
Wally,whohasabachelor’sdegree inorganizational
communication from the University of Central
Florida and wants to teach broadcasting courses
eventually, says GCU exceeded his expectations.
“You can get online schooling anywhere,” he says,
“but it comes down to customer service. GCU
wanted to keep me happy. They took what I said
seriously and acted quickly on it.
“Customer service separates GCU and makes
it different. GCU’s whole thing is, ‘How can we
be better?’”
Christian-radio host
earns his master’s
with 4.0 GPA
