Ryan Arthur

Welcome to my little corner of the internet, otherwise known as the "Radio Personality Biography." I'm Ryan, and as you may know, I am my own comic relief.

Let's start with the personal side of the coin. I generally don't like talking about myself, (after all, you could be another stalker) but here goes:

I'm originally from Arcola, where I was raised, which is about 35 miles south of Champaign-Urbana. Small town, around 2,700 people. I live in Rantoul now, though, with my wonderful wife Patti. I'm an only child (broke the mold and all that), but I don't think I was ever really spoiled or anything. My parents still live and work in Arcola, and we always head back frequently to see family and friends.

Being allergic to almost anything that's cute and/or cuddly, I have to give "props" (as the hep cats say) to the fine folks of Christie Clinic's Allergy/ENT department. They make getting injections fun! And because of them, I get to spend time with a menagerie of pets that I've adopted as my own since getting married in November of 2006 - a lineup that includes cats, dogs, and rabbits. I'd name them all, but man, that's an awfully long list. I'll just say that I've got dogs named Shep, Scooby and Kid, cats named Baloo and Colbert (pronounced Coal-bear, just like his namesake) and a rabbit named Huitch...and leave it at that. If you really want to know the rest, just send me $100, and I'll gladly tell you more.

My limited free time is spent with my wife Patti, our four-legged children and a small circle of friends that I've known for pretty much all of my life. I love movies: DVDs are my weak spot and probably my one vice, although there's still no substitute for seeing a film in the theater. My tastes are pretty varied, as far as movies go: I love films from Akira Kurosawa (Seven Samurai and Ikiru especially) and Orson Welles (not just Kane, though it's great, but Touch of Evil and F for Fake, too) to Stephen Soderbergh and Steven Spielberg (any of his older films)...to smaller films and filmmakers like Kevin Smith and Alexander Payne. But really, I'll watch anything at least once, from classic cinema to trashy low-budget horror (Peter Jackson, please return to your roots...), and enjoy the really bad movies almost as much as the really spectacular ones, if only because I'll then be able to joke about how awful they are.

As for television, I'm a fan of good dramas like Lost (what? It's still good!), Law & Order: SVU and The Sopranos, and non-traditional sitcoms such as Scrubs, Undeclared (cancelled), Freaks And Geeks (cancelled) and my beloved (alas, also cancelled) Arrested Development, which may have just been the best thing on television since it was invented.

And if you'll allow my inner nerd to shine through: I've also redeveloped a fondness for comic books; more specifically the works of writer Grant Morrison. I'm fascinated by the graphic novel medium more as an art form than anything else. My wife thinks I'm crazy. I just think Batman's cool.

My musical tastes are pretty varied, and the CD players in my Jeep and at home are probably spinning anything from Louden Wainwright III to Green Day to Stevie Wonder to Leona Lewis at any given moment. Musically, I'll give just about anything a chance.

Oh, you want more, do you? All right: I was bitten by the radio bug when I was in 7th or 8th grade. I took a tour of a local radio station here in Champaign and decided that being on the radio was what I wanted to do for a living. I took a College for Kids class in radio in 1989 at Parkland College that pretty much cemented that desire. I graduated from high school in May of 1994 and started at Parkland that fall, getting involved with the student-run station, WPCD. I was hired here at Lite Rock 97.5 WHMS in March of 1995, working weekends and overnights (usually both on the same day, actually). I graduated from Parkland in 1997, then transferred to Eastern Illinois University in Charleston, while continuing to work here part time, driving from Arcola to Charleston to Champaign three or four times a week. And that was BEFORE gas was $4 a gallon, so I can't imagine doing something like that now. I was offered a full-time position in here at the station in the spring of 1999, and I graduated from Eastern on a Sunday in May and started working here full-time the next day.

I've been here ever since, working my way up from part-timer to utility guy to afternoon drive host to (as of February of '04) Operations Manager. I can't imagine my life and career being anywhere else right now. Our listeners are fantastic, and I'm surrounded by a talented staff of great people both on and off the air, who make my job pretty exciting&and never, ever dull. Thanks for being a part of it.

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