Rutland Radio: 40-Year Vet Terry Jaye Airs Final Show

Terry Jaye

After more than 40 years on Vermont radio stations, Terry Jaye is signing off today … although he expects he will not be gone forever, according to The Rutland Herald.

Terry Jarrosak, 66, who has been an on-air personality for WJJR 98.1 FM, is planning to broadcast his last regular show today. On Thursday, he explained a life in radio provided a connection to the community, which adopted him as part of their morning.

“For me, it was never about, ‘Hey, let’s play another great song.’ I mean, I’m going to play these songs over and over and over again. It wasn’t about playing the next great hit song. It was about what happens between the songs. Having fun with the public, doing stuff that meant something,” he said.

Jarrosak is from the Rutland area and went to school in West Rutland, where he worked on PEG-TV while a high school sophomore, and Dean College in Franklin, Massachusetts, where he majored in theater, before going to Castleton State College where he majored in communications.

He recalled that Bob Gershon, now a professor emeritus, who taught communications for 40 years, had convinced him to come back to the college where Jarrosak went on to teach classes on radio and television for 20 years. He added that a number of the students from those classes went on to work in radio and broadcasting.

Jarrosak, who said he adopted the on-air name “Terry Jaye” early in his career, which started in 1978 in

Bennington at WHTC-FM.

“It was a brand-new FM station. As a matter of fact, no one listened to FM. Everyone listened to AM back in those days. FM was the new thing. AM was where you wanted to be, so they stuck me on the FM station,” he said.

He went on to WSYB 1380-AM and 100.1-FM, around 1979 and realized that’s where he wanted to be.

He noted a number of “great mentors” including Jack Healey; Bob Bascomb; Alex Dunn; Brian Collamore, who is now a state senator representing Rutland County; Ralph Smith and Dick Noble, who had been the station manager.

Nanci Gordon, who had been Jarrosak’s on-air partner for almost 20 years, said she remembers that she and Jarrosak were known in the community as “Mr. and Mrs. Rutland.”

“The first morning show we did together was March 4, 1991. It was the bicentennial of the state of Vermont, which is why I remember it so vividly. At the end of the show, he closed the show, saying, ‘Freedom and unity forever.’ And I remember thinking, ‘This is gonna be good. We’re going to work well together.’ And, indeed, within two months, I felt like we had been working together for years,” she said.