Saginaw Radio: Barbara Sheltraw Signs-Off At WKCQ-FM

Barbara Sheltraw wraps a 45-year career

WKCQ-FM radio personality Barbara Sheltraw signed- off for the last time Monday capping off a 45-year career working for the Saginaw-based station, reports MLive.com.

“I know I’m going to miss it so much,” Sheltraw said of her final day on the job.”

Sheltraw, 68, sometimes struggles to remember how long ago she began working at the station. “I’ll usually say, ‘five years,’ because it goes by so fast,” the Saginaw Township woman said. “The years never dragged by.”

Sheltraw was working at a downtown Saginaw department store, Morley Bros., in 1978 when her interaction with a customer inspired that patron to offer Sheltraw another job. That patron was Carolyn Ann MacDonald, whose family still owns WKCQ-FM.

Sheltraw began as a desk clerk at the radio station and eventually joined the marketing team. Her on-air personality work began about 25 years ago.

“Before that, I was doing everything that wasn’t on the air,” she said. “It seemed, almost by osmosis that, when the morning show co-host quit, they asked me, ‘You talk a lot: Have you ever considered being on the radio?’”

Sheltraw’s legacy includes helping coordinate and build the annual KCQ Country Music Fest hosted on Saginaw’s Ojibway Island from 1992 to 2017. At its height, the summertime event attracted almost 100,000 attendees.

Sheltraw said she will miss her co-workers at the radio station, including owner Kenneth MacDonald Jr., the owner who she considers a mentor. She calls him “Mac.”