On The Air

Lin Brehmer
On-Air: Monday – Friday 5:30-10am
Host: Lin’s Bin
Nothing much survives from Brehmer’s high school years except rumor and innuendo. He distinguished himself as the starting pitcher for the varsity baseball team from 1969 to 1972. He also spent winters in a Kelly-green Speedo as a member of the McBurney swim team. All pictures were destroyed by the government… [More]

Mary Dixon
On-Air: Monday-Friday: 6:00am-9:00am
Morning News
Mary Dixon is a Chicago native who had to take the long way home. Not long after her birth at Loretto Hospital on the West Side, Mary’s parents packed the family up for their ancestral home of Dixon, Illinois. It was there that she quit a career as a very bad waitress to begin spinning records and reading hog reports for WIXN Radio. [More]

Terri Hemmert
On-Air: Monday – Friday: 10am-1pm
Host: Breakfast with the Beatles
Morning News
Our Radio Hall of Famer has been at WXRT for over 30 years. Starting as overnight announcer and Public Affairs Director in 1973, Terri became the first female morning drive personality in Chicago in 1981. [More]

Frank E. Lee
On-Air: Monday – Friday: 1-5pm
Host: Vinyl Frontier, Sunday Night Concert
Frank E. Lee was born and raised on the south side of Chicago.
His education in the Chicago Southwest Christian School system left him ill-prepared for a career as a rock superstar, so he turned to the radio.
[More]

Jason Thomas
On-Air: Monday – Friday: 5-9pm
Host: XRT’s Eleventh Hour
Jason began his radio career at one of the country’s foremost modern rock stations, Live 105 (KITS) in San Francisco. OK, so his first job was answering the request line, tallying up the day’s requests for a nightly feature called, “Most Wanted,” but he was soon wowing the insomniacs of the Bay Area.[More]

Tom Marker
On-Air: Monday, Tuesday: 4-9pm / Wednesday – Friday: 9pm-12am
Host: Blues Breakers
At ‘XRT we still hear from people who tell us they’ve been listening since we were a part-time, underground station. Tom says he’s been listening longer than that. His first personal contact with ‘XRT was when he met John Platt. He invited Tom to visit him while on the air at WGLD, a one-time progressive rock station based in Oak Park. Tom thought, “cool job.” [More]

Marty Lennartz
On-Air: Monday, Tuesday: 9pm-Midnight
Host: The Big Beat
Marty Lennartz claims that his most irrational act, quitting a full-time job to intern at WXRT, was also his best move, as he officially joined the staff in 1981 as producer for Terri Hemmert’s morning show. Since 1986 Marty has been hosting the overnight program, and he also can be heard on weekend afternoons. [More]

Marc Alghini
On-Air: Overnights, Weekends
Morning Show Producer
At the age of thirteen, Marc convinced WMXM, the college radio station in Lake Forest, to let him do a radio show. While there, he educated himself on the cutting-edge music of the early and mid 1980′s. After sneaking into Tut’s (now a tanning salon at Belmont and Sheffield) to see one of Mission of Burma’s last Chicago shows… [More]

Richard Milne
On-Air: Sundays 3pm-8pm
Host: Local Anesthetic
A graduate of the acclaimed Radio/Television department of Southern Illinois University-Carbondale, Richard Milne has been a weekend and fill-in air personality with WXRT since July, 1986. In 1991 he created Chicago commercial radios longest running local music show, Local Anesthetic. [More]

Wendy Rice
On-Air: Saturdays 8am-Noon
Host: Saturday Morning Flashback
Wendy Rice’s first personal encounter with radio was in her hometown of Champaign, Illinois where she wrote and produced a weekly fifteen minute segment on high school news for a local radio station. She was seventeen years old and hasn’t strayed from the microphone since. [More]

Johnny Mars
On-Air: Fridays 8pm-midnight, Weekends
Johnny Mars was born and raised on the west and northwest sides of Chicago. After putting his right hand through a plate-glass window playing sports, he decided to pursue what he considered a less aggressive hobby: music. He found out later that the music he most loved was often aggressive. With every dime he could beg, borrow or steal from his folks he bought records. It was the beginning of a joyous routine that continues to this day…except for the stealing part. [More]

Ken Sumka
On-Air: Overnights & Weekends
Ken has radio in the blood. He was worked on-air in one capacity or another for over twenty-five years. His humble beginning was at 10-watt WGHS 88.5, a station located on the 7th floor of Glenbard West High School, where he first heard and spun the likes of R.E.M., The Smiths, The Replacements and Joy Division in the early 1980’s. He enrolled at the University of Iowa and before even unpacking… [More]

Bill Artlip
On-Air: Overnights & Weekends
Bill Artlip started at XRT as a music programming intern in 1994. He has performed numerous jobs at the station since, which have included being the programming assistant, part of the production staff, Lin’s morning show producer and a weekend DJ. A long time fan of XRT, he grew up in the suburb of Bristol listening to 93.1FM and going to as many XRT shows as he could afford. [More]

Leslie Witt
On-Air: Saturdays: 5:00-8:00am
Born in Chicago, I moved away and came back three times, so this must be the place for me. I’ve always loved music and radio, be it big band jazz on my dad’s solid state RCA, Top-40 AM on a transistor, FM rock on enormous stereo equipment, or podcasts on iPods. ’ve spent untold amounts of cash on concert tickets, fanzines, 45’s, LP’s, CDs, downloads and audio gear. [More]

Barry Winograd
On-Air: Sundays: 11pm-1am
Host: Jazz Transfusion
Barry began his tenure at WXRT in the Fall of 1986. His most memorable moment at XRT was meeting Bill Bruford and so many fine listeners at all our events. His most memorable concerts include Santana (4th of July), The Rolling Stones (Soldier Field), The Headhunters, Frank Zappa with John McLaughlin, Duke Ellington. What are your most memorable interviews? Bill Bruford, Chick Corea, Paul Wertico. [More]

Liz Rush
On-Air: Sundays: 5:30-8am
Liz Rush started out her radio career working overnights and weekends at WPGU-FM in Champaign, IL. Eventually, that college radio opportunity made way to the greatest internship a girl could ask for — an internship at XRT. In late 2010 she became the newest member of the XRT air staff, happily taking back those late night and early morning shifts she started with in Champaign. [More]

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