A former seventh-grade English teacher, a student who became a broadcaster and pastor, two cancer battles, and an unexpected wedding offer a powerful reminder of what radio was always supposed to be about.
After spending much of my life behind a microphone, I’ve come to understand something about broadcasting that no ratings report, programming seminar, or corporate strategy meeting can adequately explain. We spend an extraordinary amount of time measuring how many people hear us, but nowhere near enough time considering how many people we actually reach. Those are two entirely different things, and this weekend, a woman who taught me seventh-grade English is about to remind me why that distinction matters.
Her name is Shelly Evans, and she is getting married to a wonderful man named Craig Peter. Shelly is now an instructional coach in the Kansas City, Kansas, school district, and Craig works in a high-tech laboratory doing something that I am reasonably certain requires a level of intelligence I do not possess. I don’t know exactly what he does, but I suspect if I walked into his laboratory, somebody would immediately ask me not to touch anything.
And somehow, these two have decided that I should be the person officiating their wedding.
That’s right. The woman who once graded my English assignments is about to stand before me while I give her instructions.
I have been waiting decades for this kind of authority.
Shelly, if you’re reading this, please understand that I fully intend to take advantage of the situation. There may be a pop quiz. There may be a grammar inspection. And for the first time in our relationship, I get to determine whether your answer is acceptable.
Craig, my friend, you’re marrying an English teacher. I strongly recommend learning the difference between “your” and “you’re” before the honeymoon.
But behind the laughter is a story that has become deeply personal.
Shelly was never simply a teacher I happened to remember. She became someone who remained part of my life long after I left her classroom. She watched me grow, watched my career take shape, and stood beside me during some of the most difficult experiences I’ve ever faced.
Even when life was difficult for her, she found room to care about what was happening to me.
We even battled colon cancer during roughly the same period of our lives.
Imagine that for a moment. A teacher and a former student, years removed from their classroom connection, suddenly sharing an experience neither would have wished upon the other. We knew what it meant to hear frightening medical news, to confront uncertainty, and to wonder what the future might hold.
We both survived.
And now, years later, I get to stand before that same woman and pronounce her married to the man she loves.
There is something extraordinary about that.
But there is also a lesson here for an industry I have loved for most of my life.
Radio Has Become Very Good at Counting People
We count listeners, impressions, streams, downloads, shares, followers, and engagement. We analyze audience behavior, evaluate performance, and spend countless hours trying to understand how to keep people connected to our brands.
Those things matter. I’ve spent enough time in programming offices and corporate meetings to understand their importance.
But here’s the question I wish every broadcaster, executive, programmer, consultant, and air personality would ask:
Are we building audiences, or are we building relationships?
Because an audience can disappear when the format changes.
A relationship can survive decades.
Shelly didn’t know that the seventh-grade student sitting in her classroom would eventually become a radio programmer, a broadcaster, a pastor, and a man facing multiple life-threatening illnesses.
She didn’t know that we would both battle cancer.
And she certainly didn’t know that one day I would stand before her, Bible in hand, and help begin a new chapter of her life.
She simply invested in another human being.
And that investment never stopped paying dividends.
That’s what great radio used to understand instinctively.
The best personalities weren’t simply voices delivering content between records. They became familiar companions. They celebrated birthdays, mourned losses, raised money for neighbors, showed up at community events, and made listeners feel as though somebody on the other side of the speaker genuinely cared.
The microphone wasn’t the relationship.
It was the doorway.
The Industry Needs to Remember Who Is Listening
Over recent months, my own life has taken a direction I never anticipated. After surviving Hodgkin’s lymphoma and colon cancer, I am now living with end-stage kidney failure, undergoing dialysis, and searching for an exceptionally rare compatible kidney donor.
Years of cancer treatment helped bring me to this point, and the medical challenges have become increasingly serious.
My search has taken me onto radio programs, television broadcasts, podcasts, and social media platforms across the country. I’ve had extraordinary conversations with broadcasters who have used their platforms to tell my story, encourage potential donors to come forward, and remind their audiences that someone they may never meet is fighting for another chance at life.
I’ve also been reminded how difficult it can be to get a human story heard in an industry overwhelmed by competing priorities.
And that has caused me to think differently about the responsibility we carry.
Somewhere in every radio audience is someone waiting for medical test results.
Someone who has just lost a parent.
Someone whose marriage is falling apart.
Someone celebrating the birth of a child.
Someone who feels forgotten.
Someone who desperately needs to know that another human being sees them.
We may never know their names.
But we can decide whether our stations treat them as demographic categories or as people.
The future of radio cannot be built exclusively around technology, consolidation, artificial intelligence, or more efficient content delivery. It must also be built around human connection.
Because technology can distribute a voice.
It cannot, by itself, make that voice matter.
Sometimes the Greatest Broadcast Happens Without a Microphone
This weekend, I won’t be standing in front of Shelly and Craig as a radio programmer, publisher, or someone trying to persuade a national audience to help find a kidney donor.
I’ll be standing there as a former seventh-grade student who never forgot the woman who helped shape his life.
And I suspect there will be laughter.
Quite a bit of it, actually.
I’m planning to remind Shelly that after all these years, the student has finally become the one giving the instructions. I’m also planning to warn Craig that a man who works in a laboratory should understand that there is no scientifically proven method for winning an argument with an English teacher.
But somewhere between the laughter and the wedding vows, I expect there will be a moment when the significance of the occasion becomes almost overwhelming.
Two people who survived cancer during the same period of their lives.
A teacher who continued caring long after her student left the classroom.
A former student who now has the privilege of officiating her wedding.
And a pastor who, while facing his own uncertain medical future, gets to celebrate the beautiful future beginning for someone he loves.
I don’t know what tomorrow holds for me. I know the search for a compatible kidney remains difficult, and I know that every additional day brings both challenges and possibilities.
But I also know that this weekend matters.
And I refuse to let the uncertainty of tomorrow steal the joy of today.
Here’s the Lesson for Radio
To every broadcaster reading this, I hope you’ll remember something the next time you sit behind a microphone.
The person listening may not remember every song you played, every contest you conducted, or every clever thing you said.
But they may remember how you made them feel.
They may remember the day you showed up.
They may remember when you cared.
And decades from now, when your ratings books have been forgotten, your station’s call letters have changed, and the industry has reinvented itself another dozen times, those relationships may still be alive.
Shelly Evans taught me English in seventh grade.
What she probably didn’t realize was that she was also teaching me something about the value of people.
And after all these years in broadcasting, I’m still learning that lesson.
So this weekend, I’m going to put aside the medical worries, the unanswered emails, the constant donor search, and the pressures of everyday life long enough to celebrate a woman who deserves every bit of happiness coming her way.
I’m going to stand before Shelly and Craig, share some laughter, probably shed a tear or two, and do my very best to give them a wedding ceremony they’ll never forget.
And when I finally pronounce them husband and wife, I’ll be reminded of something I wish our industry would never forget.
The most important thing we will ever build isn’t an audience.
It’s a connection that survives long after the microphone is turned off.
And Shelly, if you’re reading this, I have one final request.
After all these years, please give me an A.
I’ve worked entirely too hard on this assignment to fail now.
Rev. Dr. Steven Mills is the founder and publisher of On The Dial and senior pastor of First Baptist Church in Garden City, Kansas. A longtime broadcaster and two-time cancer survivor, he is currently undergoing dialysis while searching for a compatible living kidney donor. Information about his journey and living donor evaluation is available at https://FindMyOne.org and through the HCA Midwest Health Living Donor Program at https://www.hcamidwest.com/patient-resources/living-donor-program.