December 8th, 1980 was one of those horrible days in life when you'll always remember exactly where you were and what you were doing. It was one such day for me at WBTY.

I was at the station late on that Monday night, finishing up a commercial for play the next day along with some things for my Morning Show. Our Morning news anchor had just left and I was listening to the Georgia Network in the production room when abruptly, they stopped what they were sending down the line and sent an urgent news bulletin that John Lennon had been shot in New York. I stopped what I was doing and turned up the feed and it became a steady stream of news of Lennon and nothing else. My heart skipped a beat with the news and the thought of losing a Beatle.

Later in the evening, the news became official. John Lennon, 40, was dead. I recall having this surreal, numb feeling with the loss of one of the most talented musicians in history. I also felt very disconnected considering the very remote location I was in. There was no TV to watch the news reports from New York. The station signed off at Midnight so there was no breaking the news to our listeners.

We were playing John Lennon’s current hit song “(Just Like) Starting Over Again”. The song has a false ending before it starts again to the actual fading end. Georgia Network ran 2 minute news capsules twice an hour, which by now, was all Lennon news. We inserted those news briefs at the pause at the end of the song.

The next morning, I scheduled “Starting Over” once an hour until further notice.

Word came to me that the owners were wondering why there was such a fuss about John Lennon. If I felt disconnected before, I now felt like I was on another planet. John Lennon just wasn’t that important in this small country town to some people. If words could be put to the scenario it would be “move along, there’s nothing to see here.”

It was a big deal to me and a lot of other people to lose a Beatle. They were a group that I had known and loved from the very beginning as a 7 year old in the Spring of 1964. Now, there would be no more Lennon music, no possibility of a Beatles reunion and I felt like I was on the moon looking at planet earth.

John Lennon has now been gone longer than he lived, but his music will live forever.