KYMN Radio, Northfield, and indeed our entire listening audience will say goodbye to a man who – for three decades – has truly been a friend we can count on. Jeff Johnson is signed off of the Morning Show today, and heading into a well deserved retirement.
Johnson has hosted the KYMN Morning Show for 16 years, assuming the role just prior to buying the radio station in 2009, but has been with the station since 1987 when he was hired by legendary KYMN personality Wayne Eddy.
“I applied for a job here, and they had just filled the position,” he said recently. “But Wayne called me at 5:30 the next morning and hired me anyway.”
Eddy became his mentor and taught him, as Johnson puts it, “everything.” Jeff has held most of the positions a radio station can offer. He’s been a DJ, a sports director, a salesman, the program director, and, at times, the handyman and custodian. He has done play-by-play for sporting events, worked remote broadcasts, and of course hosted the morning show. Along the way, he himself has been a mentor to many people, including incoming owner Rich Larson. Larson said Johnson has led by both example and instruction, and he is very grateful for the time the two have spent working together.
“There’s nothing about Jeff that’s not likable. Jeff Johnson is just a truly amiable guy, very laid back with a very live-and-let-live attitude and outlook on life. That is what has made him such a good radio guy. I’ve hardly ever seen his opinions even filter themselves into an interview because all he’s trying to do is give the people sitting across the table from him an opportunity to talk to Northfield, to talk to our listening audience. He has set the bar incredibly high.” – Rich Larson, Incoming Owner of KYMN
Johnson intends to get on his motorcycle and head south of the border in his retirement, doing his best to avoid winter for the rest of his life. He said he will be back in Northfield in the summertime, but “not until the temperature is over 75°.”
Mornings will be different in Rice and Dakota Counties without Jeff Johnson giving the weather report at 6:03, “bright and early.” But we are sure that every regular listener to this station joins each member, past and present, of the KYMN family in saying “Thank you,” to Jeff, and wishing him a happy retirement.
