There are moments in Dave Sparks’ radio career that he will never forget. Or miss.
“I remember one time that summer, there were huge rainstorms that hit Manhattan,” said Sparks, the new coordinator of media relations at Emporia State University. Sparks started working in the business as a student at Kansas State University in the 1970s.
“There’s a few streets in Manhattan that collect all the storm water and the guy who was the news director put me in the station van to go out to the flooded areas,” he said.
“I still remember driving north of Aggieville, feeling the van sort of floating and thinking, ‘Yeah, maybe this wasn’t the smartest thing I’ve ever done.’”
Things are a little drier for Sparks these days. About 13 years ago, he went off the air and into the schools as a public relations officer. This semester, he’s one of the newest faces at Emporia State University, working as ESU’s new coordinator of media relations.
“I like the fact that I can help people’s education, and present it as an opportunity for people that might not be thinking about a change,” said Sparks. “It’s kind of fun — even on a hard day.”
Sparks grew up in the western Kansas town of Minneola, just south of Dodge City. He discovered a love of writing at Minneola High School and soon went on the school paper.
“The high school I attended had about 23 people in the graduating class, so everyone did something,” he said. “I didn’t play sports, but I did journalism.”
As a college student, Sparks started out as a print journalism major. Then a friend at KSU from the broadcast side asked him to take a look at radio. Just a thought.
He loved it. Even if it did mean the occasional downpour.
“At that time, I guess it would have been the immediacy, the fact that you could witness a fire, pick up the telephone and be on the air in a couple of minutes with the story,” Sparks said. “You learn how to paint a picture with words. We didn’t have the ability to shoot video or pictures, so you had to craft your words just right so the listener could get the picture in his or her head.”
From 1977 to 1981, he was news director for a station in Manhattan. Then, on a visit home to help his folks cut wheat, he dropped in on a friend at a Dodge City radio station. The friend wasn’t there so Sparks left a note.
The friend called later with a short message: “Come work for me.”
He did just that until 1993. Around that time, a job opened up as the public relations director for the Dodge City school district. With two school-age daughters, the job had its appeal — especially since it had more regular hours and a more focused beat.
“I thought ‘This sounds interesting. It’d be fun to focus on one particular area, instead of doing the city commission AND the county commission AND the school board AND the courts,’” Sparks said. “And I always enjoyed the feeling that, in some way, what I was doing was helping kids learn or making education available to them.”
He eventually moved on from the school district to Dodge City Community College, doing the same kind of work at a different level. But when the Emporia job came open this year, it proved tempting. Especially after he did the math.
“One daughter is in pharmacy school at Kansas City and the other is a music education major at Southwestern College in Winfield,” Sparks said. “Dodge City to Lenexa is five hours. Dodge City to Winfield is three and a half. Emporia, as they say, is in the center of it all.”
And since a university has more people to call on than a community college, Sparks doesn’t have to be on the run quite so much — except maybe for fun. He’s always enjoyed running, though his long-distance days when he ran three marathons and two half-marathons are probably behind him.
“My knees won’t let me do that anymore,” he said, smiling.
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