We’re a close-knit family at WETS-FM/HD, and we tend to stay with the station a long time. With a staff of only ten full time and three part time employees, our combined experience at the station is over 225 years. So it’s not only difficult to say goodbye to a colleague – it’s very rare!

At the end of June, we said goodbye to Executive Aide Sandy Trivett. With only five years at WETS, Sandy was still “the new person” on the staff. But she made a big difference while she was here.

The title “Executive Aide” doesn’t begin to describe Sandy’s job. She served as the station’s receptionist – if you visited or called, she was likely the first person you talked to. She kept the paperwork flowing – a big job in any office. She played a vital role in keeping track of underwriting and served as my right-hand-person in a number of areas. For Sandy, fundraisers were a year-round affair: planning the drive, preparing the pre-drive mailings, serving as hostess for the volunteers who answered phones during the drive, processing checks that arrived daily, and keeping track of the pledges as they were paid – meanwhile, beginning the process all over again for the next drive.

Sandy helped shepherd the station through a difficult format change in February 2010. She was the key person handling the complicated grant process that resulted in WETS adding three new digital channels in October 2011. She guided staff and volunteers through the changeover from pencil and paper to computers in tallying pledges during fundraisers. And she performed a thousand other tasks, large and small, that not only kept WETS going, but made it a wonderful place to work.

Sandy will be enjoying a well-deserved “retirement”- actually, she’s going to be concentrating on her family’s business, so she’ll probably be working harder than ever! Taking her place at the front desk will be Tara Moss, formerly of the ETSU Bursar’s Office. (Guess who handled the complex procedures and paperwork to hire Tara.) Tara will have some figuratively big shoes to fill, but she’s off to a good start. As I write this, Sandy is back at the front desk, showing Tara the ins and outs of running this radio station. Sandy has promised to be available to help Tara make the transition, and we’re all relieved to know that, until Tara gets acclimated to WETS, help is just a phone call away.

We welcome Tara to the WETS family, and we’re confident that she will make her own mark on the station, just as Sandy did, and just as Sandy’s predecessor Judy Harwood did. And we bid farewell to Sandy Trivett – thanks for everything, and we wish you all the best.