December 11, 2017, Issue 580
Part Two: Route To Healing
As detailed last week, the country community’s response in the days following the Route 91 Harvest festival evolved over the ensuing weeks and months. Country radio remained and remains a hub, though survivors have increasingly taken the task of healing and building community on themselves. “The biggest thing is the strength you see from listeners who were there,” says KKGO/Los Angeles Station Manager/PD Michael Levine. “There is an instant connection and people came together so quickly. So much strength has been found through this.” Social media played a big part. “After the first week we had mostly moved away from conversation about Las Vegas on the air,” Levine says. “Bringing up a tragic event is difficult. Some people want to move on, some want to talk about it. So social media became the outlet for ongoing interaction about the festival.” Mental and emotional health expert Miles Adcox (see next story) applauds the direct connections afforded online. “Don’t wait on the counseling or mental health community to facilitate, because often support comes best peer-to-peer,” he says. “There will be instances where counseling, therapy, help from a professional are definitely called for, and I encourage and support that too.” United State: Some responses were a bit more old-school, as KFRG/Riverside PD Scott Ward recounts. “One of our contest regulars, a good guy, one of the first things he did when he got home was come down to the station and put a letter up in our lobby, which our GM approved. It basically said, if you want to talk to somebody, call me.” “That’s just one example of what we’ve seen over the past two months,” Ward continues. “There have been a lot of people coming together for fundraisers. You see them putting an arm around complete strangers.” “We see them in Vegas Strong Survivor shirts at our events,” says KCYE/Las Vegas personality Ransom Garcia. “They want to talk and we listen. They go on Facebook and make plans to get together. We have a close-knit country family.” The station has moved forward with weekly Monday and Thursday night events at Gilley’s, featured 30 days of good news on-air and (continued on page 5)
Know Question: Pearl’s Garth Brooks celebrates his No. 1 single “Ask Me How I Know” before the first of seven shows at Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena Saturday (12/9). Pictured (l-r) are songwriter Mitch Rossell, CRS’ Bill Mayne, Brooks and and Gwendolyn’s Trisha Yearwood.
Steps To Healing
Onsite CEO/Owner Miles Adcox sees the country community’s response to Route 91 in a very positive light. Adcox led a trauma discussion in Nashville the week after the tragedy, and he’s worked directly with many survivors. He’ll also be a featured speaker at CRS 2018. “I’ve been really impressed with how the Miles Adcox industry stepped up in support of the people who were lost and in support of each other,” he says. “The Nashville mental health community stepped up and the counseling MGM pulled together was a huge effort.” Going forward, Adcox says, “If I’m in a leadership role, I’m going to lead by example and talk about my experience. We can give people permission to talk about it, [not just] move on, wrap it up in a bow and say we’ve dealt with it.” Specifically, he points to three keys: connect, empathize and engage. “We all have a wide range of emotions,” he says. “Unfortunately, we don’t really honor the ones that don’t feel good. But the worst thing you can do in the grief or trauma recovery process is to disengage, disconnect, isolate, not talk about it. Every
© 2 0 1 7 Co u n t r y A i rc h e c k ™ — A l l r i g h t s r e s e r v e d . S i g n u p f re e a t w w w. c o u n t r y a i rc h e c k . c o m . S e n d n e w s t o n e w s @ c o u n t r y a i rc h e c k . c o m