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1 al e r 2 r c e 20 ne len inn e l G ce W x d E ar w A
Vol 43 • No. 3
www.theactiveage.com Kansas’ Largest Newspaper
February 2022
Radio active
Phil Thompson spins tales of four-decade broadcasting career
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The Active Age Growing up in the era of peace and love in the 1960s, Phil Thompson was certain of his future. “I wanted to be a DJ, a hippie or a rock star. Or a DJ hippie or a rock star hippie.” Given that he had no musical ability, hippie disc jockey it was. He’s now celebrating his 42nd anniversary of being on the airwaves in Wichita, though these days he’s more of a clean-cut DJ. “Ya gotta grow up sometime,” Thompson said. Thompson is the morning host on KFXJ, 104.5-FM, where on Vinyl Thursdays he literally spins records like he did decades earlier. The Wichita native started practicing for his career as a child.
Phil Thompson “My mom bought me a cassette recorder so I could, like, do fake commercials,” he said. “I loved to mimic stuff.” He perfected an English accent through repeating a commercial for
Vidal Sassoon shampoo. Thompson still can recite the entire commercial. Before he was on air for real, Thompson and a friend, Rusty Johnson, had a fake radio station in high school with slightly off-color call letters. When he was 18, he befriended a guy who was DJing at the Mine Shaft, a club on South Meridian. “It was a slow night at the club, so he showed me how everything worked.” A year later, Thompson was at Star Baby Disco at 47th and Broadway when the same DJ asked him to fill in during a break. When the DJ started started a new club, Thompson took his old job. After a year doing landscape labor in Arizona, Thompson returned to Wichita and worked clubs like Doc Dusic’s Disco Therapy Clinic on South Broadway, where the cocktail
Valentine's Day gifts
Will this year see progress on senior bills?
By Joe Stumpe TOPEKA — Organizations that represent older Kansans have released their lists of legislative priorities for 2022. The fact that practically all of the goals have been on the same lists in years past isn’t lost on the groups’ members. “Nobody listens to us,” said Donna Lehane, a member of the Silver Haired Legislature from Wichita. The Silver Haired Legislature, comprised of 125 members from across the state was created by the Kansas Legislature in 1982 for the purpose of identifying issues important to residents 60 years and older and educating lawmakers about those issues. The SHL, AARP Kansas and Kansas Advocates for Better See Radio, page 8 See Seniors, page 7
Deputy chief trades badge for books
Wanda Parker-Givens was inspired to become a police officer by meeting two African American female police officers as a freshman at South High.
Questions about services?
Central Plains Area Agency on Aging/Sedgwick County Department on Aging: 1-855-200-2372
By Amy Geiszler-Jones When Wanda Parker-Givens retired last month from her 34year career with the Wichita Police Department, she already had a plan for a second career. This fall, she’ll start on a doctorate in educational leadership at Wichita State University. “I think I’m going to teach,” Parker-Givens said. “I always wanted to go back to school. I (don’t) want to just be known as a police officer.” Growing up in Wichita in the 1970s, the athletic Parker-Givens didn’t envision herself as a police officer. That is until one afternoon during her freshman year at Wichita South, when she saw something that still isn’t a frequent sight in Wichita. See Deputy, page 10
Butler County: (316) 775-0500 or 1-800-279-3655 Harvey County: (316) 284-6880 or 1-800-279-3655