Oklahoma City radio DJ retires after 26 years on KJ103
OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) — She's the voice of your morning drive, a staple in Oklahoma City radio for a quarter century.
"Janet" from KJ103 will sign off the airwaves for the last time Monday. She is retiring from radio.
Janet has been on the radio for 26 years; often a dose of real talk first thing in the morning, honest, hilarious; she is the heart and soul of the famous trio "TJ, Janet, and J-Rod."
"She's the filter of our show," TJ said. "Like we don't do anything without running it through the Janet filter because she's just got so much more of a voice of reason than we have."
"She will tell you her opinion," said J-Rod. "That's awesome because most people don't. They bottle up, and they sit on it and they stew, and she's like, she'll tell you. That's what I love the most."
These three DJs have been together since 2003, an incredible accomplishment in a fickle industry.
"It's surprising in radio for a team to be together this long. Shows are together for that long, but usually one person leaves or whatever. But for us to be together as long as we have, gosh, it's more than I ever could ask for in radio," said TJ.
KJ103 is her first and last radio job.
She will miss her partners, the concerts, the summer fest broadcasts, and she will miss the listeners.
Oklahomans have shown her love and grace for so many years.
"I think that's one of the things I really appreciate about our listeners. They have always allowed me to to say what I was going to say, even if they didn't agree with me," Janet said. "One of our listeners said recently, 'Thank you for giving me a safe place to always voice my opinion.' And I thought, I was able to give them a safe space because that's what they always gave to me."
That bond, between listener and DJ, prompted Janet to share her own health crisis publicly several years ago.
In 2018, she was diagnosed with skin cancer on her face.
Even though the treatment was temporarily disfiguring, Janet shared everything with her fans.
Many Oklahomans got their own skin cancer check-up because she was so forthcoming with her journey.
"I think that is really one of the things that made people say, 'Wow, she's just like us.' You're willing to be so open and be seen on TV with all that that's going on. It was hideous. I see it now, and I'm like, why did I not hide forever?" Janet remembers. "I really did that to show other people who were going through that same reconstruction that, hey, it's okay. It's okay. But the love and support I got. It was awesome and I didn't expect to receive that in return. That was quite a blessing."
She is retiring from radio to pursue a new career as a clinical mental health counselor, specializing in first-responder trauma.
"My husband and my son are first responders, and so I know the struggle that comes with working tough calls," Janet said. "My husband's been a firefighter for 18 years, and so I've witnessed that. I love radio. I do. I love radio, but I love first responders a little more."
KJ103 will announce Janet's replacement soon.
In the meantime, she will sign off with gratitude for two decades of growth and laughter, hoards of special moments, inside jokes and treasured memories.
We are all lucky to have had the chance to listen in for so long.