Minnesota Natives Wonder Why Couple Moved Here from North Carolina

I have a friend who used to work and live in the St. Cloud area, he’s the one who reached out to me about the job I eventually took here at Townsquare Media. My wife Kim and I have found the people here for the most part to be very welcoming and friendly. Our accents stand out so most folks know right away that we’re not from this part of the country. But we keep getting a common question, “Why did you move to Minnesota?” "Did you lose a bet or something?" one man asked. "Are you on the run from the law" another wondered out loud.

My response is simple, The Hallmark Channel movies always make it seem so romantic! Kidding! Sadly not about watching Hallmark movies, but that's a story for another time. 

Get our free mobile app

When you’ve been in a business like I have for 35 years, it’s hard to want to do anything else, or have managers in other lines of work that will hire you. And to be honest, the radio industry has changed so much in the last 10 years or so, that good jobs are hard to find. My wife and I realized about a year ago that we needed to start looking for a new opportunity, so in our discussions, I told her there are always a lot of openings in Minnesota and The Dakotas.

Her answer was, sounds like we could have an adventure ahead of us, let’s see where this goes. The friend I mentioned earlier, Chappy, knows quite a few folks who still work here and told me he thought we would be a good fit together. And he was so right, the staff here has been awesome. Many of them have been here 10, 15, 20 plus years and that’s not the norm anywhere, especially in radio. So, this is one of the good jobs with one of the good companies to have.  

Does it ever snow in North Carolina?

I don’t think it takes a rocket surgeon to know that the climate is dramatically different from Minnesota to North Carolina. But, yes it does snow, sometimes in North Carolina. We were in the Western Part of the State where the colder weather for the area is most prominent in the Winter. Here's a pic from summer in Western North Carolina.

In Boone NC, in January of 2022, of the 4 weekends in the month, we have significant fresh snow on 3 of those weekends. Here we are with our Granddaughter Lexi. 

The picture below is at a transmitter site of the company I used to work for. The site is at the top of the ski slope on Beech Mountain NC, between the new machine-made snow and fresh snowfall, I had to dig down about six feet to get to the doorknob, only to find the lock frozen. Winds of 40-50 mph, and it was between 5-8 degrees at over 5500 feet elevation. These conditions are common in Minnesota winters I understand, but yes, we’ve been in some cold (ish) weather. Last Christmas Eve, 40-50 mph winds and 8 degrees, and I had to be out in it twice fixing issues with the radio stations.  

People keep asking if we are ready for Winter, in a word- NOPE! But, our plan is to find out what the folks who have been living here do to stay warm and do the same thing. Suggestions are welcome of course, and if you see someone out and about who is dressed more like the Michelin Man, that’s probably me.