A star is born

Rush Limbaugh's high school newspaper, The Tiger, might have been the first newspaper to feature his passion for radio. The following article comes to our attention from Sue Jackson Cook, who graduated from Cape Girardeau Central High School in 1968 "a year before Rush." Cook sang in the musical group, The Choraliers, with Rush's mother Millie, and her brothers were school friends with Rush and his brother David.

The story, written by student Jan Seabaugh and published Oct. 20, 1967, is reprinted courtesy of the Cape Girardeau Public School District.

Fans Find Rusty 'Sharpe'

"Here's a song for a sweet little thing named 'Susie!'" comes a deep, masculine voice out of the speaker of the radio. Who would ever guess it belonged to a Central student known to his teachers as Rusty Limbaugh, but known to his thousands of admiring fans as RUSTY SHARPE.

When asked why "Rusty Sharpe" was chosen for his "radio personality," Rusty stated, "I wanted an adjective that could have a double meaning -- you know, a pun-type thing. I just looked in the phone book and came up with Sharpe."

Radio host Rush Limbaugh is pictured on the set of the public affairs television show "Meet The Press," March 1993. (AP Photo)

Rusty was "just interested" so he went out to the station and applied for a job as disc jockey. But before he was eligible for the position he was required to obtain the first class radio-telephone (AM or FM broadcast) license. In order to achieve this, Rusty set out for the Elkins Institute of Radio and Electronics in Dallas for a five-week training program in theory and electronics.

As to entering this field professionally "Sharpe" nonchalantly commented, "Oh, I Dunno. Depends on how successful I become." Rusty feels that the most interesting part of his work is "playing around with the control board. There's still a lot to learn about it."

By far the most difficult part of his job is time. Everything has to be timed to the second -- if there's 2:08 before the news comes on, Sharpe's job to find a record exactly 2:08.

There is no planned program to follow -- the D.J. runs the whole thing. "Everything is ad-lib, and just starting out I sometimes find that hard to do. I've found that if you can't think of something to say, keep your mouth shut and run a commercial or something," Rusty confessed.

In order to be a disc jockey, Rusty has had to give up football, and sometimes (horror of horrors!) doing all his homework assignments. He feels that it's worth the sacrifice, though. He will be paying his dad back for the trip to Dallas until January, and after that "it will be clear profit."

"Where can I hear this Sharpe guy?" asks one of those poor souls who doesn't know where the action is. All you "unhippies" can "get with it" every week-day afternoon from 3 to 6:15 and weekend afternoon from 12 noon to 6:15 on the Rusty Sharpe Show, 1550 on the dial.