…With Bob Edwards Listeners Get The Chance To View The Voice Of National Public Radio’s ‘Morning Edition’

Bob Edwards is a busy man.

As host of “Morning Edition,” the most popular show on National Public Radio, his bourbon-smooth voice wakes up 10.3 million people a day.

He interviews 800 people a year, questions scores of correspondents and earns enough journalism awards to bridge the Centennial Trail.

So don’t expect to just call and talk with him, I was warned, he’s got the No. 1 morning radio program in cities from Boston to San Francisco. Call well in advance, schedule an interview time. But at 6:30 in the morning, my coffee still unopened, he’s the one who answers the phone.

“Go ahead,” says that voice.

Ah.

I’m caught in what Edwards calls the ultimate radio test: “an unrehearsed discussion on no particular subject with a fellow who has no patience for someone who isn’t properly prepared.”

And this is Edwards’ magic. Even when he’s answering the questions, it works.

For 16 years, his pack-a-day voice has drawn millions into breaking news stories, in-depth features, quirky commentary and intimate chats.

A typical morning might find him discussing Colin Powell with Cokie Roberts; introducing Nick Leeson, the man who brought down Barings investment house, and ending the hour with an offbeat little kicker that trips through a listener’s head hours later.

His on-air interviews are known for their taut directness and straightman humor.

“You put yourself in the listener’s position,” Edwards says. “What would they ask if they were in my chair? And then you ask it: Senator Packwood …”

Each month, Edwards visits one of the 515 member stations, stumping for support. Thursday he’ll be in Spokane marking 15 years of public radio on KPBX.

“Bob is a journalist in the old style of Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite, and with that voice. … Well, we all wake up with Colonel Bob,” says Kathy Grabicki, special events director at KPBX.

Despite his honorary title of colonel, the native Kentuckian never made more than specialist five in the Army. A college-educated broadcaster drafted during the Vietnam War, he produced and anchored television and radio programs for the Armed Forces Korea Network.

After the service, he moved to Washington, D.C., earned a master’s degree and, full of idealism, joined NPR in 1974.

In 1979 he was co-hosting NPR’s evening program, “All Things Considered” with Susan Stamberg, when NPR launched a new morning drive-time show. Edwards was openly “thrilled not to be a part of such a disaster.”

Then the hosts were fired, and he was asked to fill in for 30 days. It meant getting up at 1:30 a.m. and being the sole shoulders for a two-hour program that had no audience.

Edwards soon faced challenges, such as the 30 live interviews he did the morning Ronald Reagan was elected. Sleep deprivation and the demands of the job prompted producers to at first write down every word he said, including his name.

Years of juggling a precisely timed radio show helped make him the consummate anchor.

But it took Red Barber to make him the “colonel.”

For 12 years, at 7:35 a.m. every Friday, Edwards spoke to legendary sports broadcaster Red Barber at his Tallahassee home.

Their four-minute chats, unscripted, quirky, sliding from sports to Scripture, became the most popular segment of “Morning Edition.” Barber called Edwards “colonel,” an honorary title given honorable Kentuckians.

When Barber died three years ago, the surge of public grief prompted Edwards to write “Fridays with Red.” While NPR listeners have never felt the same about camellias, they never felt the same about Edwards, either.

“You saw a side of him that wasn’t as obvious,” says Grabicki.

It was a side the reticent, dispassionate Edwards did not give up easily.

“In the beginning I was terrified,” Edwards says. “Here’s this legend, a pioneer of our business, and he would ask my opinion and we’re not supposed to have opinions. He was having a real conversation, and that was uncomfortable for me.”

It was also ultimate radio. Working before a well-educated audience, Edwards uses the news of the day and scads of background to prepare for interviews. With Barber, the great voice of the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Yankees, there was no preparation. But it worked - with Red and, later, without him.

During the Persian Gulf War, as the war news changed on computer screens around him, Edwards would smoothly change questions or interview direction midstream.

“This would have terrified me before I started working with Red Barber, but by the time of Desert Storm, I had had plenty of experience hitting the interview equivalent of a curveball,” Edwards later wrote.

But Edwards’ biggest curveball may lie ahead.

Earlier this year, Congress voted to cut public broadcasting funding from $285 million this year to $275 million in 1996 and $260 million in 1997.

While NPR gets little federal money directly, its member stations, like KPBX, depend on it.

“We are fighting for our lives here,” Edwards says. “We don’t know what’s going to happen. We’ve got to find funding sources that don’t involve the government … but if they were there all along, we’d have been going to them.”

While NPR managers and listeners search for answers, Edwards stays on the stump. Thursday he’ll be at The Met to speak, answer questions and talk about The Old Redhead (Barber).

“Colonel Bob will be there,” Grabicki promises. “With that voice.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo Staff illustration by A. Heitner

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: THE VOICE An Evening With Bob Edwards, sponsored by KPBX and the Associated Students of EWU, will be Thursday at 7:30 p.m. at The Met. Cost is $16; $8 for KPBX members, EWU students. For more information, call 328-5729.