Arthur (Tweed Scott) Chouinard:  

Hi guys (& girls). I just joined here for awhile to see if I could connect with some my old friends and classmates from LHS. A lot of water has passed under the Main St. bridge since graduation night and I know each of us now have a lifetime of stories to tell. I'd love to hear yours too. I left for Navy boot camp the morning after we graduated. I took the train down to Boston and got sworn in at the Boston Navy Yard. I took my first plane ride from Boston to Chicago and was in boot camp that night being called names I had never heard in Laconia, NH. After 11 weeks of boot camp I was sent to Lakehurst, NJ to become a Parachute Rigger. From there I was transferred to a VT-22, NAAS Kingsville, TX. I spent my entire enlistment there as a Master Quality Control Inspector on Parachutes & Survival Gear. Essentially our squadron taught future fighter pilots to fly jets. It was a heady job for an 18 year old as I recall. Kingsville, TX is about 40 miles south of Corpus Christi deep on the TX coast. Kingsville's claim to fame is the King Ranch which is larger than the state of RI. I had never been any place that was that flat and stayed that hot for that long in my life. Gawd we were bored. So a bunch of other riggers and myself took up skydiving. I did that 33 times before I got hurt (really got my bell rung). After that we hunted rattlesnakes of which there was NO shortage. Along the way I met and married a Native Texan. Let me tell you, you marry a Texas girl and your life is essentially OVER--You are not going anywhere. When I got out the Navy in '69, We moved to Keene and I attended my freshman year at Keene State. By the next year, the cost of living was outrageous, tuition was going up, my wife's salary at Keene High school was being cut (penalized because she had a teaching degree and the other women in her department didn't...go figure). I realized I could go back to Texas and complete my education for less as an out of state student than I could in NH as an in-state student...we moved back to Texas. One interesting thing did happen while I was at Keene State. For those of you who remember, I was on the Audio-Visual team at LHS. I worked with Mr. Crowther. We were the dweebs who came in and set up the movie projectors and audio visual equipment for the teachers. When I was at Keene State I got involved with the AV department there and got into doing TV too. I hated TV. A friend suggested I'd be perfect for radio so I drove to Boston and took the FCC test. I then made the rounds of radio stations in that area around Keene in NH, VT & MA. I knocked on 19 doors and landed my first radio job at WKVT in Brattleboro, VT. Little did I realize at the time, I was beginning my life's career. After moving back to TX, I eventually settled in Beaumont near the Louisiana border. I attended Lamar University and graduated in 1974 with a degree in Marketing. I worked my way through school by working in radio. When I graduated, I had already had 4 years of radio under my belt and decided to pursue it as a career. Radio is a gypsy like career. It moves you around quite a bit. Most of my career was spent either in Texas or working for Texas station owners. I've worked in TX, OK & IL. Most of my time was spent as an Operations Manager. That is the person who is responsible for everything you hear on the station--the jocks, the music, news, promotions, commercial...all of it. It was like being the conductor of a symphony (a reference to my days in band.. I LOVED what I did. I was passionate about it. At one point I ran the highest rated FM station in America. Later I ran the 5th highest rated AM station in America (that was in Peoria, IL) I have done some crazy stuff while in the business. As an example, I recently posted some film footage on Youtube of a promotion I did. I spent four days living in the station van suspended from a crane at 101 feet off the ground. I got hit by a severe thunderstorm while I was up there. Yes. that did scare the crap out of me. I really thought I was going to die. To sum up my career, I went places, did things and met people I could only imagine meeting while growing up in Laconia. Some of them are now friends. I even got to be the local host for 4 or 5 years of the Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon. Someday ask me about my experiences with him. I've even talked with President George Bush a couple or three times. I can say this; I didn't get cheated. I also got to do 14 years worth of play by play--both high school & college. It was a hoot and I've seem some great games (and my share of stinkers too) By the end of the '90's I noticed how the business was changing and NOT for the better. When I got into it, it was a real people oriented business but it began to change. It had become a lot of hype and not a lot of substance. It evolved into being all about power & money. If you had to crush someone or their career to get ahead, well that is just too bad, they become collateral damage on your road to the top. I chose not to do that. It was time for me to make my exit. On Memorial Day weekend 2001, I had a stent put in my heart.Apparently I had a 99% blockage of something called the LAD. As I recovered and went to cardiac rehab I had realized I lost the passion for the business and decided to leave. I retired in July of 2001 after 31 years in radio. I worked for a while with General Motors as a Quality Specialist but after a few years I decided I was not genetically wired to work for a corporation anymore so I left and went home to start my own business. I started a copy writing business. It was weird but while I was in radio, I wrote thousands and thousands of commercials & promotional pieces. I can't put a number on how many. Never once in all that time did I consider myself a writer. It was merely a function of my job. I know how to write for business. So I wrote marketing collateral, web site content,newsletter stuff for companies. The business was beginning to grow and flourish and then I screwed up and wrote a book. THAT changed everything. I wrote a book called Texas in Her Own Words. It explains why Texans are the way they are...where all that attitude comes from. Because of my radio background, I knew the way I needed to market this book is to give presentations and sell it in the back of the room and that's what I did. I started presenting at all the local Rotaries, Kiwanis etc. Before long people would come up and ask me how much I would charge to speak to their group. My business model changed on the spot. I went from a writer who speaks to a speaker who writes. Before long I am traveling around this great state of Texas giving speeches and making presentations. Shortly after the book came out I was approached by THE Alamo. They asked to sell my book there..well Duh! As a result, I do book signings there every couple of months and I can tell you this, I have copies of my book on every continent of the world with the possible exception of Antarctica. I haven't sold one to a penguin yet. They dress nice but I hear they make lousy dates. We...Expand for more