John Cooper brings you news, traffic, and weather updates throughout the day and during the Dave Glover Show. In his capacity as News Director of 97-1 FM Talk, he enjoys chain smoking, using a manual typewriter and wearing aviator sunglasses indoors. While drinking whiskey from an iron flask, Cooper likes to tell long-winded foreign correspondent anecdotes about Somalia, Beirut, Southeast Asia, and other places to which he’s never actually been. He gets car sick in news helicopters, and - as he is not mechanically inclined - when news breaks, he has to throw it out and buy a new one, rather than fixing it. He’s also a regular on Battle of the Half Wits and Stump the Studio.
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News Director John Cooper with an in depth news story. Click here.
A listener was nice enough to pass along a family heirloom he found at some garage sale or flea market. This was the only album ever put out by my family’s singing group, which used to make the rounds of the churches and county fairs back in the mid to late 70s. We even used to appear in Branson before the big tourist boom there. In those days, it was just us and a couple of other family groups, along with Boxcar Willie and a pretty nifty go-cart track. I see those Branson commercials with the Japanese guy with the Moe Howard haircut and the Neil Diamond shirts, and I can see the place has gone to hell since my day.
On the album cover, that’s me standing next to my twin sister Trudy on the bottom row. I lost touch with Trudy after she was hired away to double for the little girl from the Cowsills. Apparently the real girl from that group was strung out on a drug we used to call “Angel Dust,” and had become unreliable. We made up for her absence on stage by having me wear her dresses and a wig after making a quick change backstage. Anyway, we missed having Trudy around, but the monthly stipend the family received for her services later helped pay my way through community college. It's my understanding that Trudy is now singing with the Osmond Brothers under the name "Merle."
When I look at this old artifact of my first stab at show business, I recall that it was around this time that I first noticed that my mother has an Adam’s apple. I didn’t understand why she took a special interest in me when I began wearing Trudy’s clothing and doing her vocal parts - I was just happy to get the extra attention. We didn’t have the daytime TV talk shows in those days to explain her behavior. I’m not even sure Dad fully understands it.
Anyway, thanks for listening to the Dave Glover Show,
