Ad Astra Radio’s weekend On-Air Personality on 95.9 KWHK FM Joe Wicks showcases his love for music on the airwaves and his creativity behind the camera lens.
Joe is a Nebraska native, and his wife Carolyn is from St. Francis, Kan.
“I made her move to Nebraska a few decades ago, so now that we’re retired, it was payback time!” Joe said. “She’s still a Husker fan, but not when they’re playing the Wildcats.”
Joe and Carolyn have a daughter, Amy who lives in Kansas City, Kan., with her husband and their two children.
Joe started working for Ad Astra Radio in September 2024.
“I haven’t really done any on-air DJ work since the early 80’s and it’s a lot of fun to get back in the business,” Joe said, adding. “Presenting the music and sharing some background on the tunes and artists.”
Going back to his youth in the sixties, when Joe was 11 years old, he dreamed of being one of the Beatles. By the time he was 12, his family had moved from Nebraska to Westminster, Colo., outside of Denver.
“I was exposed to some really great radio out there and I decided that rather than becoming a rock and roll star, it might be more practical to be the one presenting the music on the air,” Joe said.
After high school, Joe worked hard, saved up money and put himself through Elkins Institute of Broadcasting, which got him radio production training and a 1st Class FCC license.
“I got my first gig at a small AM daytimer in Burlington, Colorado,” he noted.
For 25 years, Joe worked in local advertising sales for “Platte River Radio”, a five-station group in central Nebraska. Besides sales, he worked in production and also dabbled in live announcing as the “emergency backup guy.”
“When my wife and I retired from our careers, we decided to start all over, instead of taking it easy,” Joe explained. “We looked at several towns in Kansas before choosing Hutch. It checked all of our boxes, and we feel like we made the perfect decision! “
Joe is a big fan of the “British Invasion” music of the 60’s, but what he really loves is music from “The Rat Pack”, smooth jazz, crunchy power rock, classic country and “can hum along with a fair amount of classical” too.
His favorite artist(s) depends on the mood he’s in, but if Joe had to choose, it would be a tie between The Beatles, Huey Lewis & The News, the Steve Miller Band and Steely Dan.
Joe’s love for music fuels his creativity, but photography gives him another way to express it.
“I’ve always had the urge to express myself creatively, with a great push from a creative writing instructor in high school,” Joe said. “When digital photography became the norm and cameras became affordable, I saw the opportunity to see if I could be creative in this as well.”
Joe added that photography allows him to capture what he sees so that he can share it with others. His favorite things to photograph are “critters” and nature.
“I’m always looking for a bit of a different perspective on what I photograph and try to avoid cliche shots whenever I can,” he said.
Joe bought his first camera, which he described as an “el cheap o” camera, when he was in high school.
“I think I had a good eye for photography back then, but didn’t start to take it seriously until around 20 years ago,” Joe said. “I saw what my daughter, Amy, was doing with her camera work and I guess I just inherited the interest from her!”
Joe recently won awards at the Kansas Professional Photographers Association Winter Shutter Expo Feb. 14-16. In the expo, members of the KPPA are encouraged to enter a competition of finished images in several categories. Only four were allowed to be entered for competition and there were 100 entries for the board of judges to critique and grade.
Joe won 1st place in “Reportage” (photojournalism), 2nd place in “Illustrative”, plus 2nd and 3rd in “Nature & Wildlife”. He was also awarded a plaque as a “Top Ten Kansas Photographer of the Year”.
“The awards are validation that I’m doing good work and getting better at this craft,” Joe said. “This group has taught me so much in how to increase my skills and stretch my abilities.”
The award Joe appreciated the most was the 2nd place in the “Illustrative” category. It finished tied for 4th place in the judging, which considers a lot of technical points as well as the overall impact of the image.
After judging, the judges take another fresh look at each of the images that qualified with a certain minimum score and then arrange them in the order that they feel are the “best images” in each category.
“I was really surprised at the result!” Joe said.
See some of Joe’s photography on his Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/WicksImages/
Listen to Joe’s show on 95.9 KWHK:
- Saturdays: 7 a.m. – 11a.m.
- Sundays: 8 a.m. – 12 p.m.
