Longtime Omaha radio personality Otis XII, set to retire, says career was lucky accident

Not everyone was on board when Otis XII — Doug Wesselmann, in real life — became the morning show host at KVNO-FM, Omaha's only radio station devoted to playing classical music.

"Some thought it was the craziest move ever," Wesselmann said in a recent interview.

After all, he was widely known for his work on rock stations Z-92 and CD105, where he created offbeat characters such as Space Commander Wack and the Mean Farmer, not to mention his time with the Ogden Edsl Wahalia Blues Ensemble Mondo Bizarro Band, which gained fame on the nationally syndicated "Dr. Demento" radio program with records such as "Dead Puppies" and "Kinko the Clown."

Nevertheless, he's still with KVNO some 18 years later and, as he approaches his last day on air this Friday, has legions of faithful followers who are mournful that he's retiring at age 75.

"They love him," said KVNO general manager Sherry Brownrigg, who has read and listened to more than 150 tributes from fans who have left messages for Wesselmann in the last few weeks. "One listener said 'When Otis is on the radio, I know everything is going to be OK.' He reminds us to not take everything so seriously,"

Another Otis follower even gathered an army of supporters for the new Otis Twelve Legacy Fund, an endowment for KVNO that has a balance of more than $150,000, all collected in about a month, Brownrigg said. Wesselmann learned about the fund at a recent donor party.

"When we unveiled it, I saw him tear up a little bit," Brownrigg said.

Wesselmann, a funny, self-deprecating and somewhat sarcastic storyteller, didn't admit to that in a recent interview, but did acknowledge the impact of the announcement.

"I was very moved," he said.

He credits his career life, which, in addition to radio, includes driving a furniture delivery truck, working with mentally ill patients and an ongoing gig as an award-winning author, to one word: serendipity.

He had his first radio "job" as a kid in Kansas City, where he operated a low-power station that reached people in a two-block radius. His dream was to be a Major League Baseball announcer. When his family relocated to Philadelphia, he said, so did his favorite team, the Kansas City Athletics.

"I thought they moved because I did," he said.

He went to high school at a Benedictine academy in Atchison, Kansas. He came to Omaha to attend Creighton University, but didn't graduate. He did, however, get a phenomenal score on the LSAT, and spent nine weeks in law school before realizing it wasn't for him.

With friends, he created Ogden Edsl in Omaha (the name comes from his love of poet Ogden Nash) and went on the road for nine years, but returned here when he met his eventual wife, Deb. He thought it would be a better place to get married and have kids.

He drove the truck, helped the mentally ill patients, did some stand-up comedy shows at Oliver's Back Alley in Benson and eventually got into broadcasting.

He ended up there, he said, "because I studied philosophy, political science, English, history — I kept changing majors."

Wesselmann worked at Z-92 with partner Diver Dan Doomey, then moved to CD105 when it first launched. He also landed at KFAB and the former KKAR for a time, then decided to take a break to pursue writing.

The family moved to Walnut, Iowa. Deb has a company that trains mental health therapists, and she could work anywhere. Walnut, he said, appealed to him because his dad's family had a small-town background.

"They even elected me to the school board. It was quite an experience in a small town," he said, adding that fellow residents would stop him on the street for question-and-answer sessions. He offered an example:

Q. "Why isn't my son eligible for the game?"

A. "Because he plagiarized."

Writing in Walnut proved fruitful. Wesselmann's first novel, "On the Albino Farm," won the 2005 London Book Fair Competition. Another one, "Imp: Being the Lost Notebooks of Rufus Wilmot Griswold in the Matter of the Death of Edgar Allan Poe," won the prestigious Debut Dagger Award from the British Crime Writers' Association.

The Walnut sojourn was relatively short. When his wife's brother, noted Omaha artist Kent Bellows, died, the couple found themselves traveling to Omaha nearly every day to help create a foundation in his name. They figured it would be easier to move back.

Shortly after that move, in 2006, Wesselmann became the morning voice of KVNO.

And he quickly ran into one roadblock.

"The problem was knowing how to pronounce things. It's Rafe Williams, not Ralph (as it is spelled). And there are two Bernsteins."

French words were the worst, he said. French teachers began emailing him to help.

Beyond that, he said, the format wasn't too daunting.

"I had never done classical music. But, as Duke Ellington said, music is music These guys are musicians — they did drugs, had affairs and scandals. Franz Liszt had groupies," he said.

"It's radio, nobody dies. You can't take it too seriously."

Jeff Koterba, recently named the new KVNO morning host, said he's heard that sentiment from Wesselmann several times. The two met when Koterba approached Wesselmann for mentoring. Koterba, then a World-Herald cartoonist, was writing his memoir, "Inklings," and wanted tips.

They got together in Walnut, and Koterba said he learned a lot about work habits, creativity, how to think differently and trying new things.

After leaving the newspaper, Koterba worked part-time at KVNO and the mentoring continued.

"I would stop in and hang out with Otis a few mornings. It was the height of the pandemic and we had to keep our distance. I sat behind him, and it was winter and I was masked and my glasses kept fogging up and he kept trying to show me things. He was so reassuring and calm and helpful," Koterba said. "Just real encouraging."

Koterba takes over Monday, Oct. 7. Wesselmann's last day is Friday, Oct. 4, the end of the station's fall pledge drive. He says he plans to write in earnest ("I am an 8-to-5 writer," he said, and talked about his copious and scrupulous research.) He also plans to dig holes to garden and spend time with his five grandchildren. He might do a little traveling — his wife has a work presentation in Italy soon and he's going back and forth about whether he'll join her.

In his last weeks at KVNO, old friends such as The World-Herald's Tom Shatel and former KETV newscaster Carol Schrader have visited Wesselmann's show. He's also been the guest of honor at several parties and will be feted at a staff event on Friday. And his picture was recently placed on the barroom floor in a ceremony at the Omaha Press Club.

All of the fanfare probably makes him a little uncomfortable. He appears to be a fairly modest guy — he told this reporter, off the record, about a fairly amazing life achievement and refused to bend when begged to let it go public, saying it would sound like bragging.

He did admit that he thought he'd been able to help KVNO grow over 18 years.

Brownrigg and Koterba aren't that reticent, at least about Wesselmann.

"You just can't replace an icon like Otis," Brownrigg said.

Koterba agreed.

"He's one of a kind, and it's a huge, huge honor (to succeed him), a dream come true I didn't expect," said Koterba, who has been a KVNO listener since high school.

But for Wesselmann, it all comes back to serendipity.

"I just got lucky," he said, "and I worked with the best people. It was an accidental career. A lucky accident."

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