It was a rare moment in time when Steve Schram and I were in the same place without anyone demanding our time. We were both independent agents with a lot more resume paragraphs ahead of us. As was our practice during the days when we roomed together in college, we were sifting through my collection of 45s and reel to reel tapes. Around 3am on June 3, 2002, I threaded the PAMS Clyde jingle demo into the machine and turned up the volume.

I designed the house for this sort of thing, with my work suite on the opposite side of the master bedroom where my wife had long ago retreated. We leaned back in our chairs, inhaling the aroma of vinyl and Mylar. The PAMS boys sang “WKNR,” and the “Cool Logos You Didn’t Expect” blasted the Motor City Music moniker over and over for the millionth time. We shook our heads and exclaimed how lucky we were to have walked into 15001 Michigan Avenue to fall under the Keener 13 spell.

Keener sealed what became a five-decade friendship. And at that moment in the early June morning, one of us said, “We ought to create a tribute website to the station.”

Being the digital nerd, I had one up and running almost instantly. We contacted our radio heroes, the legendary Keener Keymen for recollections and contributions to the archives. Fans came out of the woodwork with a snowstorm of WKNR Music Guides, promotional materials, the Keener Gold record albums and the annual LPs Phil Nye and the Contact Newsmen created to commemorate the year in sound.

That first website was written in raw HTML code. I was able to convince a web host to give us the immense data storage we needed for hours of airchecks, and megabytes of scans. We were able to sit down with Bob Green, Pat St. John, Scott Regen and Russ Gibb for extended conversations about their Keener memories and the extraordinary careers that followed.

Somewhere along the way, I discovered a plug-in for the Winamp MP3 player that did a pretty good job of segueing the Keener music and imaging. Shoutcast was still brand new, and with a rudimentary compression feature between the two programs, I fed Steve the 24 hour program stream we tweaked to give us our Keener fix whenever and wherever we wanted it.

That same year, the good people at Clear Channel gave us access to the 1310 Khz frequency that was Keener’s home base during the Woodward Dream Cruise. Through the generosity of a number of Keener originals, we brought back the WKNR sound that summer and the next. Steve had his own Keener on-air experience when the company briefly branded the AM signal as WWKR. For me, the Dream Cruise broadcast would be the only time my voice passed through Jerry Martin’s home-brew audio processors and into the ether via the antenna farm just south of I-94.

We’ve lived in many places and done many different things since then, but the Keener project was always percolating in the background. Just when we thought we had found every last morsel of history, I would receive a message from another devoted Keenerfan with some new addition to the archives.

In the fall of 2019, I published Motor City Music – Keener 13 and the Soundtrack of Detroit with scans of every WKNR Music Guide, a history of the station and facts about Detroit and the world for every year of the Keener era.

A highlight of our lives was to be included when Frank “Swingin” Sweeney organized an anniversary gathering of the Keener originals in New York. Bob Green engaged Jon Wolfert to fire up the Sonovox to create fresh Jock Shouts for all of us.

Steve’s dedication to the Keener properties was stellar. He was in charge of the cluster during WNIC’s glory years, setting a record for the highest billing and most profitable performance in the group’s history. During his tenure, Detroit Radio Reunions included an on-air gathering at 15001. Yes, CKLW ultimately put WKNR out of business. But for the generation who grew up in Detroit in the mid 1960s, Keener remained the gold standard.

By 2023, I had transitioned from Winamp to a broadcast automation system for our private audio stream. Live365 found a business model that made wider distribution both legal and within our financial reach. Keener13.com became to home of Keener 2.0, mixing the best of the Keener spirit with an expanded playlist that featured music from the soundtrack of our lives. I added a digital request function, found a 313 area coded phone number for text-in dedications and wrote code to deliver the weather and short features automatically to “every device, everywhere.” Smart phones, Alexa devices and browsers from coast to coast and around the world could now hear the little station that had trouble reaching Roseville after dark during its brief broadcast prime.

As of today, over 100,000 unique listeners have found Keener again. We don’t promote it beyond the website and have been stunned and delighted by the support we’ve received from Keenerfans, old and new, some of whom were yet to be born when the radio station was on the air.

At one time, we thought about investing in an underwriting effort to pump money into local promotion in Detroit, including that classic billboard next to the I94 tower site, and personally engaging locally to promote the station that champions the Motor City and the State of Michigan.

We ultimately decided to fund the project while we can, as it is, knowing that all good things, including our vision of our favorite radio station ultimately pass into history.

The Keener philosophy of intelligent flexibility, creativity and a commitment to excellence shaped our careers, contributed to many memorable experiences and fostered friendships we treasure to this day. “What would Bob Green or Frank Maruca do?” are questions we asked ourselves again and again. Authenticity, accessibility and a commitment to quality has guided every phase of this project. It became the secret sauce for whatever career success we may have enjoyed.

Keener13.com has outlived the original by over two decades. As broadcast radio has homogenized, Keener has tried to “keep it real,” an idea you all helped create and breathe fresh life into with every digital request.

We now know when and where each listener listens, on what device and for how long, data that was once a dice-roll based on the authenticity of ratings diary entries. Our weather forecasts are now often nationwide, and Keener is still “first to care” about the turning pages in the lives of the artists and listeners who helped define a lifetime.

During our days behind a Top 40 microphone, the highlights were the personal connections we felt with the audience. It is something I still feel whenever I see a familiar name pop up on the request queue or notice a city, state, province or country that has self-identified as a regular Keener13.com listener.

Keener is a reminder that what we share in common far outweighs what may divide us, how the universal language of music can still inspire, and the important burden of accountability Steve and I feel for having the honor of carrying the WKNR mantle forward into the 21^st Century.

We thank Jon and Mary at JAM Creative Productions for allowing us access to the imaging, to Ken Deutsche for rescuing the PAMS jingle masters from erasure, to Radio’s Best Fried, Art Vuolo, Jr. for his constant cheerleading, and to the men and women who worked for Knorr Broadcasting during Keener’s heyday, many of whom went on to become broadcasting legends in their own right.

And we thank you, whoever you are, wherever you are, for always keeping it Keener. May the hits just keep on comin!

Scott Westerman and Steve Schram