Wayne’s World

March 20, 1999

Grand Forks N.D.

Dear classmates and friends,

Twenty years in the news business have made me a newspaper and magazine junkie. A person who writes for a living has to keep an eye on what others are writing, right? And, besides, reading periodicals and journals has always seemed more like a guilty pleasure than work-related research to me. I especially enjoy the slick glossies like Vanity Fair and Movieline and, my personal favorite, Entertainment Weekly.

So it was a double pleasure this week reading my EW magazine when I came across the very familiar name of former Eurekan Wayne Isaak. Many of us who went to Eureka High School in the 1970s remember Wayne, who graduated in 1975. The brother of our classmate, Debbie Isaak Stickel, Wayne was smart, good-looking, funny and had a major jones for rock and roll. But Wayne did more than noodle on his electric guitar and dream of being a star. He used his knowledge and his South Dakota work ethic to work his way to the top of the music business.

Today Wayne lives in New York City and is vice president of music programming for VH1, a music video cable channel that is sort of like an older, smarter cousin of MTV. That means that Wayne – who in 1973 sang "On the Cover of the Rolling Stone" with Thurn Hoffman during a high school pep rally – now occasionally has lunch with the Rolling Stones – the rock band, not the magazine. Not bad for a Eureka boy.

The EW story (3/19/99) was about VH1’s plan to televise the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony that honored Bruce Springsteen, Paul McCartney and the late Dusty Springfield. The article described the show as VH1’s "annual leather pants-a-palooza" and quoted Wayne as saying that even though the event was days away, no one was really certain what would happen during the ceremony. "Surprise is really the key word with this evening. I’m sure the induction speeches are not even written yet," Wayne told EW. But then I don’t suppose guys like Puff Daddy or Eric Clapton plan their speeches in advance, much less submit prepared remarks for the media.

Wayne may be a big shot in the music business, hobnobbing with the legends and engaged to marry an actress (Gloria Reuben of TV’s "ER"), but to Debbie and his other sisters, Cindy and Beth, Wayne is still the goony brother who played his electric guitar so loud at home that it shook the kitchen ceiling fixture.

"He’s always been like a girlfriend to us girls," Debbie said the other day. "He was stuck with all us girls so he had to play our games. He was the kind of brother you could confide in." Their father, Richard, an optometrist, and mother, Kathy, a homemaker, may not have been rock fans, but they supported Wayne’s interest in music and tolerated his upstairs bedroom jam sessions. One summer Dick and Kathy packed up the whole family in their camper and drove to Denver so Wayne and his sisters could see the Rolling Stones in concert.

In high school, Wayne played sports, wrote for the school newspaper, sang the lead part in "The Music Man" and made the honor roll regularly. Another EHS grad who shall remain nameless once told me that there were several boys in that Class of 1975 who had a very large opinion of themselves. But not Wayne. He talked to everyone and didn’t look down his nose at anyone.

After high school Wayne got a mass communications degree from USD and then went to work in Minneapolis for a music company. Later he lived in Los Angeles where he worked and traveled extensively for A & M Records.

On Kathy Isaak’s piano in Eureka there is a photo of Kathy and Beth taken with Janet Jackson, a memento of Wayne’s days with A & M. Several years ago he joined VH1. Last year the Minneapolis Star & Tribune published a major piece about Wayne and his career. Some of you may have seen it reprinted in The Northwest Blade.

One thing I always liked about Wayne was his sense of humor. At Debbie and Pat Stickel’s wedding in New Orleans in 1986 we laughed until we cried at Wayne’s dinner monologue, which ranged from his Ronald Reagan impressions to a discourse on Dick Isaak’s high school football career.

It’s been a few years since I’ve seen Wayne but his family, especially

Kathy and Debbie, have kept me informed about his adventures. Every now and then I will read something about him, or see him on television. One night last year we were watching the pre-Emmy awards show on E! and spotted him coming up the red carpet on the arm of Gloria Reuben. Miss Reuben had been nominated for an Emmy for her work as the HIV-infected health care worker on ER and when the host of the show began interviewing her, Wayne stepped out of camera range. After all, it was her moment to shine, not his. Apparently there’s a lot of class in

Wayne’s world.

From your friend, Paulette