I was working at the Newton County News at that time and she was at a radio station in Southwest City. She tried to convince me that radio, not newspapers, should be my path for the future. I wasn't interested, but I appreciated the thought.
A couple of years later, when I was out of work and she was at WMBH in Joplin, she offered me a job as an all-night dj. Instead, I took an offer from Doug Davis to work at the Lamar Democrat.
When she later moved into the television world, I never received any more job offers from Tracy. Apparently, she recognized a face that was made for radio.
Though Tracy Stark had been ill in recent months, the death of the former KODE anchor earlier this week at age 56 still came as a shock to her friends and former colleagues.
Many of the women who are currently working at Joplin area radio and television stations don't know her name, but Tracy Stark blazed the path for all of them. "I worked with her at WMBH/Z-103 in the early 80s," Rebecca Williams said. "She was among those that paved the way for women in media today."
Tracy took an unusual path to local television, entering it after a career in radio and her first anchor job was a challenge. Russ Riesinger, news anchor at WJAV, Savannah, Ga., and former KODE sports anchor, recalls. "She took over for Diane Gonzales, who had replaced Lisa Richardson, so she had some big shoes to fill. What I remember the most is that some of the people in the newsroom (who had a whopping two years of experience in the business themselves) were skeptical about her ability as a journalist. She had no experience in television news, but had a name from doing a morning radio show (with Gary Bandy, I believe). Anyway, she did a great job making the transition from radio to news. She had a good personality that came across on the air and people liked her very well."
One of her competitors after she took the KODE job, former KSNF anchor and now candidate for Newton County Commissioner Jim Jackson was able to catch the best of Tracy Stark's work in radio and television.
"When it came to broadcasting," Jackson said, "Tracy was a natural. I had the pleasure of working with Tracy when she started her broadcasting career at KCTE radio in Southwest City, Missouri, in the late 1970s. Tracy was a communicator with a soft, soothing voice; everyone liked her on and off the air. Tracy got to live her dreams with a career and having a wonderful family. Everyone who knew her will certainly miss her."
Russ Riesinger's replacement at the KODE sports desk, Steve Edgerley, currently a teacher in Dayton, Ohio, also has fond memories of Tracy. Edgerley, who became known during his stay in Joplin for his work on behalf of the Muscular Dystrophy Association, remembers how much work Tracy put in for that good cause.
"For every minute she spent on the telethon, she spent hours with kids with a muscle disease. She got me involved with MDA. I owe her and I will miss her giving spirit."
As much as her work in radio and television, Tracy Stark will be remembered for her sense of humor and for how much she cared for others, her former colleagues said.
"I got to KODE in '89 as a part-timer in the studio," former KODE news director and sports anchor Erik Schrader, now news director at WTNH in the New Haven/Hartford, Connecticut, market, said, "and Tracy treated us all like family. She never talked down to the part-timers and was pretty funny. She had a great ability to laugh at herself. I remember a couple of on-air bloopers that would have sent some anchors into a funk but she'd be there laughing as hard as anyone. When she got married, I shot the wedding, and I don't think it was long after that she said goodbye to television news. But whenever you ran into her, she'd have some funny story. Really caught me out of left field that she's gone."
"I remember going to Vegas with her for MDA meetings," Edgerley said. "I lost my wallet, so she loaned me money and we went gambling and had a blast. She was a giver. She gave to many, but none more than the children with muscular dystrophy. She had lifelong relationships with those kids and made a difference in their lives."
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