Who's Who at WONN

Linda Baad

Six months prior to graduating from Tampa’s Leto High School, Linda was accepted into the “Executive Internship Program” which offered high school seniors a chance to get a feel for different careers. Since, in her case, it turned out to be broadcasting, she spent six months at Tampa’s WFLA and was exposed to a little bit of everything TV and radio had to offer – even a chance to be Mr. Dooby with Miss June on the Romper Room children’s show.

After graduation in 1975, she began working for Sears at the then-new University Square Mall.  It was there she met her future husband, radio deejay Bradford Baad, who had recently moved up from Miami after the closure of WFUN. Following a brief courtship, the couple married and, within a few months, moved to Lakeland where Brad had become WONN’s program director. 

Because she had no job yet, Linda began helping out in the office as a sales secretary and was soon given the chance to cover and report news on Brad’s afternoon show.  It was while learning news recording and editing that she found her real calling – writing and producing commercials.  But that didn’t really take off until later when she worked for two other Polk County stations, Lakeland’s WQPD (sales and production) and WFXI Haines City (afternoons on the air).

In the late 1970’s, Brad left WONN to open his own restaurant. First there was  Submarina in Haines City and, later, Chelsea’s, an English-style pub in Lakeland. It was there the couple was introduced to the EMS profession from guys at the nearby fire station who would come down and have lunch. Both were so inspired that they went back to school and became paramedics – she for almost ten years,  and Brad until cancer forced him to stop working in 1992.

After he passed away the following year, Linda went back to school and became a Physician Assistant, graduating from the University of Florida College of Medicine in 1993. Today (2010), she practices in Urgent Care in Central Florida and, in her spare time, writes and produces music under the name  “JazzUPtheSpirit Music Ministry.” She also sings and is keyboardist for the Christian rock and blues band ‘the skywire project.”
 

Station History