'Saucy Aussie' Susan Bray was a pioneer in Des Moines radio

Susan Bray was one of the best-known personalities in Iowa as a talk-show host on WHO-AM radio in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Her husband, Ed DeLong, announced news of her death last week on the legendary radio pioneer's Facebook page:

I lost my best friend today. Susan Bray DeLong passed away this morning, peacefully, ending a battle against a variety of bugs that started almost six months ago and gradually took their toll on her heart, lungs, and kidneys. She was 79 years, 4 months, and just under 16 days old.

Susan was known as the "Saucy Aussie" because of her Australian accent and penchant for being an edgy, sometimes raunchy, talk radio host. She began flying solo behind the microphone in February 1979. Before that, she'd been teamed with conservative Cal Stout. It was, and sadly still is, unusual for women to have their own airtime in the Des Moines metro market. Susan was the first in Des Moines to have a one-woman radio show. She was celebrated, criticized and told to go back home to Australia, which she eventually did after a long talk radio career in Philadelphia.

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Susan and her producer, Beverly Davis, and I would have lunch most Tuesdays in a restaurant called The French Cafe, tucked upstairs of Wolf's Department Store. It was on Walnut Street, as was the WHO-AM studio. The two of them were outrageous, both on and off the air. They'd discuss body parts and what could be done with them in ways I'd never heard of before. Let's say I learned a lot during those Tuesday lunch sessions, and Susan's listeners learned a lot during her morning shows.

She was a dominatrix of the airwaves in those heady years.

News of her death prompted a chat with Beverly Davis because I was looking for anecdotes — printable — from those days.

The biggest challenge of a talk radio host is to attract listeners by getting people to call the show. Susan and Beverly would cook up something naughty and get the lines to light up.

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"We saw a survey from a news source in England asking which are more sexy, full-size underwear or bikinis," said Beverly. Topic fodder for a Susan Bray segment.

Bing, bing, bing … the red lights on the switchboard swept the 10-line board, including the WATS line, where people from around the state could call for free.

According to Bev, a woman they called the "Egg Lady" from Montezuma would dial in regularly, no matter what the topic was, and she’d mention that day's price of eggs. As a producer, Bev tried to steer Susan away from her. The Egg Lady disguised her voice to fool them.

Susan picked up line 5, and to her surprise, the Egg Lady launched into a tirade about how immoral and depraved Susan was to talk such unmentionables on the air. Susan listened to her a bit, went to a commercial break, then moved real close to the microphone, and in a throaty voice, said, "Well, I guess we know what kind of underwear she wears!"

Susan Bray was also a smart, well-read news hound. She took on presidential candidates and presidents, the most famous of whom was Ronald Reagan, who also started broadcasting on WHO-AM radio. If Reagan thought some woman would throw him softballs on his old station, he had another thing coming.

Former Des Moines Register columnist Chuck Offenburger thinks he was the one who gave Bray the "Saucy Aussie" moniker that followed her to Philadelphia. He said she brought new life to the station with her "spunk and sexiness."

"I think she was a bridge for WHO to new audiences of younger listeners and, especially, women. She was like a fresh breeze — or sometimes like a derecho — blowing across the Iowa landscape. And she had that great accent from her native Australia, and Iowans seemed to love it.

"And, wow, she could be sooo funny! I remember going to lunch with her a few times and laughing so hard that I'd go back to work and feel I needed a nap.

"Interesting now, isn't it, to think that WHO turned over its huge airwaves to notable liberals like you two? (Referring to us both being WHO talk radio hosts). I recall Cal Stout being among those bringing the conservative balance. But the mix of personalities and political outlooks made listening to the station even more compelling.”

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During one of our crepe lunches in the French Cafe, Susan confided in me that she was considering a job offer from a big station in Philadelphia. Selfishly, I did not want to lose her voice in Iowa, but as her friend, I knew it was a big opportunity.

She said if she took the job, she thought I ought to apply to take her place.

Oh my God. No one could take Susan Bray's place.

In my youth, and I was only just 30 during these days, I had two phobias. The first was public speaking, and the other was writing. Ironic from this vantage point in life. But true.

Susan saw something in me I had not seen in myself. She and Beverly pitched me as a replacement for Susan to Abe Barron, the general manager, and Bob Gifford, program director, and I got an audition. I had no experience in broadcasting or much of anything except a passion for politics and issues.

The audition would be live. Gifford walked me into the studio after Bob Wilbanks finished the morning newscast. There were reportedly more than 100,000 listeners to the clear channel station at the time.

It looked like the cockpit of a commercial airplane, full of buttons and knobs and lights going on and off. It might as well have been an airplane for all I knew because I had no training in radio broadcasting. The big "ON AIR" light was terrifying. Oh, yeah, I also had a hangover that morning, as I suspect I was doing everything possible, subconsciously, to sabotage this fiasco.

Gifford showed me the button to push if anyone used profanity. It was the "seven-second delay" button, meaning engineers had that much time to cut the audio so none of the FCC's seven dirty words would make it onto the airwaves if a caller uttered them. If profanity made it on air, the station’s license to broadcast could be revoked. The host had to remember to push the button. ACK!

I'm sure I'm not the only one who didn't understand why they gave me the job, especially after the first Arbitron rating book came out. Des Moines Tribune reporter Walt Shotwell wrote I'd taken the station numbers from an all-time high of 22.2 shares of the overall radio audience in Des Moines with Bray to a stunningly awful 12.7.

Shotwell, gratefully, also dutifully reported my subsequent rise in numbers as I almost matched Bray's in some categories and exceeded them slightly in others.

That said, I think Beverly Davis is right when she said, "Susan was a great talk show host. Julie, you were really good, but Susan was great."

I was Susan's maid of honor when she married Ed DeLong in their Radnor, Pennsylvania, home in 1983. We didn't see each other after she and Ed moved to her family hometown of Mudgee, Australia. Through Facebook, I kept up with her life in Mudgee as a bed and breakfast host, an animal lover with various Chihuahuas, livestock and cats, and her lush and inviting gardens. I thought I’d visit them there someday, and so sorry that will not happen now.

Susan, thank you for what you did for women and me in broadcasting. We will miss you.

Julie Gammack is a former Des Moines Register columnist and business coach. She and her husband, Richard Gilbert, live in Iowa and Florida. Contact: julieokobojiwriters@gmail.com. Gammack produces the Okoboji Writers’ Retreat (www.okobojiwritersretreat.com)

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Susan Bray, Des Moines radio pioneer known as 'Saucy Aussie', dies