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John Matthews, WMAL News Director, on the benefits - all of these years - getting up and being at work by 4:30 in the morning at the latest~\n\n"I don\u2019t know what morning drive traffic is like and I don\u2019t know what afternoon drive traffic is like and I consider that a blessing. I love the hours that I work. And that\u2019s when decisions are made. The decisions except for breaking news, the decisions on stories that you\u2019re hearing at 6:00 at night were made at 5:00 in the morning."\n\nJohn Matthews, WMAL News Director, and host Andy Ockershausen in-studio interview\n\nAndy Ockershausen:\tThis is Our Town, Andy Ockershausen with a special guest who's really not special. He's a big part of the woodwork here at WMAL, he's a big part of the station and it's success, a big part of my life because I've known him since he was a kid, and I hired him at WMAL, it's maybe one of the biggest mistakes I ever made, but I lived with it for years and all of a sudden John Matthews became a star. John, welcome to Our Town.\nJohn Matthews:\tOh my goodness. You are really blowing it up this morning.\nAndy Ockershausen:\tYour skirt, blows your skirt up. Whatever blows your- John, what a great thing though that you came here as a kid, a young man out of school. Why did you pick Syracuse to go to school?\nEducation - Syracuse University\nJohn Matthews:\tWell there's a couple of reasons. Number one they had a great broadcast program, but number two my sister went there before I did.\nAndy Ockershausen:\tYour talented sister.\nJohn Matthews:\tMy talented sister, Julie. She was there before I went and being she's a couple of years older than me, I really hadn't toured a lot of college campuses, so when she went there, one of the only college campuses I'd ever seen was in Syracuse, New York, Syracuse University, so I ended up going there and they had a great broadcast program too.\nAndy Ockershausen:\tWhere did you grow up, in Washington or Frederick?\nOn Growing Up in Our Town\nJohn Matthews:\tI grew up in Silver Spring, Maryland.\nAndy Ockershausen:\tOh you did? Right here?\nJohn Matthews:\tOh yeah. Absolutely.\nAndy Ockershausen:\tYour dad was a builder and lived here.\nJohn Matthews:\tMy dad was a builder. He built the first house that he ever owned, he built in Silver Spring. And I grew up-\nAndy Ockershausen:\tWhat was your relationship to Frederick? Your grandma-\nJohn Matthews:\tMy grandparents lived in Frederick.\nAndy Ockershausen:\tThat's what I thought.\nJohn Matthews:\tLived in Frederick, Maryland. And my dad grew up in Gallipolis, Ohio. And-\nAndy Ockershausen:\tI know it well.\nJohn Matthews:\tYeah. He grew up in Gallipolis, Ohio, and moved his family here, moved us here.\nAndy Ockershausen:\tWere you born in Ohio?\nJohn Matthews:\tNo. I was born in Richmond, Virginia. I was born in the-\nAndy Ockershausen:\tThat's on the way to Ohio, of course.\nJohn Matthews:\tHe had a construction job down there. And he was a builder and he had construction work down there. He had my two sisters and I and shortly after I was born, I was less than a year old, we moved up here to the D.C. area and we lived in Langley Park and Takoma Park in apartments. We moved to a house near downtown Silver Spring and then my dad built a house in the White Oak, Hillandale area of Silver Spring and that's where I grew up.\nAndy Ockershausen:\tJohn, that's great to hear you, think I've known your dad for 40, 50 years, I didn't realize all these things. I knew he was a local guy, and I consider Frederick Our Town because we had more listeners in Frederick than Frederick stations had at one time.\nJohn Matthews:\tSure.\nAndy Ockershausen:\tThere was a reason for that, our signal. But John, you've had a great experience in Our Town. The moves, obviously you learn things, you knew things, and did you try any other school before Syracuse?\nJohn Matthews' WMAL Internship\nJohn Matthews:\tNot for college. I went to Springbrook High School and then I went to Syracuse and then I got my internship at WMAL.