Annie Frey relayed a great deal of information in the relatively brief time we spent together. She speaks quickly and lands her thoughts expeditiously. Perhaps that’s because, with four children, you find it hard to get a word in edgewise. She ensured her kids could play doubles tennis when the fourth child showed up last year.
“My daughter Molly Marie was born 16 months ago,” Frey said. “She’s a typical fourth child. She’s independent, curious, a take-along baby. I’m not totally sure what that means.”
That makes two of us.
Frey hosts the eponymous The Annie Frey Show on Fox News Radio station, 97.1FM Talk. Between her family and her job, she’s a busy woman.
“My husband and I used to sit and stare at the first child, wondering how we were going to navigate it all. When the fourth one comes along, you have a totally different mindset. It’s a bit more autopilot.”
Frey said it’s challenging to be a parent, and difficult to keep up with everything that’s going on in the kids’ lives.
“That’s the difficult part right now, juggling it all. And it’s all happening right during the difficult and silly political season.”
It has been said if you want to get something done, give it to a busy person. Frey has a family, a job, and coaches volleyball. However, if something has to give, her family will always come first.
“The one thing that people always tell me is the time with your kids goes really fast,” Frey said. “The other phrase is days are long, years are short. Here I am physically trying to keep my eyes open from exhaustion, and then in a blink of those eyes, it will all be over.”
Frey said her number one priority is to be there, and be present in the kids’ lives.
“You can’t always stop the world from hurting them,” she said. “But you have to help create resilient human beings. Let them know they will always have a mother and father that will be there for them. Make it so they don’t really need you anymore.”
She said her 12-year-old is just too mature for her age, an old soul.
“She’s just entering that age where she’s starting to get the jokes, contribute to a conversation. That’s kind of a cool thing. You couldn’t imagine things like that happening when they were super little. What am I going to do when she starts driving a car?”
Frey was born in Edwardsville, Illinois, just across the Mississippi River from St. Louis. A mere 22 minutes from downtown. She grew up on a generational farm, raised in the same house in which her grandfather was born.
“There’s a treeline on the western horizon of our property where we can see the Gateway Arch, see fireworks. I always say I’m an Illinoisan in the shadow of the Arch.”
Frey began her radio career as an intern at KFNS, the same time our own Jason Barrett was program director.
“I grew up listening to Frank Cusumano on KFNS. He is one of the best storytellers, bar none,” Frey said. “I started interning on his show coming out of college. I was such small peanuts. I loved working with Frank. I did have a lot of responsibility and had the chance to do meaningful things.”
The internship was unpaid, but that didn’t seem to bother Frey.
“I just loved radio. I got a call when I was in Peoria for a volleyball tournament, and it was the station asking if I’d like to extend the internship–still unpaid. Of course, I said ‘yes.’”
Welcome to radio.
By this time she was living in Hamel, Illinois, and would drive 55 miles to and from the station every day. She finally started making minimum wage. Still, it was all worth it.
“I got to work with some great people,” Frey said. “I didn’t have health benefits, but I was working a real job in the industry. In radio, you have to go where the jobs are.”
She studied communications and broadcasting at Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville, with aspirations of becoming a sports sideline reporter. Frey said while working at KFNS she made some good connections. While sideline reporting was her goal, she recognized something else was calling.
“I steered away from that goal,” Frey said. “All of these sporting events I would cover required nights and weekends. What I really wanted was a family of six. (Only two more kids to go.) I wanted to be successful with a family, not spend all my time at a meaningless sports game.”
Frey is a true sports lover, evidenced by her being a four-sport athlete in high school. She played volleyball, basketball, softball, and ran track.
“Sports was always my passion,” Frey explained. “In the summer of 08, all I was talking about on the air was Barry Bonds, whether his home runs would stand up. It was then I realized I didn’t care enough about topics like that to make sports my life. I guess it was some sort of disconnect. Now I’m involved in news and politics. I don’t care which side of the aisle you’re on, you should have a heart and head for what’s going on.”
Frey still loves sports, but now it’s all about the heart, not a cerebral endeavor. She said sports is a business driven by success.
“What entertains sells,” Frey said. “You never really want to know how sausage is made. You almost don’t want to be too close to something where you end up losing the passion. I didn’t want to do the barstool sports thing. There was a specific role on the radio for female voices back then that wasn’t for me.”
Frey said it’s different with politics. She can plead her case with more meaning. It was a huge transformation from sports to politics, but Frey admits she had the right personality.
“I’m a nerd,” she said. “I was raised to be a nerd.”
While at KFNS, Frey contributed very little on the air with no real ambition to be behind the microphone.
“I was interested in traffic, loading PSA’s and commercials. I did some weather and business office stuff,” Frey explained. “I did scheduling for producers and part-timers. The last thing I took on was digital responsibility.”
Frey said the digital world now compared to 2008 is a light-year of difference.
“People wouldn’t recognize what managing a website was back then. It was almost primitive.”
Frey said she’s incredibly blessed to be surrounded by family, close to her family’s original home.
“All four of my grandparents were a big part of my life,” Frey said. “My paternal grandfather was stationed in the South Pacific in WWII. He met his wife, my grandmother, in Australia. They’d only known each other for a few months when they married. He sent her to the United States. She sailed to the West Coast, arrived in Union Station in St. Louis, and lived with my grandfather’s family.”
Frey said everyone assumed her freshly married grandmother was expecting a child, but that wasn’t the case. Her grandfather was a Captain in the Army. He drew maps of farms in Illinois. When he went into the army, his skills transferred to being a topographer during his service.
“My grandparents were influential in my life. They have a strong Christian faith. I use them as a guide to prioritize my life.”
As a kid, Frey listened to KMOX, which she said was on nearly all kitchen radios.
“Rush Limbaugh was on. I knew who he was at a young age. But then he was just another voice in the kitchen.”
Frey’s father was also in the radio business, spending 30 years in the St. Louis market. He did some on-air work and spent time as a program director.
“It was KFUO AM, a Lutheran radio station,” Frey explained. “I’m sure that was a contributing factor in my own radio dreams. He hosted a radio show, Ask The Pastor. They would discuss biblical concepts, take calls to answer questions.”
Her father taught her to listen and learn from his mistakes.
“He’d always tell me about having a listener-centric program,” Frey said. “There are a lot of people who have massive egos behind the microphone. He said you had to control the ego. He’d tell me, regardless of how bright and brilliant a person may be if somebody listening doesn’t think you’re serving them. That’s a critical mistake. My dad instilled that in me. Be humble.”
She said she enjoyed spending time in radio stations when her father was working.
“All of a sudden I realized not everybody’s dad worked in radio. He’s a great man of faith. His work helped him refine his faith. He helped people with complicated issues. I always thought he was cool to be on the radio.”
Frey observed how kindness, patience, and acceptance in our society are in incredibly short supply between people.
“I’m a white, suburban, minivan-driving woman. People think they could probably determine who I vote for–but they’d be wrong. Everybody has their own unique mind. Value comes from who we are on the inside, not the outside.
On her show, Frey said she doesn’t call people names. She doesn’t want to hear someone is bad because of the way they wear their hair, or what they wear.
“I always want to keep it about substance, not surface. I don’t want them to tune into my show to find out how ‘their side’ won today. I want them to listen, stay informed. I don’t want the clenched cheeks, blood pressures going up. Just exhale, let things out. Most people who listen to me are like-minded. They say, ‘I listen to your show. You’re willing to have the conversations.”
That’s easier when the four kids are at home.
