Every day Allan Peck, class of 1996, goes to work at three o’clock where he sits in a room and talks to himself for four hours, occasionally dragging and clicking his mouse to play the next song. He is a DJ at a local country radio station, and it is his job to come up with a creative way to restate the same things from day to day and make the listener feel as if they are being spoken to individually.

“My job is to make you, as a listener, shine,” Peck said. “I may be talking to a large group of people, but I’m actually talking to one person.”

An average radio listener typically tunes in for less than 20 minutes, and the DJ is constantly challenged to captivate the listeners.

“Whether it’s 10 minutes in the car, or your radio alarm going off, I have to grab your attention as soon as you switch to the station,” Peck said.

This is a skill that has to be perfected over time and Peck, unlike most, had a head start. In 1995, Peck and his best friend, Galen Tulley, orchestrated the morning announcements at the school. They captivated their audience with a combination of audio bits from movies and TV, music and skits.

“What I did in high school helped me immensely,” Peck said. “I learned work ethic and how to make anybody laugh.”

It all started with film making, which is what Peck had aspired to do. For some writing assignments he was given, he would instead make a short film to display the prompt of the paper. He would stay up until three or four in the morning working on these projects when he could have just written a paper in 20 minutes.

“It was a really creative solution to a really boring problem,” Peck said.

After doing that for a while, video became too expensive. So he and Tulley decided to use their creativity to solve a boring problem at the school. They made a demo of how the announcements would be if they were doing them. Using his father’s DJ equipment, they created and recorded their version. After deciding that it would be fun to do, they played them for the principal and the next day they were broadcasting to the school.

“It’s always better to ask for forgiveness than for permission,” Peck said. “You can’t wait for an opportunity to happen. You just have to go out and force it, and eventually you will succeed.”

Peck and Tulley worked endlessly in the wee hours of the morning, coming up with new material and recording the next day’s news. No one announcement was similar to the next, and they were never afraid to push the limits. They would mock the teachers and play material, which though funny, was offensive to some people. They had fun, and the joy spread throughout the school making Peck and Tulley instant sensations.

“There is no better feeling than making a total stranger laugh,” Peck said. “Random students would come up and give us compliments; it was awesome.”

Eventually Peck pushed, and the administration pushed back. After playing an offensive line from “Ace Ventura” multiple times, the principal stepped in and removed both students from their announcement duties. Student Council has done them since.

“By the time we were kicked off, we were tired of doing them anyway, so we were happy,” Peck said.

Peck’s experience with the school announcements interested him in pursuing a career in radio. With the help of his father, a long time radio host, he got a job as an intern for Kidd Kraddick, who hosts the morning show on KISS-FM. He quickly worked his way up to hosting his own show.

“Success in this business is all about who you know,” Peck said. “You’ve got to get your foot in the door, then it’s easy from there.”

For Peck, the announcements were more than just a time consuming hobby, but rather the gateway to a fun and successful life.

“We got ourselves into something bigger than we could have ever understood,” Peck said. “I don’t know where I would be now if we hadn’t made that first sketch.”