Year to remember: Radio hosts make jump from Seattle to Kalispell

It started simply enough - Benny Bee Jr., as he often does, posed a question to those tuning in to the morning show he shares with co-host Amy Lynn on KBBZ-FM.

He'd seen a woman shove a shopping cart across a parking lot, aiming for the cart corral. She missed and dented a shiny BMW, then drove off, even though Benny was trying to get her attention.

He had all the information on the cars involved and a description of the woman - "a blonde in a silver sedan" is all he said publicly.

But should he report it? Like any good citizen who just happens to have a radio show, he put the question to his listeners - and the phone lines almost caught fire.

This kind of thing happens a lot on Benny and Amy's morning show, which is not quite a year old.

When they left their respective gigs in Seattle for the Flathead Valley - it was a homecoming for Benny, whose father owns Bee Broadcasting - their goal was to create a "real" morning show. They regularly offer slices of their lives to listeners. It's fitting for an intimate medium like radio, where someone's voice is broadcast directly into a person's car, bedroom or shower.

For all that intimacy, however, there's also a distance in radio. There's no face - only a voice. Many features, though they sound live, are recorded, edited and played back later. Benny and Amy broadcast each morning from a small, almost surgically neat studio tucked behind soundproof walls and thick doors.

And that's good, because if the cart lady topic had been on a live television show, it probably would've turned into something rivaling Jerry Springer.

The topic struck a nerve with listeners. After all, who hasn't had a ding inflicted on their car by some careless person in a parking lot? There was sympathy, too, though, because too many have dinged someone else's vehicle and scooted away to feel comfortable casting the first stone.

These things come up a couple of times a week. One memorable exchange involved a guy who was leaving his new girlfriend at home asleep to sneak out at night with the boys. Another morning, listeners were asked to name what Benny and Amy should do if they left radio (Amy could be a model or a 900-number host; Benny was considered fit for many positions involving menial labor).

And the fact that people respond has been the best reward the pair could've hoped for - along with good ratings, of course.

Benny started his radio career at Bee Broadcasting, which now consists of KBBZ 98.5, KDBR 106.3, KKMT 95.9, all FM stations, and KJJR 880 AM. He worked in San Diego for a time as well, and in 2000 found a place at Infinity Broadcasting in Seattle.

That's where Amy Lynn was working too, following a lot of station-jumping in Portland, Ore., and Seattle. It was a large place - they worked in the same building for a long time without running into each other.

In 2003 the company's corporate heads were considering changes to formats and staffing, and Benny pitched the idea of coming to Montana to Amy and another colleague.

It made sense in many ways. Benny could be close to his kids in Missoula while helping his father, particularly since a new classic rock station, KZMN 103.9, was showing strong ratings. It was easy to convince Amy and her fiance, both avid snowboarders, and it was a chance for her to do something in radio she hadn't done before.

"It was good for us to get out away from the corporate radio," Benny said, although it's also understood that they're free to pursue opportunities that might become available in larger markets.

"Obviously that's my goal, and that's Amy's goal," he said. "But I don't see that happening any time in the near future."

Amy said she has adjusted to life in a rural area. For instance, when she visits a large city, she now misses the seeing the sky and the sunset. And she has a hard time calling what she does work.

"We don't have a real job," she said. "We get up in the morning and play, so people who do have a real job can get up and feel good about having to go off somewhere."

But back to the cart lady. As it turned out, she apparently was listening that morning. She didn't feel good about being discussed, and she called in to say so.

"You need to stay out of other people's business," she scolded Benny, characterizing the BMW driver as "some rich snob who lives in Whitefish or Iron Horse." (Actually, someone claiming to be the BMW owner also called, identifying herself as a hard-working single mother of six.)

"It was an accident, no big deal, not my problem," the cart pusher ranted. "If you keep giving my information out over the air, your ass will be in court."

Benny and Amy didn't seem concerned. They played the clip over and over and over again. Judging by the calls that poured in afterward, their listeners found it just as funny as they did.