CLITHERALL, MINN. – It’s the nine o’clock hour and on Niijii Radio, host Terry Goodsky is ready as ever to roast the cheese eaters east of Minnesota.
What do you call 10 Packers fans lined up ear to ear?
What’s a Packers fan’s favorite wine?
“We can’t beat Minnesota!”
Known for his bad jokes, good music and Marilyn Monroe-inspired birthday warbles, Goodsky has become a fixture on the public radio station that broadcasts daily from the KKWE radio station on the White Earth Reservation in northwestern Minnesota.
For some 10 years, he’s been on the air. His main goal is to make people laugh, but never in a mean way, and to keep the Ojibwe language alive by sprinkling his shows with Native words. In a radio ecosystem of canned commercial patter and fire-breathing political talk shows, he remains part of the dwindling crowd of DJs who live where they broadcast, who are gloriously human and unpolished, who know personally the people who call in, and who are kind and funny and care about their communities.
But Goodsky might not be around next year.