Author: Laurie Manor, Owner of ICR Advertising

Laurie Manor is a local entrepreneur.  While she started her career selling broadcast advertising, she has more recently built her own advertising agency, ICR Advertising, which she has operated since 2008. Last year, her celebrity husband – Evansville radio host Joe Blair – quit his radio gig to work with Laurie full-time in marketing. Below is a little behind the scenes with Joe and Laurie. 

Joe Blair made a name for himself hosting radio programs, starting in 1984 in Philadelphia, then in Chattanooga, and most recently in Evansville with WIKY and WJLT.  Last year, he traded in his radio mic and celebrity status to come help me with the family business.  No more mornings of getting up before the sun rose and going to bed before it set. I can’t tell you how happy I am to have Joe with me every day, and how happy he is with his new career!

Many Evansville residents think they know Joe, since he’s been talking to them (through radio air waves) for years.  As women, we always suspect that we know more about our husbands than others.  Heck, we often know more about them than they do!  I thought it might be interesting for Joe to tell you ten things you didn’t know about him, which I will counter with my own ten things.  So without further ado, 10 Things You Didn’t Know About Joe Blair…

10 Things You Didn’t Know About Joe Blair (by Joe Blair)
1. I have eaten a 72 ounce steak in a 1/2 hour. (Plus a salad and baked potato.)
2. My dad worked in the Dum-Dum Lollypop factory when I was in grade school.
3. I took up golf three years ago and now sometimes break 80!
4. I did concrete work with the LIUNA Labor Union in Muncie.
5. I wanted to be a stunt car driver or rodeo star when I grew up. (Laurie thinks he still has a chance!)
6. Johnny Bench was my childhood hero (Red’s Catcher).
7. I have never broken a bone, but did have Rheumatic fever when I was nine and had to take penicillin until I was 24.
8. I sang the national anthem at the Chattanooga “Look-Outs” baseball game.
9. My grandfather was the Chief of Police in Dunkirk, Indiana (Joe’s Hometown).
10. I was the lead in two high school musicals (Music Man and Fiddler on the Roof).

10 Things You Didn’t Know About Joe Blair… Unless You Were Married To Him (by Joe’s wife, Laurie Manor)
1. Joe took guitar lessons for 13 years and plays beautifully.
2. Joe can imitate pretty much any voice, and he actually did his “Johnny Cash” voice
to Johnny Cash himself. Johnny said “How about if you do you, and I do me!” and laughed at Joe.
3. Joe cooks supper for me every night.
4. Our first kiss was after a radio remote at Gus Doerner Sports.
5. Joe wrote a book called “I Can Relate” which is about his methods about relating to his broadcast audience. We named our agency ICR Advertising after his book.
6. Joe created a spice for hotdogs called “Joe Blair’s Chili Dog Spice” and actually got the local grocery stores to carry it.
7. Joe owned a recording studio called “Mixers Studios.”
8. We have been married for thirteen years and have worked together for fifteen years.
9. Joe and I have “Love Notes.” These are journals filled with every day of our marriage together – Yes, we have 26 volumes of 13 years-worth of daily writing to each other.
10. Joe is a Grandpa – his daughter, Mayme, had a son named Ramsey and he is five years old.