Avia Collinder, Outlook Writer 
Judith Bodley and Simon Crosskill at Fully Loaded 2K6
Hair drawn back from flawless skin, Judith Bodley on a Monday morning is quietly focused on the making of programming decisions
A petite powerhouse, Bodley's planning and analytic skills, along with her love of music and entertainment, has landed her what she describes as a 'privileged position' as station manager of RJR 94 FM.
She darts in and out of her office, coolly organising her day. There is no sign of stress.
"What other people term as negatives I term as lessons - an opportunity for me to learn. I sleep peacefully at night because I know, for every decision made, it is one which the Father has helped me to make. That is of utmost importance," claims the station manager. Bodley was recently placed under the grindstone of public opprobrium over RJR's shifting of radio personality Dorraine Samuels away from her legendary morning slot with Alan Magnus.
Samuels was replaced by the much younger Paula-Ann Porter, an act which lit a firestorm of controversy. Bodley is coolly ignoring the maelstrom, such as it is.
She says cryptically, "Some people are doers and some are sayers. I am a doer."
While some Jamaicans, she states, have expressed their dislike of the changes made at the station, even more have called back to say that they like the new combination of Paula and Alan.
important playing card
Dorraine Samuels, she comments, remains "an important playing card for RJR, a professional who shines no matter where she is put.
"RJR has always been a change leader," she adds with an expression of intense concentration on her face.
Typically, the station manager pulls a 12-hour shift - 9 to 9 - and her day is spent making the decisions which will affect the inflow of millions of dollars in advertising revenue.
It is always a long day and, at home, her 11- and four-year-old sons - both admittedly precocious - are mothered by her own mother, Anne Bodley - another formidable women who approaches life with a plan for everything.
To know Anne Bodley is to understand the women her daughters - the other being Montego Bay resident, pilot and architect Juliet Bodley - have become.
Anne Bodley is a former executive secretary, whose last job was plant safety officer at Jamaica Broilers. The woman has now switched to managing her daughter's home where everything requires an operational strategy. No shopping can proceed until she has drafted her meal plans.
On Bodley's father's side is grandfather Basil Bodley Sr., who was also a formidable planner, if a bit of a joker.
Two weeks before he died, this man called everyone in his family and spoke to them, advising them of his impending demise. He also scripted his funeral programme which, Judith Bodley recalls, was such an impressive production that relatives and friends laughed from the start to finish of his well- attended funeral in Broadleaf, Manchester.
"He was so outlandish, so out of this world. Even in death he was in complete control. I have never been to a more beautiful funeral."
Bodley says she enjoyed a childhood which she wishes children now would experience. "We saw how life began, knew how it flourished and how it ended, having been well lived."
listening to the radio
As a child, she loved listening to the radio, but like most who wanted to become an attorney or physician, her knee-jerk desire was to qualify as an attorney-at-law.
At Glenmuir High School she was involved in every creative club and, along with classmates, created their own newspaper called the 'Flash'. The paper did well and everyone got a chance to learn editing and typesetting.
When Bodley received a scholarship to attend California State University to do law, the future seemed cast in stone, especially as she loved the subject. Her father, who had also come to California to live and support her while she attended school, was pleased.
But, life changed suddenly when Bodley was invited to participate in a Caribbean radio show and her love of news and entertainment came again to the fore. She enjoyed it so much, she said, that "Against my father's will and knowledge I switched to journalism."
surprised
Dad, Basil Bodley Jr., was surprised by her decision to switch to journalism but really should not have been.
The Alcan engineer and owner of a sound system was the first influence on his daughter's love of music. Blessed with almost perfect recall, Judith remembers nestling in her father's left hand while he used his right to spin music.
Having completed university, Bodley came back to Jamaica in 1990 with her degree and a determination to excel in radio. No one would take her seriously, however. She was only at 19. She could not get one interview.
Bodley broke her ducks, so to speak, by her own creative efforts. One day, soon after coming home, she dressed herself nicely and made her way to KLAS FM Radio in Mandeville, where she told the receptionist that she was there to do an interview with Michael Anthony Kuff, the then station manager.
Admittedly, she conned her way into the manager's office, but she left with an offer to start work the very next day. Bodley was employed as a sub-editor, news reporter and newscaster.
Today, she reflects, "News is my first love."
Although she has managed to build a career in which she has melded a love of information with entertainment, the news can still make her heart beat faster, and she is proud of RJR's 'Beyond the Headlines', a programme she describes as the best local product of its kind.
Bodley's career at RJR has been a circuitous one. She moved from KLAS to RJR 94 FM for one year - in 2000 - where she was entertainment editor, newscaster and DJ. It was also the year that she walked away with the award for top radio DJ.
But, the year 2000 was also the period in which she was invited to Irie FM to recruit and train news and other programming talent. She accepted and, at Irie, she juggled the roles of programmes coordinator, entertainment editor, newscaster and head librarian, roles which she handled with apparent ease.
"I never thought it was too much. Once you recognise that you are good at something, you immerse yourself in it," Bodley reflects.
Irie did well, but she returned to RJR in 2006, she says, because of how she views her role in radio. "RJR has always been the social conscience of the media. I needed that. I wanted to make a contribution."
RJR is, in fact, known for its social activism which extends as far back as helping victims of the tragic Eventide Home fire in Kingston, in which many aged Jamaicans were burnt to death and others injured.
Golden age home
Today, the station is active at the Golden Age Home, runs its own basic school and recently launched a bid to raise $1 million for Davion, a young man from St. Thomas who has a brain tumour for which radiation treatment is being sought.
But, Bodley has also returned to a station which is in the grip of rigor mortis.
"Over the last 10 to 15 years, there have been no major changes at RJR. At the same time, the listening patterns in Jamaica have changed somewhat. Current changes at the station are in response to this, in addition to a bid to bring programming content in line with global trends," the station manager states.
Changes in demographics have led to changes in local listenership which present certain challenges. At the start of this decade, RJR was the advertising juggernaut in local media. This has changed.
The most recent survey shows that Irie FM now straddles 37 per cent of the radio market while Bodley's newest protégé - RJR - can only claim 24.6 per cent.
For the station manager, the shift represents a challenge which is being systematically addressed. The survey, she explains, must be understood in the context of the proliferation of new radio stations (now numbering near one dozen) and other entertainment options.
Demands
New programming at RJR, she states, reflects the direct demands of the audience, even while addressing social needs. Today, one very popular new product is RADIOCATION, which takes pilots,plastic surgeons, millionaire taxi men and other professionals and businessmen directly into schools in order to influence the career and life decisions of students in Jamaican schools.
"We are letting students know that there are opportunities out there. We are empowering them, telling them that they can either seek employment or be employers themselves," says Bodley.
The answer
Night-time radio on the RJR 94 FM now features 'Insomnia' with Kharma Hill and, later, Reverend Gary Harriot, a counsellor who Bodley states is RJR's answer to "an intense need among Jamaicans to talk about heir problems". Hotline, the long-lived daytime talk show, now begins at 10 a.m. and ends at 1 p.m.
On the daytime entertainment side, new DJ Sidony 'Flamze' Smith now fills the 1-5 p.m. slot. "RJR 94 FM is still the best collection of talent in the country," Bodley boasts, "and we still have the most credible news programme in the country."
As passionate as she is about her career, Bodley is equally enamoured of family, admitting that so tight-knit is her kin that when, as a child, she fell and received a scrape, family from abroad would be calling in the evening to find out exactly how it happened.
At home today, Bodley's mother is in charge. Judith says, with tears glistening in her eyes, that she does not want to contemplate her life without her mother.
"In this world, anyone who has a mother like mine must give the Lord thanks repeatedly. If the thought even crosses my mind of her death, I cry. "If I am having a bad day, she knows without one word being said. The phone rings and she is at the other end asking, 'what is it now?' My mother replenishes my life," the station manager sighs.
For her children and others who are coming of age in Jamaica, she wishes that their childhood had been like hers.
Times have changed, she observes.
She thinks it's fortunate that, through programming decisions on the job, she can influence family and society in beneficial ways.
