Do you have a life outside of radio? I like to volunteer in my community with the schools here. I like to travel. I’m a bookworm. I like to read a lot.
Why volunteering?I met a lot of mentors when I was growing up because I came from a single-parent household. My mom was always at work. I always had somebody to kind of show me different things. It allowed me to kind of see what my opportunities were and made me want to go to college and just be a positive influence.
What volunteering do you do? I volunteer with the middle school and the high school, whether it’s serving food or just speaking to the students about different career opportunities, encouraging them to stay in school, finding a positive outlet to do different things. A lot of people are interested in what I do because most people don’t really think about military journalists when they think military.
What did you go to college for?I have a degree in mass communications. And I went to North Carolina A&T State University. I graduated from there, and I came into the military to kind of get more experience and to pay off my student loans and see the world.
Has that worked out?It’s worked out really well. I ended up staying a lot longer than I thought I was [going to], and I’ve learned quite a bit — a whole lot more than I learned when I was actually in school.
Is this your first radio hitch? Coming to AFN it is. They’ve been introducing it to me little by little so this is the first time I’ve kind of been able to go on my own and do it.
So what do you do, show up at 6 a.m., jump in the studio and start reading?I live about 10 minutes from here, so I get my clothes on, drive over here, and then at about 1:30-2 a.m. We just start pulling stuff from the news wires. I’m pretty much done stacking everything by 5 a.m. Then I try to rehearse a little bit and relax. That’s the biggest thing, just relaxing, because it’s live.
How do you relax for live radio?You know, I pray a lot. Prayer and positive thinking. I’m a perfectionist, so sometimes it’s hard to be like, “Oh, man, I messed up.”
Is there a mistake that sticks with you?Every day (laughter). My nerves sometimes get the best of me. Just mistakes every day. You’d be surprised, but I try to learn from it and move on and just do the best I can. TV is a lot different, because with that we have time to kind of go back and correct stuff. In live radio you have to just keep going.
I know — I mispronounced something. Elliot Spitzer is what it was — the governor. And people were like, “Hey, you’re not saying it right.” I think I was saying Spritzer. I was so embarrassed, but I had to look at it and go back over it, and I was like, OK, and I corrected it and I had to move on.
Would you rather do live radio or be out in the field producing stories? I’m more of an indoors person. Neither job is easy. With this, people think you kind of just show up, but it’s a lot of people, a lot of moving pieces, and we work hard. So when people come up and say, “Hey, you know, we enjoy your show,” that means a lot to me, even if it’s one person.
Know someone whose accomplishments, talents, job, hobby, volunteer work, awards or good deeds qualify them for 15 minutes of fame? How about someone whose claim to glory is a bit out of the ordinary — even, dare we say, oddball? Send the person’s name and contact information to: news@estripes.osd.mil
Staff Sgt. Dijon Rolle
Age: 28
Hometown: Greensboro, N.C.
Job: Disc jockey for AFN’s Morning Newswatch program
Europe readers: Know someone whose accomplishments, talents, job, hobby, volunteer work, awards or good deeds qualify them for 15 minutes of fame? How about someone whose claim to glory is a bit out of the ordinary — even, dare we say, oddball? Send the person’s name and contact information to: news@estripes.osd.mil.
