Sometimes friendships from college disappear forever and you never think about people who spent hours upon hours with in a basement for three years, and then there are happy coincidences like the one Petra Mayer and I got to live.
From 1993-96 I knew Petra Mayer through my work at WAMH, the AmherstCollege radio station. We were both highly involved in management and radio was our number one activity outside of classes. While Petra was a year ahead of me, she was the Chief Engineer and I worked my may up from Sports Director to Program Director. At one point we held 2 of the top 3 management positions running a 24 hour a day radio station [and we both had the pagers we had to carry 24/7 to prove it....ahhh the 90s].
Here is a photo from, I think, Winter 1995 of the WAMH Executive Board. Petra is in the bottom left corner and 19yr old me is next to her. [Thanks to one of my oldest and dearest friends, Adam, for sending this to me via email over the weekend].
I am not exaggerating about the number of hours we spent together, in that basement station. I can still picture her hovering over some of our equipment, trying to keep it working just a little longer, sitting in meetings giving our reports, and yes, rushing to the station at 2 am because something happened with the first year running the middle of the night shift and we got paged to run over there ASAP.
Petra graduated the year before me. I knew she decided to stay with radio because I was still considering it too [although a summer internship at a commercial station made me reconsider], but after a few years, I moved into a different field and we lost touch.
I remember when the NPR Books job opened. They were advertising for an editor of their books coverage, someone who would make their website more dynamic and responsive to readers, someone who could help blend their presence online with the radio coverage. As a NPR supporter, I was hopeful they would pick someone good, someone who would make NPR books less stuffy. And then I heard the name Petra Mayer and my heart was happy.
While we never had the chance to work together directly, we did touch base multiple times while she held this job, especially when they did Horror for the Summer Reads and over the work of our mutual friend Gabino Iglesias. Petra was one of the first people to hire Gabino as a literary critic. [For the record, I asked her to figure out how she could get NPR to let him read some of his reviews on air, and while she agreed he should, she also said all she could do was suggest it.]
Petra died suddenly over the weekend. While people I knew in college have died, no one I spent so much time with, no one I knew so intimately, and no one I respected as much has. The fact that our paths crossed so directly in the years after college always made me smile. I had even told my daughter-- an Amherst student, WAMH DJ, and podcast director for the college newspaper-- that after the holidays she should talk to Petra about what it is like to work at NPR.
If you have enjoyed the Book Conceirge, any of NPR Books' serious consideration of genre books, the diversification of their print reviewers, or just ever use their excellent website, you can thank Petra.
She will be missed by so many-- those that knew her, worked with her, and loved her, yes, but so many others had no idea who she was, but appreciated her work on a regular basis.
That's the point of this post I guess. To remind you all that our favorite resources are still directed by people, people who may be mostly behind the scenes, but they are there. And some of them are extraordinary.
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