How early mornings and mom’s late-stage dementia led radio star to leave ‘Matt & Ramona’
As soon as the surprise announcement was made last Monday that Charlotte radio station The Mix 107.9 (WLNK-FM) would air the final installment of “The Matt & Ramona Show” the next day because one half of it was stepping away from her microphone, it would have been easy to jump to conclusions.
And there certainly might have been an inclination to hold your breath a little if given a chance to offer “congratulations” to Ramona Holloway after hearing the news. To maybe even phrase the word as a question.
But the longtime on-air partner to Matt Harris is here to tell you: It’s not just all good. It’s all absolutely, positively fantastic.
“I simply walked away for me. Because of changes in my life that I’d like to make,” the 57-year-old Holloway told the Observer in an extensive interview about how she landed her new job as community affairs manager for Radio One Charlotte, which owns WLNK and five other area stations. That came after navigating personal and professional trials over the past two-plus years that left her “exhausted.”
“It’s usually, you know, somebody got sick, management got angry, somebody messed up, the relationship fell apart,” she says. “But it’s none of those things. ... You don’t often see teams that have successfully navigated this business break up because of good things.”
Holloway says Harris was the first person she told about her intention to leave the morning show, back in early February, and she fully expected that after talking to the station bosses about the decision next, she would no longer have a job. In fact, she says, she had already started looking for other work.
To her surprise, however, Radio One bent over backward to keep her in the family, even if it meant a significant reduction in her presence on the air. (She’ll appear as a guest on Harris’s new show twice a week, and continue podcasting with him.)
The new corporate role? It was management’s idea.
In her recent interview, Holloway talked about why managing community affairs for the stations is the perfect job at the perfect time in her life; but mostly about how her mother’s brutal battle with dementia that ended with her death in 2021 — coupled with “Matt & Ramona’s” shift to mornings after 20 years in the afternoons — nearly broke her.
The interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Q. Just as a casual observer, looking at the move to mornings that you guys made in April 2021, it didn’t really seem to be your choice. I always wondered, when that was presented to you and Matt, were you — and I know Radio One is still your boss, but — were you excited about going from afternoons to morning, or were you like, “What??”
When we were presented with the opportunity, it was very bittersweet. Because, when we were hired in 2001, we were a bookend. “Bob & Sheri” anchored the mornings, and we anchored the afternoons. So to move into “Bob & Sheri’s” slot was not something that I ever anticipated doing. I was not laying in bed at 3:45 a.m. thinking, Man, I wish I could be where Sheri is right now! She gets all the breaks! No. I was very comfortable in the afternoon.
And when it was presented to us that we move to the mornings, I knew that I didn’t want to leave Charlotte. I could not leave Charlotte with my mom. This is where our support system was. But I also knew that caring for Mom was incredibly expensive, and I knew that I could have the money to take care of myself and take care of Mom as one half of the morning show. And there was no one I was gonna do a morning show with other than Matt, because I was in the late stages of dementia with my mom. Because what we were going through at home was getting more and more challenging. I needed a partner who I could trust — who I could just throw things to, who I could come in and cry with for a little bit.
So, was I excited about the morning show? Yes. Because it was an opportunity to continue to work with my friend, and it was an opportunity to continue to take care of my mom well from a financial perspective. But was I pursuing it? Was I like, “Hey, you need to get ‘Bob & Sheri’ outta here so I can do the morning show?”
Hell, bleepity-bleeping-emm-effin’-NO.
Q. When you were working afternoons, what time did you go to bed and what time did you wake up; and then when you started working mornings, what time did you go to bed and what time did you wake up?
When I was working afternoons, I went to bed at midnight naturally, and woke up without an alarm clock, naturally, at 7 a.m. As part of the morning show, I’d wake up at 3:45 a.m., and try to make myself go to bed at 8 p.m. Working mornings, there has never been anything natural about when I go to bed or wake up.
On Friday and Saturday, I wanted to go to movies, I wanted to see friends, I wanted to go out to dinner, so I’d wind up staying up until 10 o’clock, just barely, on Friday. Then on Saturday, maybe even staying awake until 11. Then on Sunday night, trying to make myself go to sleep at 9 p.m., and my body’s saying, “NO!” So I would go into Monday always on an awful sleep deficit, promising myself that Monday I’d go to bed at 7 p.m. to kind of rewrite the schedule.
That’s how it would go every single week: trying to play catch-up on Monday night going into Tuesday, Tuesday night going into Wednesday, Thursday I’d stay up a little later so that I could go to my life group. And then Friday I’d be exhausted.
Q. So you shifted to mornings in April 2021, and your mom died that August. What were those four months like, dealing with making the adjustment and caring for your mother?
When we first made the switch, the most difficult thing was trying to find people that would show up at my house at 4 o’clock in the morning, because if my mom heard that I was up then she would wake up, so I needed someone to watch her while I got dressed and then went to work. Then after that, I was just focused on getting the work done and fulfilling the promise that I made to the company and the contract — and also fulfilling the promise to my partner that I wasn’t going to let him down.
Because I started my on-air career doing mornings, I thought eventually I’d catch on. I’d find my way. But in 2021, it was one loss after another. Aunt, and two uncles, then my stepfather, and my dog, and my mom. I wasn’t trying to have a life outside of radio, I was just trying to make it to work and make it home.
Q. When your mom did pass, did you think, OK, maybe here’s another chance, reset. Now that I don’t have to worry about finding someone who can come at 4 in the morning, maybe this is gonna work? Or were you still like, This is killing me?
What was killing me was the fact that I lost my mom. Losing a parent, losing someone you love, losing your best friend, it’s a pretty dark thing to go through. Even when you feel like you’re ready for it. And grief, for me, has been exhausting. It was clouding my brain. Couldn’t keep up. I couldn’t keep a thought straight. I was leaving doors open and forgetting stuff even more than I usually do. I was completely overwhelmed. I was just trying to figure out how to do life. Because caregiving had been the centerpiece for so long.
But once I took a look at what my life looked like and what was missing and what I wanted, it was very clear to me that the things that I was missing — connection with people, a feeling of being secure and rested — were not attainable for me in that position, working for a morning show.
Q. Would it be fair to say you had been a caregiver for so long that you forgot how to take care of yourself?
Well, it’s what I learned as a caregiver. Because when you’re caring for someone else — an adult who has become very childlike, who can’t make their own food anymore, who can’t take care of their own hygiene anymore — you can get pretty lost in taking care of them. But if you go under, the whole ship sinks. So I learned how to take care of myself in a different way as a caregiver. I mean, all of these things that I learned as a caregiver told me to take care of her, but they also taught me how I needed to take care of myself. It was a part of growing up for me.
Also, I’ve learned how to define success differently. Keeping her alive wasn’t the success; success was keeping her comfortable. Success wasn’t gonna be a cure; success was going to be me surviving losing her. That was gonna be the success. It’s a complete rewiring that I went through as a caregiver that taught me how I want to live the rest of the days that I am here on this planet, and how I definitely don’t want to live the rest of the days that I have. What I want to do with the time that I have.
Q. Basically, it sounds like it was gradual, as opposed to like a lightning bolt that hit you, as far as coming to the realization that you needed to walk away from the show.
Oh, absolutely. It’s not lost on me that I was one half of a partnership. Not lost on me that there are people who would absolutely kill for the job that I had, and the money I was making. Saying goodbye to that brand wasn’t an easy thing to do, because that brand has blessed me in a lot of ways. Places I’ve been, people I’ve met, things I’ve had an opportunity to do, because of being Ramona on the radio. I was gonna just say, “Ehhh, I’m done. And walk away from that?” It didn’t make sense. But yet it did.
I realized that I was counting the days until I could tell the company I was leaving the show. The main thing I struggled with was telling Matt. Because who wants to say to one of their best friends, “Hey, listen: I know this is your livelihood, but, uh, I’m out”?
Q. When you finally told him, and told management, did you feel a huge weight lifted?
I did, in some ways. Then there were moments where I thought, “What have I done?” It wasn’t an easy decision when I looked at Matt. When I looked at what I had achieved in my career. But then I look back on my career and say, What is it that I haven’t done that I’ve wanted to do in radio? Nothing. I did the kind of show that I wanted to do when we were a talk show in the afternoon. I’ve won awards. I’ve worked every format from country to hip-hop. I’ve done news. I mean, it was like, What is it you’re waiting for? What do you want?
Q. How did management react?
They said, “Well, what about coming in at 7 a.m.? And if you have an engagement the night before the show, how about you work from home on those days?” I thought, That’s a really nice thought, and I might be able to do that till — I don’t know, the end of the year, maybe? But just taking an hour off the beginning of the show or working from home, that still meant getting up at that ungodly hour. And it might sound like I’m completely unprepared on the radio, but I put a lot of time into researching what I’m gonna talk about so I can talk about it intelligently and be funny.
I simply said, “I am exhausted.” Then I told them what I’d already told myself: I want flexible hours. I want a job that is based in solutions, not just pointing fingers at the problems and telling everybody who’s wrong. I wanted a job that was somehow connected to media and marketing, but also supportive of philanthropic efforts in the community, and I wanted a job that would allow me to be independent. To still take care of myself. And when Radio One came back to me with their offer, their offer checked all of the boxes.
At the end of the day, it’s about redefining success as not something that is quantified by the size of my paycheck or whether or not we have a 5 share or a 10 share in the market when it comes to ratings. Defining success as going through the hardest thing I have ever been through in my life, and surviving it. Success is now figuring out how to thrive beyond it. That’s success. Not living in the loss, but being able to look back at the good times and using those as inspiration and fuel to build something new.
Q. You’ll still get to do some on-air stuff, including being a guest on Matt’s new show from 9-10 a.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Did you have to be talked into that?
No. It was something that Matt and I talked about. I said, “I will help you out a couple of days a week. But whatever you want from me cannot happen before 8 a.m., unless it’s prerecorded.” So I still get to do that, plus I still get to do the things that I enjoy in the community, but I also get to share the love with my coworkers on five other stations.
People keep asking me, “You’re only gonna be in the studio twice a week. What are you gonna do?” I’m gonna do me! And I’m not trying to hustle for more stuff to do. Maybe I’ll finish my book, because I can actually stay awake long enough to put pen to paper. Or maybe not. Maybe I’ll open up my care home. Maybe for right now, I will just do some fun stuff, and — after so many years of just grinding for radio and caregiving — figure out what fun stuff feels like again.
This story was originally published May 8, 2023 at 6:00 AM.
