So many people think that “Freddi Hammer” sounds made –up, but it’s not a completely fake name. When I was born at Lancaster General Hospital, 9 days before the moon landing, my dad (Frederic) relinquished naming-control to my mom (Louise), and said, “Just name her something so that we know she’s a girl.” With my normal-girl-named older sisters, Kathryn and Bethany looking on, I got Frederica Louise, or “Freddi Lou”, thank you very much. Our last name was Hamor (Haymer) and mispronounced “Hammer” regularly, and I struggled along with my family for years to get people to say it right. When I got to Mansfield University as a freshman Communication/PR major and got a show on the college radio station, Freddi Hammer was suddenly super cool and I was finally fine with it!
As “Freddi Hammer”, I got my first fulltime job at WNBT in Wellsboro and spent a good bunch of years there after leaving Mansfield U. I moved back in with my parents in Lancaster for a little bit and did afternoons in Dover, DE, for about a year until I came back to PA and jumped on board with KC101 in Liberty, PA as it first got started in the 90s. I moved on to do mornings in Milwaukee, WI, as the cohost and news person at Magic 103.7fm, but after working in the very cold and snowy Midwest, I applied to be a traffic reporter in Charlotte, NC, and got the job! After my interview at the traffic office, I met another traffic reporter, Tim Brown, who would be my husband and the dad to my two sweet kids just a few years later. I stayed in Charlotte and kept doing radio, starting with the traffic reports then shifting to cohost and producer of the syndicated “Nite Show”, the 7 to midnight companion show to the “Bob & Sheri” and the “Matt & Ramona” radio show package for small radio stations that wanted to use talent from larger cities.
As my family went through an amicable divorce in 2010, I worked at iHeart for a few years, before I went back to traffic reports there as a news contractor for a bunch of stations in the Carolinas.
In 2018, my dad was getting older and I decided to come back to Pennsylvania, and the opportunity to work at Backyard Broadcasting in Williamsport allowed me to be close to my family and be back in the state that I loved so much. I forgot how much for a year, when I went to Florida to pursue some pipe dreams but I quickly came to my senses and resettled in PA, hopefully to never leave again – except MAYBE to be near any potential grandchildren – I’m just sayin’.
