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BSU Alum David Letterman Hosts His Last "Late Show" Tonight

David Letterman's last night in front of his late-night audience Wednesday is being followed closely by a crowd in Muncie. That's where Letterman spent his college years at Ball State University – and got his broadcast start.

He got his start on WBST radio, now home of Indiana Public Radio, while a student in the late 1960s.

His first boss there was fellow student Al Rent, now the school's director of community relations.

"So Dave came in and there was this tall, lanky, gangly kind of guy, but he had a nice voice, and there was no job interview because we were all students," Rent says. "And so Dave and I talked for a while, and then I said 'OK, we broadcast from 3 p.m. until 10 p.m.,' because somebody figured that everybody went to bed after 10 and nobody listened to radio, so I said 'Dave, could you write some material for us?'"

It was, and still is, a classical music station. Letterman's first job was to write biographies of the composers for announcers to read.

"And he really was a very good writer, until he would sneak in, in these introductory pieces, his own version of a composer's life, family, or fictitious family."

Nobody noticed until Rent was called into the office. Faculty members were complaining that some of the biographies were just wrong, including this one: "Clair De Lune, written by Claude Debussy, was written for his wife Claire and all their little lunes."

"And so the faculty had no sense of humor, and so he said you have to take David off the air," Rent says.

Letterman was reassigned to write news, another decision his boss came to regret.

"Where was my brain at the time? Guess what – he made up the news, too," Rent says. "He would write strange stories and slip them into the stack of stories that the news reader, or broadcaster, was going to read. And again, that person was oblivious to what was coming."

There are other stories, but he's really made his mark in more recent times, starting a lecture series and appearing on campus with people like Oprah Winfrey.

And through it all, Letterman has been a benefactor to the school.

Letterman last appeared on campus in 2012. They're hoping at Ball State that he'll be back soon, and in a Rolling Stone interview published this month, the school's favorite son said he'd like to do that, once he's retired.

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