A familiar face from Emmen will no longer be seen (in office) along the (Southeast) Drenthe fields from next season. Photographer and reporter Bennie Wolbers (78) puts down the camera, pen and microphone after 35 years.
This afternoon he presents the sports program of ZO!34 for the last time and then it’s over for Wolbers.
At least, almost. “Doing nothing at all is nothing,” he says. But the journalist will fill in his existence differently. “I used to be busy 24 hours a day, seven days a week. If I didn’t go to a sports match, I would take pictures at a 60th wedding anniversary or a royal award. Or the beeper would go off at night and I would fly out of bed to make a message about an accident or fire.”
Now he no longer focuses on journalistic jobs, but on odd jobs in and around his house or helping family or people in the neighbourhood. It turns out that, because before Wolbers can get on the phone, he has to take off his dust mask. “I’m doing odd jobs at home. I had to outsource that before, but now I have time for it myself.” He has also exchanged the strikers on the football field for coal from his own garden. “We have exchanged the planters in the garden for vegetable containers. That is also very nice to be busy with.”
Wolbers is slowly putting an end to everything. And that’s quite a few points, because in addition to his journalistic work for ZO!34, he made articles, collected sports results and took photos for (local) newspapers and several broadcasters. He also organized the sports election of the municipality of Emmen. Thanks to help from an unexpected quarter, he can better complete those activities. “I look back on the past 35 years with great pleasure. But during the corona time I learned that there are other things than doing radio reporting and that those things are also very beautiful.”
In doing so, he trades one hobby for another, because “radio has always been a hobby,” he says. “Sometimes people think I must be a multimillionaire because I was out seven days a week,” he says with a laugh. “But most of it was just a hobby. When making radio, especially in the early years, money had to be added. I then bought equipment myself and I also paid for the petrol myself,” he says about the early years at Radio Emmen. “I have always done that with great pleasure, but certainly not for the money.”