‘Matt and Lesley Show’ makes city happenings more entertaining

Most days, Lesley Nemetz is busy making sure there are no stray records at Shawano City Hall, while Matt Hendricks makes sure everyone is having fun at the city parks and the newly reopened Shawano Recreation Center.

Once a month, though, the pair arrive at the WTCH radio station and sit down with “Breakfast Club” host Doug Erdman and talk about all things Shawano. They now have their own show called the “Matt and Lesley Show.” It started in January 2025 and has resulted in the city being more in the spotlight.

For years, the “Breakfast Club” had held an open slot for Shawano mayors to come and talk about various city issues, according to Nemetz. When the mayor couldn’t make it, either Nemetz or Hendricks would fill in to give information on what’s going on in the city, what’s going to be on the agenda for the Shawano Common Council and more.

Then the pair hit upon the idea of both of them teaming up to share the spotlight and do it in a fun way that goes beyond the general listing of city activities. They sat down with Erdman and WTCH general manager Eric Voight about what could be done to make city news more interesting. Since then, people have taken notice, with Hendricks and Nemetz both saying that they’ve had people come to them at the grocery store or somewhere else in town and comment they heard them on the radio.

“Matt and I found it to be really beneficial to be able to talk to the community about all sorts of things,” Nemetz said. “While we have our own departments, he and I are involved in the vast majority of things in the city of Shawano. Our management team takes great pride in making sure that, whether you work at City Hall or park and rec or DPW (Department of Public Works), we all know what everybody has going on so that, if there is a question in the community, we can all be knowledgeable and ready to answer that.”

Neither Hendricks nor Nemetz are originally from Shawano, but they both now choose to call the community home. It’s that integration and involvement that helps to put a positive spin on what the city is doing, whether it’s new park amenities, freshly paved roads or new events at city facilities.

“Neither of us have any intention of leaving,” Nemetz said. “It’s just wanting to do better for the community and letting people know.”

Social media in the area tends to be full of people talking about not knowing what’s going on in the community, and the “Matt and Lesley Show” serves as a way for the city to be more transparent, said Nemetz, who also serves as the city’s community relations manager.

“Part of my job — and I’m bringing Matt along for the ride — in communications is trying to make sure people do have an opportunity to know. So utilizing WTCH with their great reach … and utilizing that platform allows us to talk more about what’s going on in our community,” she said.

With more and more distrust in government at all levels, Hendricks is eager to talk about what’s going on in Shawano.

“With government today, people are ‘Oh, they’re not transparent. They’re hiding things,’” Hendricks said. “I can only speak for the city of Shawano’s local government, because that’s what I know, and I believe that not to be true. If someone comes in and wants to know more, all of our staff can do that. We don’t have anything to hide.”

It wasn’t enough, though, just to have a show with their names on it. Hendricks said he and Nemetz asked ChatGPT to come up with a logo for them, and that evolved to having their own T-shirts.

“I was like, ‘Whoa. We’ve got a brand. Let’s roll,’” Hendricks said.

An original jingle that the pair tried to have in the beginning gave way to something better with the help of WTCH staff.

“We had a sad, little jingle in the beginning that we tried,” Nemetz said. “Then Eric came in from WTCH and said, ‘Hey, I redid your jingle for you guys. What do you think?’ It’s pretty great.”

Originally, Nemetz and Hendricks were on the “Breakfast Club” for an hour, but they came to realize that condensing everything into 30 minutes was better due to people’s attention spans. Now, the pair are usually on WTCH from 8:30-9 a.m. on the second Wednesday of each month, and then they walk next door to the WJMQ studio and talk with Jay Cruz, host of “Cruz in the Mornings.” Most of the content is the same between the two stations, but sometimes they can go off on different tangents, depending on the host.

“If you spend too much time on something, even if it’s a topic we love, that doesn’t necessarily mean everyone else loves it,” Hendricks said. “If you can say something in two or three or four sentences as opposed to three or four paragraphs, you still get your message out.”

“It’s so different,” Nemetz added. “Doug and Jay are just different vibes, but it’s nice. Both of them are really a lot of fun and willing to talk to us about local government.”

With the advent of radio station websites, Hendricks and Nemetz even have fans who are not within the coverage areas.

“We are both humble enough to realize we are not this nationally syndicated show,” Nemetz said. “However, we are having a huge reach because technology allows people from all over to listen to it. I know there are people in Nevada who listen to us on a regular basis. We’ve had people who have contacted us from the Carolinas because they were working on a research project and asked us if we’d be able to talk about a person and get more information out.”

The only thing Hendricks and Nemetz wish is that more people would call in to the studios when they’re on if they have questions about city matters. Hendricks noted that it’s easy for people to complain by being “keyboard warriors” with social media, but they’ll get a lot more information interacting with the “Matt and Lesley Show.”

“We do encourage more people to call or text in,” Hendricks said. “Every once in a while, we get people with a few questions. That’s another way to be interactive.”

lpulaski@newmedia-wi.com