“It wasn’t on purpose,” Shawnee clarifies. “I left Shawnee a voicemail and about a week or so went by before she finally called me back,” he says, playfully adding: “I literally waited by the phone and had to have someone come by to dust me off!” Gregg wound up making the first move - although he waited almost a year to do so. “That piqued my interest and, of course, I didn’t listen to her advice.” “So I went back into the studio with this deejay I was working with and I asked her about Gregg, and she tells me, ‘Stay away from him!'” Shawnee says, laughing. The two struck up a conversation, and although Shawnee acknowledges initial interest, she felt the need to get other opinions “about this Gregg Hammer guy.” Yet as fortunate and happy as she was with her career choice, her true kismet lay just down the hall at sister station I-94, which happened to be where Gregg was employed.Īs he recalls, “I was walking into the station with a co-worker one day and I saw Shawnee making coffee, and I was like, ‘Who is that?!'” “Everything I learned was pretty much on the job and from the people I worked with,” she says appreciatively. Thankfully, there were mentors available who were willing to show her the industry’s ropes. “I didn’t know one thing about broadcasting before I started interning,” she admits. She tried college for a bit, but after finding herself “in and out of class” too often, she began looking elsewhere.Įnter Star 101.9, which offered her a radio internship. “Such a naughty little boy,” Shawnee chuckles.īorn in Colombia and raised by an adoptive family in Oregon, Shawnee Krebs made her way to O‘ahu in 1998.
HAMMER TIME DRIVER
“But I would do it loud enough from the window that the driver would stop.” The Hammers keep listeners entertained, even when broadcasting from remote locations such as Las Vegas. “See in those days, the garbage men rode on the back of the truck, and when it was time to stop and throw the garbage, they would whistle to the driver. “I would go, ‘Eh!’ and whistle - and they would stop,” Gregg explains. Then, when the truck was close enough, he’d start messing with the driver by tricking him into braking prematurely. That “cool ability to hear something and imitate it,” as Shawnee puts it, was apparent from a young age.Ĭase in point: When Gregg was about 8, he would stand in front of his bedroom window and watch while city trash collectors rolled down his street in Waipahu. In his defense, Gregg’s abilities as a skillful imitator have actually aged quite well. “Well,” his infinitely patient mate replies, “I have been waiting a long time for you to mature!” “We’ve been married for 17 years, so I have no reason to suck up to her when I say this: If I had to define someone who is kind and long-suffering, that’s Shawnee.” “She’s the kindest, most loving human being I’ve ever known,” states Gregg when naming some of Shawnee’s best characteristics. The ‘HammerTime’ crew is made up of Gregg and Shawnee Hammer, and Wayne Maria.īut Shawnee, who mostly plays it straight when delivering the program’s news and commentary, has learned a thing or two from her husband, and is always willing to serve up her own zingers. And his manifold of on-air characters, most notably the overly effeminate kumu Bubbles and the gossipy Hollywood reporter LaFonda Jenkins, always leaves listeners in stitches. After all, he is the captain of comebacks, the master of quips, the boss of improvisation. Much of the show is geared toward the considerable comedic talents of Gregg. “People have been with us through our ups and downs, and I think our personal on-air moments are our favorites because they’ve allowed us to bring people into our lives.” “It’s been one of the greatest joys to share our lives with audiences,” says Shawnee, who tied the knot with Gregg in 2002. In fact, for the past six and a half years, the duo’s “HammerTime” program on Krater 96 (KRTR-FM) has been one of the hottest acts around simply because they (along with the third member of the team, operations manager and program director Wayne Maria) make morning radio so much fun for scores of listeners.
That moment happened nearly two decades ago, and the amazing thing is that today, people are still cheering, crying, laughing and high-fiving one another whenever it involves Hawai‘i’s first couple of radio, Gregg and Shawnee Hammer. Naturally, Shawnee didn’t disappoint her audience, and when she emphatically said “Yes!” to the proposal, program listeners cheered, cried, laughed and high-fived one another. PHOTO COURTESY SHAWNEE HAMMERĪs the unexpected news was sent out over the airwaves, Gregg immediately burst into the studio, got down on bended knee and presented her with a ring. The couple began dating while working at I-94 radio.
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