Roger Huston in his broadcast booth

The first thing Roger Huston does when he walks into the tiny announcing booth perched above the Meadows harness-racing track is adjust the air conditioning down to near arctic temperature. It’s not a particularly hot August day – maybe 70 degrees – but when the track lights come on for the night races, the booth turns into a toaster oven in the glare. In 30 minutes the temperature soars 25 degrees.

But whether 50 degrees in the booth or 105, it would be hard to notice the difference when you’re listening to Huston’s voice. It doesn’t matter whether he’s sick, tired, freezing or sweating buckets, Huston springs to life when the microphone is on. According to the yearbook-style work log he carries with him, in the first eight months of this year he’s already announced more than 1,800 horse races in New York and Ohio and, of course, at the Meadows, where his voice is broadcast to homes around Western Pennsylvania and to more than 60 off-track betting locations around the country.

The Voice of the Meadows talked to Washington Crossroads recently about life on and off the beaten track.

Washington Crossroads: How did you get started in the announcing business?
Roger Huston: I started way back in 1960 when I was a senior in high school. My uncle Don Huston – he’s 81 now and still announcing — was working at the Lebanon Raceway in Lebanon, Ohio. He gave me the opportunity to announce my first race. I went on to do fairs in Ohio, and that was the start. I’ve been here at the Meadows since 1976.

Did you always have the voice for this, or is it something that you developed?
What you see is what you get; this is it. I’ve always said that you really can’t develop your voice, you have to have it at the beginning. Maybe you can fine tune it, but what you have at the start is what you’re going to live with. If someone comes to me and says, ‘Can you make me an announcer?’ I say, ‘No, I can’t.’ I can help you, but I can't make you an announcer.

Do people sometimes approach you for help or advice with becoming a track announcer?
Yes. Over the years, I’ve helped five or ten people get started.

When you’re out around town, do people ever recognize you by your voice?
They do, even more so than by my face. On the TV show, we’re only on camera for a few minutes, but people always hear the voice. One day, I was buying groceries at Giant Eagle when someone said, ‘Are you Roger Huston?’

I was the stadium announcer for Pitt football and basketball from 1976 to 1983, and a lot of people recognize me even to this day as the guy who announced Hugh Green, Danny Marino and Tony Dorsett.

How did that come about?
Pitt’s sports information director came to the track one night and asked if I had ever announced football. I hadn’t since high school, but he asked if I would like to announce their games. He said that they were going to be national champs soon and that they needed somebody to liven up Pitt Stadium. So I started in about the third game of the season. I finally left when they started playing Thursday, Friday and Saturday night games. I couldn’t justify taking vacation days from the Meadows to go work in Pittsburgh. You take a vacation day to go to the beach.

What do you like about your job?
I guess there’s a lot of ham in me. I enjoy being a performer. Even when I wasn’t announcing races, I was working radio, playing records, and stuff like that.

You’re known for wearing lots of rings. Even the Roger Huston bobblehead sports 10 rings. What’s that all about?
It’s something that just developed over a period of time. I didn’t start wearing the rings until 1977. There was a woman in Cherry Hill, New Jersey who would call the announcing booth to listen to the horse she owned race by phone. I’d lay the phone down and she would listen. I had never met the lady or anything, but that year for Christmas, she sent me a horsehead ring. Up to that time I only wore my wedding ring. So one thing led to another, and as I saw certain rings I liked, I’d buy them, or otherwise accumulate them. One is a ring from the Harness Racing Hall of Fame. Another is from Delvin Miller, who was a big name in harness racing, not just here but worldwide. He drove horses around the country, he even drove reindeer in Finland and Russia to promote the sport. When he died, his wife gave me the ring. Each ring has sentimental value.