Disc Jockey Tests Listeners, Asks for $20, Gets $240,000

A disc jockey who asked his listeners to send him $20 says he doesn’t know what to do with the $240,000 that poured in to the station.

Ron Chapman, as an experiment, asked his audience March 31 to send him the money, not promising anything in return. The next morning, a Friday, 4,000 checks for $20 each arrived in the mail. On the following Monday, an additional 5,000 checks arrived.

“Obviously, it was getting out of hand,” Chapman, a longtime morning disc jockey on KVIL-FM, said. “We went on Monday afternoon and said, ‘OK, folks, that’s it. Don’t send any more checks after today.’ ”

He said the station initially planned to return the checks, possibly with $2 interest and a T-shirt, but now is thinking about using the money for a special event.

Debra Hall, 28, said she wasn’t concerned about what happened to the $20 she sent. “I really don’t care what they do with it because I would have blown it on bingo,” she said.