It’s been a year to remember for radio star Lana Cochrane-Searle, who married her longtime best friend last November, reignited her passion for playing rugby and, most recently, celebrated a whopping 20 years working in radio.
The More FM Breakfast Club co-host was just 16 when she first set foot in a radio station – to record an advertisement for Dargaville High School, where she was a boarder.
“Do you know what?” asks Lana incredulously. “I didn’t even realise! My mum reminded me and I was shocked that it’s been 20 years since I was in seventh form!
“I remember being like, ‘Oh, my gosh, what is this place?’ I always loved music and radio as a teenager, but I never thought it could be a job. I was like, ‘You get paid for this?’ It seemed too fun!” she says, adding she’s still looking for the bad side of the job.
“It must show itself soon, it’s been 20 years!
With former co-host and inspiration Jason.
“I remember thinking, ‘Surely there’s another part of this that I don’t know about yet’ when I first gave it a go.”
And although her love for radio hasn’t changed over the past two decades, Lana, 36, has seen the industry “evolve for the better”.
“Radio has got way more real and way more connective than I ever remember,” says Lana. “I think about when Jason Gunn, my co-host in 2017, had a heart attack, and going into the hospital and just having a chat with him. It wasn’t for radio, but he ended up saying, ‘You should totally record this so everyone knows I’m all good.’
“Here’s a guy we’ve always seen being funny, and now he’s in a hospital bed being so vulnerable and wanting to keep our loyal listeners up to date with how he is. When you listen to that audio, you feel like you’re right there with him and you don’t necessarily get that feeling when you read the newspaper or watch TV. It’s not the same.”
Through all the inspiring stories she’s helped people tell over the years, Lana says it’s the Kiwi humour and uplifting energy that gives radio its charm.
“Those everyday callers who don’t think they’re contributing much completely make the show and give it that feeling that it couldn’t be anywhere else in the world,” the stepmum-of-one beams. “Whether it’s someone in a cow shed in Wairarapa or someone driving down Ponsonby Road, you have that connection with everybody and I don’t know how you can get that anywhere else.”
Yet while radio holds a big place in her heart, Lana’s recently rekindled a love for another slightly muddier pastime: playing rugby.
“I played in high school and haven’t really played since,” she tells. “But over the Christmas break, one of my good friends passed away from health issues that came on really quickly. It was awful. And a group of friends and I were like, ‘We need to start actually living and stop just wishing that we’d done stuff!'”
And “stuff” for Lana meant lacing up a pair of pink rugby boots and scrumming!
Lana with “tackle coach Katie”.
She loves being part of a big sports team and, “It’s also been good because it’s reminded me to continue to stay fit. You will suffer if you’re not fit enough. I did the first day – I felt like I was at a car wreckers’ yard.”
Lana says her wife, flight attendant Katie Cochrane, 41, and stepson Jay, six, have been supporting her from the sideline, and the living-it-up doesn’t stop there!
As the Weekly chats to Lana over Zoom from her home in Christchurch, she and Katie are getting ready to go on holiday to New York.
“It’s kind of a honeymoon, but it’s also a trip we were already planning on doing before Covid,” Lana says, listing her exciting itinerary, which includes Broadway shows, baseball games and
a crime tour.
After marrying Katie in November, the pair are finally off on honeymoon to New York.
“And shopping!” Katie calls out from the background.
“Yes, shopping!” laughs Lana. “We’re taking an extra suitcase inside a suitcase. You know how it is!
“We’re loving married life. I feel very grateful to be where I am right now and to keep doing what I’m doing. To stay at this level would be amazing because I want to do all of this for as long as I possibly can.”
