GOOOOOOOOOD Morning Payson! KMOG

As I mentioned earlier I replaced Suzanne Michaels on Morning Drive on KMOG AM in Payson, in October of 2004. I am not sure of the reasons leading Suzanne to quit, BUT, knowing her M.O. it probably was a power play on her part for more money or other things. Regardless of that, I became KMOG's "Mild Mannered Morning Man," and the "Grand Exalted Leader of the Royal Order Of The Grungy Coffee Mug." I am not really sure IF Payson was ready for the East Coast former top 40 jock, I can be a shock to the system! As people who have listened to me over the years know I can be every so slightly irreverent! Country music was not new to me as I had done that format at WLYC, WILQ, WCKR, and WIQT, the only thing that worried me was the newer artists. Fortunately Music Director Mazatazal Mike (Shulte) had the approved cuts in the library marked and I had the Country oldies book so between the two I faked it till I got more familiar with the music.

I would like to say that people welcomed me on the air with open arms, well not so. I received more than one phone call complaining about my on air style etc. I later found out that some of them may have very well been staged by my predecessor in Morning Drive, not something that I would put passed her! But as time went along I became a part of Payson and was more accepted by the listeners.

Before I go a bit further let me tell you a bit about KMOG. This station was pretty much a throw back to the days when I first started on the air. Lost dog announcements, Community Bulletin Board, Rim Country Forum, the local talk show, Trades and Sales, Paul Harvey News, local sports broadcasts, remotes etc. KMOG broadcast on 1420 AM, with a daytime power of 2,500 watts and 500 watts directional at night. the equipment was generally pretty good with a new console, three CD decks, and a Smartcaster computer. One thing I liked was the set up allowing in studio interviews. Two mics and space for 4 people on the other side of the console. This was the first station I had worked that did not use broadcast carts. I guess that means I came full circle on those from seeing carts arrive to seeing them depart. The station was live 6 AM to 6 PM Monday Through Friday and live Saturday and Sunday Mornings. The rest of the time it was satelite programmed from The Jones Network. The on air quality was good courtesy of an Orban Processor and the fact it was a studio transmitter location. The news room had a small mixer for the use of the newsperson and production had a slightly bigger Mackie mixer and a production computer a couple of CD players and a turn table, just in case! All in all not a bad setup, but sometimes lacking in preventative maintenance as is the case with a lot of smaller stations.

The staff was older, with me being one of the youngest! The General Manager was Blaine Kimball, he didn't have an extensive background in radio, but was a good salesman, and willing to listen to idea's. I got along with Blaine pretty well and we had many discussions about radio. Dan Happala was the News Director, when I started he was on leave as he was running for Country Supervisor. Dan and I got along well and had many fun times on the air. It is always tough to come to a new station, bad enough when it is in a market where you are known, but here I was the "new kid" in a new town. One person who I always felt went out of his way to befriend me was Don Holcombe. Don was the host of the talk show that aired right after my shift so it was not un-common for him to "help" me along with morning drive usually any time after about 7:30 AM. Don had been an artist until diabeates caused him to become legally blind, but he had a very sharp mind and loved to carry on. Don and I became friends and continued to be until his untimely death in 2006 a day short of his 60th birthday. Don was the founder of a Barbershop Group called "The Beeliners." Most people don't realize that I am a fan of vocal harmony, and Don's group was one of the best I had heard! We had many running jokes, especially who could be first to call a key change in a song, or if I played The Eagles, Don would call, no matter what hour and say "I hate the friggin' Eagles". He was a great guy and with Dan mornings really sounded first rate in Payson. Mid days was "Rockin" Ron Gibson, he had his own country/rock brand and was the drummer, Ron was a fixture at the station and very popular on the air. Afternoons was Ken (Seaman) Brooks the oldest guy on the air in his early 70's. Ken had done some network radio appearing on radio dramas in the 1950's.

Part timers included Mike Schulte, who I mentioned before, J.R. "Doc" Holiday. Doc was raised in Southwestern Pa, and had worked at KAAF in Flagstaff, before coming to KMOG. I had an instant friendship with Doc, as when I started he was subbing for Dan on local news. Doc had a laid back "cowboy" delivery and I really liked that! Another part timer who became a good friend was "Cowboy" Carl Hall. Carl was the senior man in radio experience and we loved to sit and chat about the old days in radio. Carl like me, had done just about every job in the business. In addition to fill in duties Carl did a 3 hour show on Sunday morning called "Country Gold." That show featured the classic country of the 1940's-50's and 60's, Carl's style with his "stage" and stories about the artists, many of them he knew well, was and still is a delight to listen to.

Support staff, included Linda, Blaine's wife, and Joanne, who took turns as the receptionist, in the sales deparment was Lynne Geyer, a very talented sales person who hailed from Michigan, and Jackie Cramer, a lot of fun, I really enjoyed heckling her. In production was Jan O'Neil, I really hit it off with her and she loved to use me for creative commercials. What Jan lacked in experience she more than made up for in creativity.

Say K instead of W

(Author's note) For those of you who do not know, radio station call letters East of the Mississippi begin with the letter W, and West of the Mississippi begin with the letter K, with few exceptions)


Once my family and I arrived in Payson and unpacked some of the truckload of boxes it came time to look for a job. During the year that preparations were underway for the move to AZ, I had been in e mail contact with Steve Bingham the President of the Payson Council For The Musical Arts, a non-profit corporation that operated KRIM-LP FM. While Steve was impressed with my resume and air check, as well as Blaine Kimball the General Manager of KMOG AM, neither had any openings. One of Steve's Friends was Chris Salgot who owned and operated C & M Communications a two way radio dealer and repeater service. After a while I managed to catch up with Chris, and we agreed with my background that I might be of some use to him selling radios and repeater service. Along the way I helped him with his radio advertising and covered his office when he was out of town. Oh, did I mention it was only commission?



During this time I talked with Steve Bingham and he was having some problems with his sales, called underwriting in non-profit radio terms. I agreed to take the dead accounts and see what I could do. I also proposed doing a once per week oldies show on Friday Afternoon called "The Friday Class Reunion." The idea being taking one year each week playing nothing but music from that year along with news and whatever else rattled my headphones. Eventually I added the top 10 countdown for that exact week from that year. I must say it was pretty interesting seeing what was at the top of the charts. Looking for the music was interesting, I found that there are several download services, "legal of course," that were quite useful. One was Limewire and the other was Napster, between them I found 99% of the songs I needed. At the time KRIM's staff consisted of Randy Roberson, Station Manager and "Good Morning Payson" co-host, Donnalyn Williams, Co-host of G.M.P, Jim Duncan the Underwriting Manager, and Joanne who did office work and of course Steve and Bobbie Bingham.



The equipment at KRIM was at best SPARSE, with the main, and only audio board, a Mackie 8 channel mixer. Coupled with it was a good quality Shenheiser Mic, Gemini commercial grade CD player and, two computers that ran the on air programming. If the equipment was bad, then the "studios" were even worse, located on the second floor of the Club House/Office of The Payson Campground. The on air studio and business office were located in one room about 20 feet wide and 40 feet long, there was no air conditioning, save what might have filtered up from an ancient swamp cooler, that's the Arizona form of air conditioning, of course no heat either, except in the summer. The bathroom was downstairs and around the building, it actually was the shower/locker room for the campground. On the air monitoring was with a Radio Shack tuner, and you had to turn it down when you opened the mic as there was no monitor muting. Prior to working at KRIM the worst studio I had ever seen was the old WPGM studio in Danville, Pa from their early days.



Surprisingly the audio quality was not too bad, but the studio was labor intensive to do a live air shift if you didn't use the computer for music. The program they used for on air was never designed to be an automation program so it was nearly impossible to run. In addition to the main transmitter KRIM had two translators that covered a pretty fair part of Northern Arizona. At that time KRIM was also carried as the background for the community access channel on the Payson TV Cable, and also on the Town Of Payson's Web Site, yep world wide coverage.



When I did "The Class Reunion," I used CD's, but since the station only had one CD player, I brought one of mine in with me. As I said it was labor intensive, no cue system, no monitor muting, and a VERY uncomfortable studio. But the show went on and quickly developed a loyal listening audience.



After about a year Randy Roberson decided to leave and pursue other ventures and Steve hired LeLani Dawn who had been Operations and News at KISS Fm in Globe, AZ. LeLani and I hit it off instantly and while I felt she was put in an impossible position, she did a pretty fair job of updating the computer software into something designed for 'On Air" and making the overall sound a bit brighter. Of the managers I worked with at KRIM LeiLani was probably the most supportive. Jim Duncan retired and the station hired Marty Stuckenberg for the Underwriting Manager Position, in addition I also was handling a few accounts as well. I might point out that sometime not long after I started on KRIM I was offered the Morning gig on KMOG, more about that in the next entry.



Not long after LeiLani came to KRIM it was decided that KRIM needed to move, Mike Farrell President of KMOG and Blaine Kimball the General Manger had a room available in the KMOG building, so while the studio was smaller, at least there was heat and air conditioning and a bathroom! The arrangement of equipment was a bit better, but it was still the same old stuff. I often said I had better equipment for my D.J. gigs that KRIM did, and I still believe that.



A few months went by after the KRIM move and Steve decided that LeiLani was not the person he wanted on the air for Morning Drive. I personally felt she did an adequate job, but she had replaced a duo. Anyone who has ever worked in radio knows that if you have a two person show and those people click, replacing them with a one person show is not the best idea. Steve's next big idea was the hire Suzanne Michaels to do mornings. She had been the morning person on KMOG, and when she quit I replaced her there. In the radio business there are two types of people, the "Prima Donna's" and the people who really do the work. Suzanne is a Prima Donna complete from her greatly retouched publicity photos, to her fake smile and on air persona. LeiLani and I knew that LeiLani's days at KRIM were numbered as Suzanne advances herself by stabbing others in the back. Such was the case in a matter of weeks, LeiLani was out and Suzanne was in! I found out about Suzanne's appointment as Station Manager when I came in to do my "Class Reunion," and saw her new business cards! Not long after that Marty was released and Cathy Hall, wife of KMOG's "Cowboy Carl" came to be Underwriting Manager. To Cathy's credit, she did a fine job getting new accounts and bringing back some of the old ones as well. Cathy eventually fell victim to "Suzannegate" as her accounts were taken away one by one and given to Suzanne's brother KIP, who suddenly appeared on the scene. Cathy stuck it out a lot longer than I would have, eventually moving across town to KCMA LP.

Knowing that she would try to do me in next, I set about putting "The Class Reunion" under contract with me being a vendor provider and having complete control over the content of the show.

"The Class Reunion" was a lot of fun to do, all in all, it gave me the opportunity to try many different things along the way. I was always doing some special program with some of my favorites being, Names in Songs, Groups A to Z, One Hit Wonders, and Summer Songs being some of my favorite shows. After about one year, I got thinking about the 60's group The Vogues, I saw them in concert twice and met them at the height of their career. Over the years I wondered what happened to them, I looked the group up on the web and found "The Vogues," and they had a new CD. WOW! I ordered it and when it came I did not recognize faces or names on the CD, it sounded OK, but was missing that unique harmony they had. On a hunch I searched Chuck Blaskos name and found his website and the details became quite clear, he had lost the right to use the name do to some possible underhanded dealings by a former manager and record label. There was an e mail site and I sent a note saying that I would tell the story on my show and how much I enjoyed the group then. I received a reply from Keith Dix, one of the members of Chuck Blasko's Five O'Clock Reunion telling em that if I wanted an interview Chuck would be happy to do one. A few days later he called and we set a date. As luck would have it Chuck had a family emergency and could not do the show, BUT he made arrangements for Hugh Geyer to do the interview. As with all the artists I interviewed I tried to talk with them in advance of the show so we would be comfortable with each other. The interview was the first of over 50 I did in "The Legendary Artist Interview Series." In later postings I am going to tell some of the stories from the artists that made "The Class Reunion" an unforgettable experience for me.

Thanks for reading, still more to come on my time at KRIM and on KMOG.

On To Arizona

Even though this post will bring you close to the "current times" in my life and career, it won't be the last. Do I know what I will write about? Heck no!

Sometime in early 2000 I received an e mail from the daughter of a long time friend of mine who's family had moved to Arizona in the late 60's. Over the years as they would come back to Pa to visit relatives I would have the chance to see them. But as happens all too often I lost track of them so the e mail was a shocker. Anyway, to make a long story short there was the usual pleasant exchange of e mails, some of them containing my complaints about the Pennsylvania weather. It was from them I learned that Arizona is not all flat and desert, but had beautiful hills and places where there was a moderate change of seasons. As luck would have it I had some airline miles due to expire, so I decided to come out and take a look around. I was amazed at the beauty of the desert and found out that it did not look like a set from Lawrence of Arabia, but it had color, vegetation and more. The drive from Phoenix to Payson had me saying "wow" a lot. Magnificent mountains deep valleys and a constant change in vegetation. This was the first week in April of 2003, and I spent some 5 days roaming all around "The Rim Country." During that time I talked with my wife back in Pa, she was unable to come along because she was taking care of her elderly father, and one day I was sitting in the sun at Roosevelt Lake, about 40 miles S.E. of Payson, the temperature was in the mid 70's and there were boats on the lake. At the same time Pennsylvania was getting hammered by a snow storm that eventually left over a foot of snow on the ground. It was then the decision was made to "head west old man."

It all sounded so simple, until you consider I had a successful business, a house in which my mother was my tenant, my son was at college in Allentown, and none of us had a job waiting in Arizona. But we were determined to figure out how to make the move. My mother was needless to say rather upset that we were planning on such a move and told us quite firmly she was going to stay in Pennsylvania. Fortunately in Canton there is a nice senior housing project owned by the Yoder Brothers of Turbotville. I had known the Yoder's for many years as they at one time were the dealer/builder for Ridge Homes and had been one of my advertising accounts on WMPT. I checked out some of there other projects and talked to the local officials in each area they had apartments and as expected the Yoder's got a great recommendation. So mom's name went on the waiting list, and in January of 2004 she got her apartment.

It was about the same time that we were able to place my father in law in a nursing home as he was getting too much to handle, my son finished college and moved back to Canton to help us prepare for the move. The house was on the market and I very quietly went about selling my company. I felt that a customer would be a logical choice since they were consumers and liked the products. I pared my list from 12 names down to five and sent them each a letter with the offering. Several expressed some interest with Carl and Linda Cox of Knoxville in Tioga County, the most interested. Carl had been a customer for well over 10 years in his capacity as Public Works Foreman in Knoxville Borough. We met with them and a deal was struck. Now the house, it had been on the market for several months but with very little action, so I decided to take a rather radical approach to selling it. Each Monday I reduced the price by $2,000 and stated that would happen every week till the property was sold. As luck would have it during a yard sale, Gary Wright, who I had known for years and his wife appeared at the sale. I had worked for Gary for a period of time as a salesman for his wholesale flower business in Wlliamsport. Well anyway Gary was looking for investment property, knew the house and was impressed at the improvements we had made. I took him through that day and he made and offer the next, I countered and it was sold. Early on we thought it would make more sense to sell most of our furniture and buy what we needed when we got to Arizona so we scheduled an auction two days before we were scheduled to leave. All the time we had been packing boxes and stacking them in a designated size area. The auction went as planned the 'Budget Truck From Hell" was packed, and we started off across country with Carol, Karl and two dogs in the van and me with the rental truck and a trailer towing my sons vehicle. Bad roads, one run out of gas, a blowout of two tires on the truck and several episodes of the truck just plain quitting and we arrived at our new digs in Payson some 5-1/2 days later. Karl and I had been out to Payson early in the month and had rented an apartment and had all utilities ready and even made arrangements for the truck to be unloaded. Even though the trip was tiring and stressful it was good to be in Payson.

Next time jobs, where do you find them?

WIQT-WQIX Kel returns to early morning

Sometimes when you write a bolg such as this, it is very easy to get off an a tangent and forget what you were going to do next. In my haste, or whatever, I completely missed the almost three years I spent at WIQT-WQIX Horseheads, N.Y. As I mentioned in a previous entry Dave Campbell stopped into Radio Shack, where I was working part time and told me that they were looking to make a change on WIQT AM, an Oldies Format, and I should contact Dave "Rocky" Rockwell the Program Director.

Since some of this was hush hush, I called Rocky at home and yes he was very interested and we talked and came to terms. It was kind of unique as I was a straight hourly person and was on the air 6:00 to 10:00 am only Monday through Friday and paid for a half hour of show prep time and that was it. no remotes, meetings, or production. If there was a required meeting then I was on the clock, a fact I found to shorten meetings considerably.

WIQT AM was at 820 Khz on the dial with 5,000 watts non directional days, and 500 watts on a four tower directional antenna array at night, it shared studios with WQIX FM a "Modern Country format." The studios had been located just of Hanover Square in Horseheads but moved to 111 N. Main St. In Elmira, the Mid Town Building, after part of the back wall of the Horseheads location fell down. Both stations were owned by Panosian Enterprises, a retail company that operated clothing, shoe, and furniture stores in the "Twin Tiers" area of N.Y. and Pa. I had known most of the Panosians for many years and they liked me and I liked them. But, for every piece of good equipment in the station, there was a piece of equipment or other stuff that was crap. The AM control room had a fairly new Broadcast Electronics console, two Gates turn tables, 4 Revox reel to reels and an old Spotmaster 3 deck cart machine. In addition it had a digital transmitter control unit that would automatically change power and directional patterns by timer. The audio and transmitter controls were on a shared STL with WQIX with the audio and controls "double hopping" to get to the transmitter site on county Route 64 just west of Horseheads.

For the most part everything worked pretty well with the exception of the cart machine which constantly blew through cues, if you forgot to pot down the audio then you had crap on the air. One thing that really caught my attention early on was the control room chair. Talk about cheap, it only had three wheels, the fourth caster long gone and replaced by a brick! The irony struck me that here the station was owned by a company that sold furniture and yet we could not get a decent control room chair, a fact that got stated on the air MANY times, till finally they replaced it! WIQT had always been in "format identity crises" and the oldies format was the latest effort to get some numbers in the market. On air we used a combination of pre-recorded reels from TM Productions and vinyl. The format really did sound good and I was in heaven playing the oldies! When I was at WENY I had very good ratings, I, to this day feel that the Pansoians never really promoted the station or me properly as it had a great signal, it could be heard in Williamsport, PA, always felt that if they had the station would have done very well. The line up included Dave Pal, who I worked with at WENY, Jackie Dee, Bill Russell the News Director, George Kay (WQIX Mornings), Rocky Rockwell, Jim Appleton Engineer, Ron Ferro Station Manager, Jim Barrett part time, and several other whose names escape me now. Pretty decent talent on the air, but no support from the parent company.

Elmira was an Arbitron rated market, and had a full diary survey in the fall and a short survey in the spring, after a year or so that I was there the powers that be decided that they were going to change format yet again, from oldies to something they called "Great American Country!" I was loudly opposed to the change as my morning show was gaining ground in the market and I truly felt that with some time and promotion it could be either # 1 or #2. I had experimented with some specials like "The Friday Class Reunion," sounds familiar doesn't it, and other special programming like featured artist, etc. I also did some phone stuff on the air with listeners, including Elliott Blauvelt, a local realtor, who I called "The Mad Haranger," adoptable pet reports from the Chemung County Humane Society and a lot of other stuff. I was somewhat outspoken on the air and usually had poor Bill Russell stammering as I would add my own spin to one of his news stories and talk with him about it after his news cast. Well, the dye was cast, it was decided that I would kick of the Country Oldies Format on a Monday Morning completely unannounced. How the phone did ring, people were "mad as hell." and I can't say I blamed them, I didn't enjoy the format and I guess it showed on the air. As I mentioned earlier my father passed away July 5, 1991, I was informed while I was on the air when Rocky came in and told me I had to go. I stayed with WIQT for a about year after that and left in June of 1992 when we moved back to Canton. WIQT continued to flounder with several format changes eventually becoming WWLZ (Wheels) a sports, news, talk station.

WQIX was the first place I did a totally oldies format and served as a testing point for what would many years later become "The Class Reunion." at KRIM FM in Payson.

KISS FM a "legend (?) returns to "Billtown"

Last time I talked a bit about the period of time leading up to my election as Mayor of Canton, Pa. The Honorable Kelly Watts, Mayor, seems like an oxymoron doesn't it, well more on that after I talk about my time at KISS FM in Williamsport.

I spent a lot of time on the road during my days of owning Watts Multi Services and that of course meant a lot of listening to the radio. To this day I am not sure when I discovered KISS Fm (WKSB FM) but I liked the oldies format and as well they had some good people on the air, many I had known since my Williamsport Radio days. Their lineup included Gary Chrisman, who I knew from his days at Twin W (WWPA) and his regular gig at Bourbon Street Night Club, Lou Kolb, who I had worked with briefly at WLYC, Tom Benson (The PD) who I didn't know personally, but by name as he was Program Director at WHLM in Bloomsburg, George McKay who I had worked with at WLYC-WILQ, and Maggie Mae (Jennifer Lunt) the daughter of one of my classmates at Montoursville High School. Part timers on the air included Jackie Robinson and Tom Turner who I worked with at WMPT. Most of you know that KISS FM was the old WRAK FM a station that I long feared coming of age when I was at WMPT. 53,000 watts of power from the top of 1,800' Bald Eagle Mountain, in the 60's and 70's I can remember the late Ev Rubendahl telling me they had listeners in Canada. Even with the saturation of radio signals KISS FM still covered a very large part of Pennsylvania in the 90's. The Sister station was of course WRAK. Many of that staff that I knew from my earlier "Billtown" radio days including Frank Barber, Ken Sawyer, who was WRAK's PD, and Skip Smith Chief Engineer. So going to KISS FM like coming home again.

Anyway, when we moved to Canton in 1992, I decided it might be fun to work at KISS FM, it was the sound I had always wanted to do, tight board oldies format. I can truthfully say that at that time KISS was one of the best stations in any size market that I had ever heard! No wonder the line up of veteran radio people was first rate. I took the opportunity to call Tom Benson one day and he of course remembered my name from my WMPT days, and the fact he had hired Vicki Metz at Bloomsburg, Vicki had worked for me in Canton. Well anyway, Tom wanted to hear an air check at that point all I had was my morning drive air check from WIQT where I was playing country. I took it an a resume to Tom he listened and told me that Sunday Morning was available as he was going to do some schedule switching He asked if I would be interested, I of course said YES! My training was to amount to coming in with him on a Saturday afternoon and getting the feel of the board and format.

KISS FM's studios were still in the same building that had been WRAK's home since 1957 and the days of Steinmen Broadcasting ownership, the actual on air studio had at one time been the home of J. Wright Macky's Lowery Organ going way back to the days of live local music. The on air and production equipment was first rate and Skip Smith was a great engineer, he had studied under the late Glenn Sherman long time WRAK engineer. The Control room had an ARAKRIS slide pot console,(first time I had ever used one on the air), Dennon Pro CD players, with the cassete insert so you didn't handle the CD, and Broadcast Electronics cart machines, all in plentiful numbers!

I remember hitting the air at 2:00 pm and by 2:30 I had had several calls asking if in fact I was the same Kelly Watts that had worked at WMPT. I was flattered that people remembered as it had been 14 years since I had worked in the Williamsport Market. That continued even after I started working Sunday Mornings with people calling and saying "I turned on my radio and heard that voice and knew it "HAD TO BE YOU!" That, to a radio person, is very flattering to be remembered for all those years, and it showed me the impact that WMPT had on the community in the 50's, 60's and 70's. Around the station I got to be known, and kidded a lot, being called the Legendary Kelly Watts. My reply to that was always the same, "Hell, Elvis is a legend and he's dead."

All in all I worked for KISS FM for 4 years, till 1996, and for the most part I did Sunday Mornings. Some time around 1995 Tom Benson was promoted to Group Program Director and was re assigned to their new purchase in Albany, N.Y. the legendary powerhouse WGY. A couple of things influenced my decision to leave KISS FM the least not being Tom's replacement Reginald James Pettiford, air name, "J. B.". In all my years in radio I have NEVER met a person who was so totally un-qualified to be a Program Director. We went at each other tooth and nail, with him leaving memos about such trivial things as my playing a "B" format song instead of and "A". I remember asking him "who the hell he was programing for?" The last time I spoke with him it was over a particularly scathing letter telling me I had "better focus," what ever that meant. Anyway my final comment to him was, "Jim I was programming in this town when you were still _ _ _ ing in your diapers." The next Sunday I came prepared with my resignation letter and that was it. KISS FM was, until J.B.'s arrival a good place to work, and I really enjoyed the people. Toward the end of my tenure at KISS FM I was always afraid I would say "102 point 7 KISS MY _ SS! KISS FM, when I worked there, was owned by Dame Media a pretty good company who owned stations in State College, Altoona, and Harrisburg. After I left they were sucked into the Clear Channel Communications Company "vortex" and lost their unique and great sound.

His Honor? Me?

For those of you that have known me for a long time, it might come as a surprise the have the term His Honor, or The Honorable put in front of my name. Over the years I had toyed with the idea of taking an active role in the political process. When I lived in South Williamsport I was approached to run for council, but at the time Dave Castlebury and I were in the process of planning the radio station in Canton. While being a stranger to serving in public office, over the years I had held positions such as President of a Jaycee chapter, Fire Department Secretary, Fire Department Line Officer, Lions Club Board Member, etc. In addition, during my radio career, I was involved in the coverage local government as the reporter governmental body meetings. I must admit I did have an interest in the political process and felt that I could do the job as well as those sitting around the table.

When we moved back to Canton, Pa in the early summer of 1992 I became active again with the Canton Business and Professional Association, (Chamber of Commerce) and Canton Fire Department. The Mayor of Canton at the time was James Arnold, I had known Jim for many years as he had been active in the fire department, Lion's Club, was a teacher at Canton High School, and had been Mayor when Dave and I built WKAD FM. As I spent more time in the community it became clear to me that a change was needed in Canton politics, so I made the decision to run for Mayor against Jim. The political process involves getting a nominating petition and obtaining signatures of registered voters in the party you belong to. Being a registered Republican, bye the way so was Jim Arnold, that was the party I had to seek the nomination in the Primary election. Pa law says that the candidate must be a resident of the community for one year prior to election. When the May Primary Election came, I had only been in Canton for 10 months. A call to the Bradford County Board Of Elections confirmed my interpretation of the Election Code, with the key words "at the time of election the candidate must have resided in the municipality for a period of one year." Since this was only a primary and the General Election did not take place until November, I could run in the Primary.

When I went seeking signatures on my Nominating Petition I found that several people were reluctant to sign as they felt if I lost the election there might be reprisals on them or their business. But I did manage to get the required 20 signatures and was certified as a candidate in the Primary Election of 1993, running against Jim Arnold for the Republican nomination. In the period leading up to the Primary Election I went to every open meeting, as I had been doing since my arrival back in Canton, and spoke to every group that wished an after lunch/dinner/supper speaker. My platform was pretty simple, the modernization of the Police Department, rebuilding of the Canton War Memorial Swimming Pool and the updating of the Borough Codes.

While the office of Mayor in a Borough was largely a figurehead position, having been stripped of its powers over the years, the Mayor was in charge of the Police Department, could perform civil weddings, also the Mayor was in complete charge in the event of a State of Emergency, which the Mayor could declare, and was required to sign all ordinances into law. The lack of the Mayors signature meant that Council had to approve the ordinance by a 2/3 rds majority, with the President of Council then signing the ordinance in place of the Mayor. One other interesting throw back to the days of old, was that the Mayor would open and conduct the re-organizational meeting, held ever two years, and preside over the election of a Council President. Once the Council President was elected the Mayor would administer the Oath Of Office (as he did for all employees, Borough officials, and fire officers) and then turn the gavel over to the newly elected Council President who ran the Council meetings.

A few weeks prior the the election I received a call from Chief Of Police Doug Seeley wanting to talk with me. I had known Doug since he went on the force, around the time Dave and I were building the radio station. When I went to see him the first words out of his mouth were, "I understand if you are elected you are going to get rid of me." I must say that caught me a bit by surprise as I had never stated that either publicly or privately. I assured Doug that firing him was not in my plans and that I would not make any staffing decisions, if elected, till I had time to study the operation of the department and form my own opinions firsthand. Doug was satisfied with my answer and we went about discussing what he felt were the needs of his department. I must say, I never envied the Chief's job in a small town police department, if you do it and make arrests you are a jerk, if you don't make arrests you are not doing your job. The police department at that time consisted of Doug and Sgt. Ed Larcom as the two full timers and several part time officers, many who had been with the department for 10 years or more. The Borough of Canton did not have 24 hour police coverage, with any after hours emergencies being handled by the Pennsylvania State Police from Towanda, 26 miles away, or by calling out one of the officers.

As time for the primary drew closer I had a feeling that I stood a very good chance of being elected. I might point out that there was no candidate on the Democratic side as that party had a very small enrolment in Canton. I also got the feeling that Jim was not taking my challenge too seriously, a pretty common mistake in politics.

Election day arrived, and I made it a point to be at the polls greeting the citizens when they arrived to vote, something that Jim chose not to do. When the polls closed and the ballots were counted I had won 78% of the votes on both the Republican and Democratic ballots, the Democratic was a write in, and had handed Jim his defeat after 16 years as Mayor.

The next time, I will look at the changing of the guard, my time as Mayor and my decision not to seek re-election.

Here's your sign! Watts Media/Multi Services

The title sounds like a line from the Redneck Comedy Tour, but it sums up a venture that lasted some 15 years until I sold the business in 2004. When I was at Chemung County Transit and working on the Southerntier Tourist Information System, I found a lot of the companies were looking for representation, so I signed on a the local rep for a few along the way, including Eastern Metal/USA Sign of Elmira. I used them in the Southerntier project and was very impressed with the quality of product. Eastern Metal was founder by John Knapp and Burley Maines in a small garage in Elmira Heights, N.Y. and had grown into a well know maker of traffic and architectural signs. I signed on as a full line dealer, but was primarily interested in information signs. Some projects included an information system for The Strassburg Railroad, and very large signs for the Delaware Turnpike. Along the way, my father, who was a Township Supervisor in Ward Township in Pennsylvania, asked me about road signs. I must admit I didn't know road signs from shinola but I told him I would be happy to get some pricing together. I did, and he was happy with the prices, so a new dimension was added to the business.

Watts Media Services was originally founded as a marketing and promotional venture for small business and along the way I did marketing for a children's book, a limousine service, and some other small businesses, and local government. Dad suggested that maybe I should consider opening a business, he would give me some contacts and after much soul searching it was decided that was the route I wanted to pursue. As I mentioned I was working at WIQT AM doing morning drive and part time at Radio Shack in Grand Central Plaza in Horseheads. Since I was adding two way communications to the product line I viewed it as a conflict of interest with "The Shack," so I turned in my resignation to Dave Cooper. I did however keep the Morning Drive slot on WIQT and when I was off the air at 10:00 am I either hit the road (two days a week), or went to my home office.

I decided that I would call on parts of Tioga, Lycoming, Bradford, Clinton and Tioga Counties as my area. There was competition from Bradco Supply and Chemung Supply in the sign end, and MANY two way radio companies. Had it not been for people like my dad, Jim Merrick (a long time friend) Street and Park Supervisor in South Williamsport, Pa and Fred Pifer. Borough Manager in Montgomery, Pa I am not sure I would have made it. They were my first accounts, with South Williamsport being my overall best account throughout the time I operated the company.

Watts Media Services was a blend of what seemed to be unrelated products; such things as signs, two way radios, hand cleaner, safety equipment and even shoe grease, but after you thought about it for a time and realized the area I covered was rural municipalities who never saw a salesperson, it made sense.

When I wanted to add two way radios to the line, I approached Motorola about becoming a dealer. After quite a bit of discussion I felt that their dealer requirements were way more than I as a start up business could handle. I talked with another firms, Chemung Communications who I had done business with while I was a C.C.T.S. however they just wanted a bird dog. I felt that I had to have the final control on products and service so I decided not to affiliate with them. Enter Joe Nunn, Nunn Electronics in Rochester, N.Y. I got to know Joe during my time at Chemung Transit, he helped me out with products and radio programming when another firm could not. Anyway, I called Joe and gave him my proposal, he said that he had a couple of field people like I wanted to be and would certainly be pleased to add me. I asked him if I could get some demonstration radios as I had two possible sales. To Joe's credit, he was more than willing, and sent me radios and antenna's resulting in the sales of several radios. Joe eventually went on to buy Rochester Radio and add product lines and service. My relationship with his company lasted the whole time I was in business.

All during the first few yeas of business I knocked on a lot of doors, did every trade show I could and even started a direct mail piece I called "The Wattsline."

In 1991 my father passed away, and still another change was going to happen. It was decided that my family and business would move to Canton, Pa. to be near my mom and to more centrally locate in the territory. As long as I was making the move I decided that a slight name change was in order to better represent what the company did. I must admit it was not easy, but finally it was decided that the new name would be Watts Multi Services. I liked the name since it did not limit me to products and services, yet at the same time would still be familiar to my ever expanding customer base.

My years as the Owner/Operator of Watts Multi Services really kept me busy an because of good products, I only represented family owned companies, I got many referrals from my customers. One of my best known customers was Little League Baseball Inc., still today I see my products whenever there is TV coverage of the championship series.

Someone said the life is an ever changing adventure, and such was mine. In the next edition more on my time in Canton, Pa as I enter politics.