The "Other" stations, is this equal time?

Even though it is my intent to highlight the history of WMPT Radio, I don’t feel that any look at Williamsport radio of that era would be complete without mentioning the “other” stations and some really great people who toiled away behind their microphones. Lets take the oldest first:
WRAK (1400 AM and 102.7 FM):
Until WMPT and even many years after the start of “That damn South Side station” WRAK was a very powerful force in the marketplace. WRAK went on the air around 1930 founded by Rudolf A. King (hence WRAK) and in the late 1940’s added a very powerful FM (now known as KISS FM) to the market with a signal that could be heard as far away as Canada. One of the early staff members was Harris Lipez who went on to be the General Manager and Part Owner of WBPZ in Lock Haven. In my early years of listening to the radio, from about 1952 on in Williamsport, the airwaves were graced with the likes of Ev (Rube) Rubendal, I think he was the morning man for over 30 years, Bud Berndt who went on to teach communications at Williamsport Area Community College, Foster Gaines who at last report was working in Texas. “Rube probably had the best news contacts of anyone I ever met, everybody knew him and liked him. This was back in the days when you wrote a lot of your own news while you were on the air. Rube and I often attended the same meetings and dinners and became friends it was not un common for me to stop at Rube’s house, about two blocks from WMPT on East Central Ave and have a glass of lemonade and talk radio. WRAK was at one time owned by the Williamsport Sun and I can remember hearing Rube talking to the cleaning person, a fine black man called “Brownie” on the air. The General Manager and majority stock holder in WRAK in the 1950’s to the 1970’s was J. Wright Mackey. He and several other bought the station from the Steinman Group of Lancaster who owned WGAL TV Channel 8. At one time WRAK had a permit to construct a TV station on Channel 36, for what ever reason it never happened and Steinmen left town, the frequency was assigned to Elmira N.Y, I worked at Channel 36 in the late 70‘s.. I remember listening to J. Wright Mackey at the Lowery Organ, he was quite an accomplished musician and had a daily show of organ music. I can well remember listening to N.B.C.’s popular weekend show Monitor what I consider to be the forerunner of modern talk radio. We young folks had to get older before the market surveys finally gave WMPT the edge in adult listener ship. WRAK is still on the air and is now owned by media giant Clear Channel Communications in Williamsport they own several other radio stations as well.
WWPA (1340 AM):
In my opinion WWPA probably had the absolute best talent of any radio station in Williamsport in the 1950’s even into the 1960’s. While WMPT had very exciting D.J.’s for the most part they were young and just starting out, while WWPA had some real heavy hitters in talent. WWPA went on the air about 1947 and was owned by Woodrow W. Ott. Woody was a real task master, his nephew Bob Ott and I were friends and Bob once told me that Woody had a radio in every room of his house and they were all on all the time. If he heard anything he didn’t like, or dead air he would be on the phone asking why. On air was John Archer, one of the best voices I have ever heard in the business. John, as much as any, was one of my early radio idols, my parents liked WWPA and I remember listening to it every morning while eating breakfast. I met John in 1959 in the middle of Rideau Lake, Ontario, Canada where his father-in-law Bill Winters owned a resort island. John and I remained friends for many years. He later went to Alcan Cable but still found time to voice spots for political candidates and for his church. Bill Duel started out at WLYC, I don’t really remember what happened to him, but I believe he just left the business, one of the smart ones! Gordon Thomas, one of the finest news voices I ever heard he went directly from WWPA to WIP in Philadelphia where he stayed for many years. Jim Stowe, a very talented sports man, left WWPA and went to Harrisburg and was a fixture at WHP for years. George Gedon, yes the same, George was a funeral director back then, but worked in radio, I always liked listening to George on the air, he had a very smooth delivery and a great knowledge of music. WWPA also had one of the best engineers around Carl Steinbacher, he worked on Hammond Organs and was a whiz at keeping WWPA’s signal sounding crystal clear. The last I knew WWPA was owned by Backyard Broadcasting owners of several other radio stations in Williamsport and elsewhere.
WLYC (1050 AM, 105.1 FM):
A lot of really good radio people got their start at WLYC courtesy of Victor Carlson the first General Manager and Vince Campana who gave me my start. WLYC was owned by Keliher Construction Company I think from the beginning. I always thought that John T. Keliher had the station as a tax write off and a place for his kids to work during summer vacation from college. As I said above Bill Duel started there, as did Foster Gaines, other notable people included Mike Sarlo who trained me, Art Kiernan who was on air and did sales and sometimes news, Paul Kelley on air, Bob Johnson who I replaced in 1965 and Nick Green (a professor at Lycoming College) who did the Classical Music show in the evening on WLYC FM. WLYC was the only day timer, meaning they could only be on the air from sunrise to sunset. In the highly competitive radio market, a factor that I am sure was very tough to overcome. Interestingly enough WLYC started as an FM only station in 1949, since there were very few FM radios around then they petitioned the FCC for an AM, citing the fact they could not make any money and were granted 1050Khz at frequency they shared with a New York City station. They also were the only AM with their tower on top of Bald Eagle Mountain and the AM could easily be heard in downtown Harrisburg. Vince Campana was also well known as a sports broadcaster and remained as the General Manager until the station was sold in 1971 to Alpha Broadcasting. In recent years WLYC has been sold many times and has gone dark often. WLYC FM is a part of the Backyard Broadcast group and became WILQ in 1973 during one of the times I worked there. After Alpha Broadcasting bailed out the station was owned by Kerby Confer and Paul Rotfuss, The Grit Publishing Company and by Paul Rotfuss alone.