A history of WMPT Radio South Williamsport Pa, as well as radio in the Williamsport Marketplace. In addition a history of my time behind the microphone.

Tuesday, October 11, 2005

My Life and times at the Mighty 1450 and other places I have RF'ed, Part 1

I first came to WMPT radio as an employee in the middle of 1966 having started my paid radio career in December 1964 at WLYC Am and Fm in Williamsport. As I said in another BLOG listing, I had an interest in radio from very early on growing up hearing the “golden voices” of Williamsport Radio. I guess, it really peaked for me one summer when I was in Canton, Pa. My grandfather was a local Auxiliary Police Officer and he was assigned to work a dance in town square. I started to watch the disk jockey, Bill Sherwood, from WATS in Sayre, work and felt this was really something I wanted to do. As I got older I was allowed to attend the Friday Night Dance in Montoursville at the Fireman’s Social Hall, it was there I met Dick Crownover who was the DJ. After a time Dick and I became friends and I hung out with him at the Friday night dance, a Saturday afternoon dance at the Naval Reserve Center in Williamsport and just about any remote broadcast I could get to. From time to time I would venture over to South Williamsport to the Borough Hall, at Percy & Southern, and climb the stairs to “heaven” the studios of WMPT. I must say that I was not always a welcome guest, oh the D.J’s didn’t mind, but Dave Castlebury, the owner, had some rather funny views about just who should be in his radio station bothering the jock on duty. After the stations move to East Central Ave it became a bit easier since I got to know Dave’s car and would a lot of times wait for it to leave before coming into the station. It was there I got to know Mike Sullivan, and Ron Shobert. I can’t count the number of times Dave threw me out of the station, little did he know that someday I would be a respected part of his staff.
In 1964 I decided that I would obtain my F.C.C. license. In those days you had to take a test on the rules and regulations as well as operational procedures. I remember going to Alvo Electronics on East Fourth Street and getting the study guide and spending long hours memorizing all the rules and pestering those D.J’s who had their license for help in the operational procedures such as meter readings etc. It was the first day of deer season in 1964 I took my test at the Naval Reserve Center and passed with flying colors, surely now Dave Castlebury would jump at the chance to hire such a talented DJ as me! Well, with license in hand I went over to WMPT and marched into see Dave, only to be told “come back when you have some experience!” Catch 22, how was I going to get experience if he wouldn’t hire me? I believe it was my mom who suggested I might want to set my sights a bit lower than the number 1 station to start. So I wound up at WLYC AM and FM located on the third floor of the Williamsport National Bank Building on Pine Street. What a hole it was, the third floor at one time had been home to a number of business who for one reason or another were no longer there, but the names still were painted on the doors. At the end of the hall was the WLYC studios I remember being greeted by an attractive secretary who I later got to know as Joyce Wilson. Anyway I asked if they were looking for help and she had me fill out an application when that was completed she called the General Manager a fellow named Vince Campana. Vice was the epitome of an old time station manger, white shirt, suit coat, curly gray hair and even though I was considerably taller than him his presence was huge. He looked over the application and me, and asked if I would mind taking an audition test. We then walked across the hall into the “big” studio where he sat me down in front of this huge old RCA microphone with the call letters on top and went into the control room. A few minutes later he came back with some news and sports wire copy and a couple of commercials. He told me to read it over and when I was ready to let the announcer on duty know so he could start the tape. I must have read that copy 20 times went over to the control room window and tapped on it. A short stature announcer, also wearing a white shirt and tie started the tape and I was off and running. When I was done he retrieved the tape from the bank of reel to reel machines in the control room and gave it to Mr. Campana. Mr. Campana asked me to wait while he listened to the tape and allowed me to observe the announcer on duty, this was the first time I met Mike Sarlo. Mike was of Italian and Polish decent and prior to coming to Williamsport he worked (at WPME) in Punxsutawney Pa. The Home of Punxsutawney Phil, famous weather forecaster. Mike had a great sense of humor and not long after I started at the station we became close friends. Anyway, more about Mike another time. I was called into Mr. Campana’s office after what seemed an eternity and was told, “I think you’ve got some potential, I would like you to come in and work with Mike and learn the board.” That was my start! Over the next few months I spent as much time as I could in the station running the board, ripping wire copy, filing records etc. BUT never being allowed to have my voice on the air.
The first time I ever was “live” on the air, I was in with Bob Johnson running the board, he was off someplace or other and it came time for a station break. He was not back, what do I do? Well, with shaking hands and a voice that went up several octaves I gave a station break. I was hooked! Not long after that Vince Campana called me and asked me work an air shift for money, a whole $1.00 per hour. What happened, I really believe, is that he had no one else to work and he did not want to himself. I don’t remember much about that first day on the air, except I felt like a big deal!

During the summer of 1965, after graduation from Montoursville Area High School, I worked a variety of shifts, mostly weekend and the occasional vacation shift. I remember that summer we did a live remotes everyday from the Lycoming County Fair In Hughesville. The way that worked is we were on the air for 2 hours, then had two hours to go around the fair grounds and get interviews to use during the your time on the air. My first interview was with Pa State Police Trooper John Mady. In later years Trooper Mady told me he was a nervous as I was, since he too was new on the job, and that was his first interview. Trooper Mady and I worked together on a number of things over the years and became friends.

Also during the summer of 1965, I started what became a pretty good source of summertime income for me, summertime playground dances. During the summer months most of the regualr dances shut down, so I was hired by local recreation departments to host dances at various locations. Prior to that, as early as 1963, I had done some D.J. Gigs for some school clubs, and other parties, but nothing permanent. That first summer I was hired to do dances at the Montoursville High School tennis courts. For the next 8 summers I worked all over the Williamsport Area, for Montoursville, South Williamsport, Old Lycoming and Williamsport, in venues ranging from tennis courts to public swimming pools and even a couple at Loyal Plaza Shopping Center. For a couple of summers I was doing two and three a week, and hired my fellow D.J.'s like Steve George and Barry Stott to help me. I hate to think how many "record hops" I have done over the years, but I will bet the number is in the thousands.

As fall approached Bob Johnson, who was doing afternoons, decided that he was going back to college. At that time I was offered a fulltime job with WLYC taking over his afternoon shift. In those days WLYC did not have a network so all the news was done live, part of my job was to prepare the news cast that consisted of local, state, and world and national news cast airing at noon with Mike Sarlo on the board. Mike would always try to crack me up during the news and that made for some interesting things on the air. As soon as the news was over I took the board and Mike went to lunch then when he came back I went, usually to Kelchner’s Restaurant down by the old State Theatre and came back to go on the air with my music show, The PM Show, from 3:00 pm to 6:00 PM. Of course I read all my news live and a lot of commercials live as well. The station had this deal where if a business bought a years advertising they would receive a lighted sign they could post specials on. The sign had a clock and OF COURSE the station call letters. Apparently the clocks were not of the highest quality since it seemed that the engineer, Jim Hubbard, spent more time working on them than he did equipment. The on air advertising copy seldom changed and after a period of time I never bothered to even pull the live copy, I did it from memory, that was fine till one day the copy writer came in and asked where I got the copy I was reading for Cerquasi’s Restaurant, since it had changed 2 weeks earlier!

The biggest thing for me happened during the summer of 1965 when I covered the crash of an Allegheny Airlines plane just Northeast of Montoursville. I remember hearing units being dispatched to the area of the Church Of The Good Shepard in Fairfield Township for an airplane crash. I went to the airport and got no where so I headed over to Montoursville Fire Department just as an emergency unit was leaving, so I followed it press card in hand, and wound up parking within a short distance of the crash site. I walked up and found the Curt Wheeland, the Montoursville Fire Chief, was in charge. I knew him as I had gone to school with his daughter Penny. Curt recognized me and allowed me to cross over the security line and get my interview. After I got the story, I hurriedly wrote it up as best I could and went to a nearby farmhouse and called the station with the story. I never thought much about it until the next day when my dad told me he had gotten a call from some friends in Florida who heard my report. I later found out the station fed it to the Mutual and ABC Radio Networks
I stayed at WLYC from December 1964 to February of 1966 when I got into one of many disagreements with management and quit.

During my time at WLYC I remember doing a lot of different jobs, such as taping high school concerts, filling in on the classical music show, writing some advertising copy and the like. Lots of changes took place at WLYC during that time, we got our first broadcast cart machine, finally doing away with most of the live copy, electronic transcription (16” records), and reel to reel commercials. We also became a Mutual Radio Network affiliate doing away with the need for the announcer to read the world and national news and the Western Union automatic time correction clock finally died once and for all. During the time we had it, I think I saw the rear end of the repairman more than I did the clock.
Looking back some 41 years later, WLYC was a very good learning experience, Mike Sarlo was a great teacher as was Jim Hubbard the engineer. This was the first and only time in my career that I worked for a female Program Director, Ann Davis, who would pretty much let me play anything as long as I played one Frank Sinatra song an hour
I have often thought that the television show WKRP in Cincinnati was based on WLYC, we had all those folks working there with the possible exception of Jennifer Marlow, come to think of it Joyce could have filled the bill as the brunette version of Jennifer. Ned Bradley was the Herb Tarlick type sales person complete with the loud sports coat, Art Kiernan was a Les Nessman type, Dusty Poust as Bailey Quarters, Paul Kelly had to be the white version of Venus Flytrap, and Vince Campana as “The Big Guy” Arthur W. Carlson. One of the nicest persons there was definitely Joyce Wilson, receptionist and billing department, I used to spend a lot of time in her office talking, she was a very funny person who always had a smile. She and Mike Sarlo started dating and eventually married, if I remember correctly both had left WLYC by that time, with Mike working at WNAE/WRRN in Warren, Pa.. I had the pleasure of being their best man.
In My Life and times at the Mighty 1450 and other places I have RF’ed part 2, Dave Castlebury finally comes to his senses and hires me! (the first of many times).
Till the next time remember, “keep smiling, it will make everybody else wonder what you’ve been up to.”