WENY AM-WLEZ FM and WENY TV 36

After I left WKAD, I worked for Smith Printing as a salesman in Central New York State, on one of my trips I happened to be stopped at a traffic light North of Horseheads, N.Y. on Route 13 and noticed the WENY studios there. Well, I thought why not drop in and see if they could use some weekend help. The first person I met there was the Program Director Steve Christy. Steve was a legend in the market and even I knew who he was. He asked if I had some experience and when I told him I had about 15 years, he asked me to come in the following days for training. My first shift was a Saturday mid-day, a lot of fun, WENY had a pretty good play list and was gold on the weekend. As luck would have it the following Monday I received a call from Smith Printing telling me that my territory was being eliminated. I figured that I could probably pick up some hours at WENY AM, so I called the Station Manager Dick Ireland and told him I was available, later that day he called me back and asked me to come up to the station. When I got there I met with Dick and the Corporate General Manager Mike Steele. They told me that I was the "talk of the station," and the Sales Manager Duke Sechrist wondered why I was only a part time employee. At that point they offered me Morning Drive, 6 to 10 am six days a week. Now to this point in my career I had never done morning drive on a steady basis for more than a couple of months. The up-side to the offer, decent pay and benefits, the down-side, I would be driving from Canton, Pa. about 1 hour away everyday! Well after some discussion I told them that I would do it for 6 months and if we liked each other then we could talk about something more permanent.

Six months turned into nearly 3 years as I became the "Mild Mannered Morning Man," the Grand Exhaulted Leader of "The Royal Order Of The Grungy Coffee Mug." WENY was a pretty good place to work, the shift was busy and I got to do some remotes, and learn quite a bit about television, more on that later. The staff was a pretty good one. I replaced Dave Weeks, who I had hired in Canton, he went over to nights. Mid day was Steve Christy, who had been at WENY for over 20 years. Steve also was the weather guy on WENY TV on the 6:00 pm newscast. I liked Steve, he was a easy going fellow who liked his adult beverages and once told me "can you imagine what it is like for someone who doesn't drink waking up and knowing that is the best they will feel all day." Afternoons was John Anthony Slick, a damn good jock who eventually went to ESPN. The station had a talk show called Voice Of The People and it was hosted by Ted Hodge, a long time radio guy who managed WLEZ FM. I had met Ted many years before when he managed WUNS (aka WITT and WUDO depending on the owner) in Lewisburg, Pa. We had worked out an agreement for them to share an ABC Network line with WMPT. Ted had been at WENY before in the 1950's as station manager and one of his claims for "fame" was that he fired Howard Green. Howard eventually went on to own the WENY properties in Elmira, as well as WOND-WMGM, WOND TV 40 in Atlantic City, and The South Jersey Sentinal Ledger. Nights, as I said before had Dave Weeks, and all night was a young fellow Dave Parsons, who liked to put on an L.P. and take naps in the office. More than once as I was driving to the station I would hear "click-click-click" as the LP have ended and Dave's nap had not! John Anthony Slick eventually left and they hired Dave Cochran, (Who appeared later on in the movie "Grumpy Old Men" as the weather man), when Dave Weeks left Dave Pal (Paltrowitz) came on board for the evening shift part timers John K. Scott, Dina Losito. Rob Benson(Maloney, and many others. I can't forget Tom Mailey, who came from WQIX-WIQT, he later went on the WGY in Schenectady/Albany, N.Y. and worked for Program Director Tom Benson, (from KISS FM IN Williamsport). Others along the way included John Kobelt,(a first class asshole) who had worked at WKAD after I left, he was a thorn in my side when I managed WLEZ since he had no interest in taking care of the automation letting music reels run out or it get out of sequence. I was certainly glad when he was finally gone.

There was a pretty big news staff since they all did TV news as well. My morning news guy for a time was Nick Drinker, pretty decent news guy, who did all three stations morning news. It used to be interesting to see Nick leave the TV studio, after his 7:25 news update and run across the parking lot full bore over to do the 7:30 on WENY AM. In the winter it was not uncommon to hear a crash as Nick slid into the side of the radio studios, on the ice. The News Director was a fellow named Jeff Stone, who was named "Bubbles" by his staff, along with Loraine Dyjack, Edd Harnas, Dan Johnson, and Todd Ulrich, who had also worked for me in Canton. Over the time I was there other news people came and left names like Ginny Panchoe, Mary Ellen Plubell, Holly Hunter, Dan Johnson, and Gary Turner come to mind. As news teams in small markets usually are, they were young and pretty inexperienced and there was a BIG turnover. In addition to the news team there was 4 sales people, Duke Sechrist, A.J. Malone, Sam DeLuca, and Meade Murtland. There was a full time copy and production person, Candy Friends (her real name), and Florence Sabatini, full time traffic, who also did a interview show on TV 36. The Chief Engineer was handled by Ray O'Donnell, with Ron Swasta and Conrad Schwenzer in TV. WENY was a busy place with the three stations and staffing for all of them. TV 36 was managed by Bob Edwards (The silver fox) with sales from Bill Miller, Lew Robelyer, and Darryl Miller (no relation to Bill), John Herrick was Program Director, and Scott Reed, Ellen Painter,and Steve Reynolds did TV Production. In The office were Hazel Rydell, Lois Paul, Marie Kendrick and Audrey Link, Jeanne Kennon was the receptionist, and of course a variety of TV switchers, engineers, camera people, like Tracy Sweet and Elaine (can't rememebr her last name), and at least one or two more. Of all the broadcast properties I have worked at WENY was definitely the biggest. I stayed on morning drive till 1982 when I found out that Ted Hodge was planning to retire. It was at that point I made yet another mistake in my radio career, asking for the managers job at WLEZ. More on that next time as I was headed toward getting the "Green WENY."