Radio Days.....

As long as I can remember Central City always had two radio stations, WMTA and WNES.  Actually, I suppose there were three since WNES was both an AM and FM broadcaster while WMTA was strictly AM.  I remember slogging along on my paper route with a portable radio in my shirt pocket complete with an earphone listening to Ernie Allen, who billed himself as "EA the DJ on WMTA!"  He would play music that was popular in the day and do the news live.  Legon McDonald did the same thing over at WNES.

Stations didn't really have "themes" back then.  Each station played everything from pop to gospel to country to easy listening.  WMTA signed on very early in the morning and stayed on the air until about 5:30 PM.  WNES-AM did the same but the FM station stayed on until 10PM.  Some of the early DJ's I remember at those stations were Johnny Tooley, Ernie Allen, Rosemary McClellan, Peter Wolf, Ken Mercer, Ron Beane and a host of others.   I was fortunate because I had friends at both stations in high school (and beyond).  Kirk Stone worked at WMTA (his Dad owned it) and Buddy Baird was the night time DJ at WNES.  It made for some pretty interesting times.

We spent more than a few Sunday afternoons out at WMTA with Kirk.  He spun discs in the afternoon and also broadcast the news.  He was a professional (and still is) as I remember we'd do everything in our power to get him to laugh during a news broadcast but I don't remember ever "cracking him up!"   I remember the vast collection of vinyl records (and even some wax records) at each of the stations, but I believe WMTA had more.  They must have kept every record ever sent to them.  Some of them were pretty "crappy."  I remember from time to time we'd get Kirk to have some kind of stupid trivia contest where people would call in with some answer.  As a prize he'd tell them they'd won a new album.

All they had to do was drive out there and pick it up.  We always gave them some record that was labeled "Not For Sale!"  It was a good thing the label said that because if it was for sure nobody in their right mind would buy it.

Kirk would have to go out there on Sunday mornings and open up and would be the engineer for the various preachers that rented up the airwaves on Sundays (some did this on Saturdays).  If anybody ought to go to heaven it should be Kirk.  I'll bet he sit through 10,000 sermons.

Funny, I don't remember him being "overly-holy" though.

One Sunday we were out there while Kirk hosted his own show.  Around 3 p.m. when Peter Wolf went on the air, we'd sometimes still hang around for an hour or so in the adjoining room (separated from the main control room by a large glass window) and tell jokes and plan what we wanted to do that evening.  This was in about 1963 or 1964 and the Vietnam war was in full swing.  Vietnam dominated the daily news.

Well, it came time for Peter Wolf to "put on his news anchor" hat and read the news.  The news always began with National and International stories first, followed by state news and finally local.   At the time, South Vietnam was led by a premier named Ky (pronounced "Kee").

Peter began with "And now the news from Vietnam...It was announced by South Vietnam Premier "Kentucky" today that troop escalation seemed to be working.  Premier "Kentucky" went on to say "yada-yada-yada!"   Man, our ears perked up... Did we just hear what we thought we heard?  Did Peter Wolf actually call him "Premier Kentucky?"  Kirk walked over to the glass and begin to knock on the pane, but Wolf just kept saying "Premier Kentucky."   Finally the international segment of the news was over and Peter went on into the state and local news without further incident.  When Kirk brought it to his attention later, Peter told him if they wanted him to call him "Kee" then they should spell it "Kee!"   I often wonder how many people traveling the West Ky. Parkway heard that newscast and what they thought.

I had another friend who was the evening DJ over at WNES.  He was Buddy Baird.  In those days all music on WNES in the evenings was "easy listening."  I'm talking Benny Goodman, Lawrence Welk, Guy Lombardo type of easy listening.  There were very few vocals.  It was pretty "highbrow" for us.  It was another Sunday evening around 6 p.m. when I got a phone call at home.  It was Buddy.  He told me he had ran out of cigarettes and needed a smoke and asked if I would mind going to Seven-Eleven and getting him a pack of Winstons and bringing them out to the station.  I agreed that I would do this if he would mention my name 3 times during the 6:30 weather broadcast (they did this about every 30 minutes).  He agreed.

Dad and Mom had retired to the living room and was watching whatever came on before Ed Sullivan.  I told them I needed to hear something on Channel 9.  Channel 9 was a channel that was broadcast from the cable TV office and it was simply a camera that panned instruments showing the time, temperature, barometric pressure, etc.  It simulcast the sound from WNES.  I flipped up on Channel 9 and at 6:30 sharp Buddy came on with "And now for the WNES weather...Tonight will be slightly cloudy, "Hugh," with a 20% chance of overnight showers.  Tomorrow morning will also be partly cloudy, "Hugh," with temperatures rising into the mid-eighties.  It's enough to make you "Sweatt!"

That did it.  I switched the channel back to what they were watching, went out to seven-eleven and got Buddy some cigarettes.  He later told me that he heard nothing from anyone about his addition to the weather which sort of tells you how many people actually listened to it!"

The station we all listened to each evening came out of Chicago.  It was WLS, channel 89.  WLS was owned by Sears Roebuck and it's call letters stood for "World's Largest Store."  The two greatest disc jockeys I remember was Dick Biondi and Art Roberts.  Roberts took over for Biondi after the station fired him for saying something like "OK all you lovers get outa the back seat and listen up!"  I guess that was too rough for radio in the sixties.   I remember back in '66 when Central City won the regional tournament somebody called WLS and told them there would be a celebration at the Dairy Maid with a local band performing on the roof.  It was pandemonium and the whole east coast got to hear about it via Art Roberts on WLS in Chicago.   It was a night right out of American Graffiti!

Finally, one of my favorite radio stories involved WMTA on the day the State Theater and J. C. Penney Store burned.  Someone had called Mom and told her it was happening and we could see the myriads of black smoke from our house on Park Street.  We turned on the radio and Johnny Tooley was on the air with his morning program.  Details were still sketchy.  He went on to say "Folks, it's our understanding that the State Theater and Penney's Department Store are engulfed in flames and several fire departments are working hard to save the rest of downtown.  Just a minute, here comes Ed Thomas (Thomas was another DJ/Engineer at the station and later owned it).  Ed has been down at the scene and can share some details with us.  Go ahead, Ed."  Thomas replied, that's right, Johnny, both buildings are completely destroyed and they're doing everything they can to save the other downtown buildings!"  Tooley asked, "Ed, do they have any idea what caused this fire?"   "Nope," said Ed, "They're not sure how the Star Farted!"  All of a sudden there was silence followed by some light snickering and finally silence again.  It took another minute or so before they could compose themselves enough to return to the air but when they finally did, it was professional the rest of the way.

I'm sure Premier "Kentucky" would have been proud!