The 1980s - The Station You Grew Up With
Part 2

1982 marked Roanoke's 100th year as a city and the entire year was filled with Centennial activities. WROV was right in the middle of the celebration. Station promotions included having listeners nominate a Valentine's Day "Sweetheart Of The Year" as well as more Supercard-related contests and 1950s - 1960s style dances.

One, held on the City Market in May, was called "WROV's Come As You Were High School Reunion" night and featured jitterbug, twist and disco contests. Over 7,000 people attended, making it a big success. The party, incidentally, was crashed by members of the K92 crew who showed up in their van and handed out bumperstickers.

The Roanoke Centennial was honored on WROV with a contest involving these cards.

On May 16, the city's actual birthday, the valley celebrated by having a parade down Jefferson Street. About 20,000 people showed up, stood in the hot sun, and got sunburned watching a show one person said was "better than anything I've ever seen on TV." The parade had 5,000 participants including baseball great Boog Powell and football's Mean Joe Greene.

WROV's "float" consisted of one vehicle from each decade the station had been on the air along with dances performed by "Bootie's Belles," a chorus-line dance group featuring Ellen Dowdy and choreographed by Bootie Chewing of Vinton. Each time the parade stopped, the girls hopped out of cars and did a dance for the spectators.

In Spring, 1982, Pat Garrett left WROV for a weekend job at K-92. "In retrospect," says Pat, "that was probably a mistake. I had a big ego, wanted to be #1 again, and work once more with Bart. But I would probably have been much better off if I had stayed at WROV. I think Burt would have eventually given me a full-time job, instead, I ended up going to K-92, whizzing off many of my former friends, working six months of weekend shifts and getting canned."

The 1982 Roanoke Centennial Parade.Boog Powell & Bootie's Belles; Burt with wind-swept hair; James Norman with a VW Thing; Pete Kandis & the Belles with Pete's panel truck.

Pat went on to work in Wilmington, Asheville and Raleigh, NC before hanging up the headphones for good in 1993 and admits "the K92 experience did come in handy when it got me a full-time job at a big, new FM station—Kiss FM in Asheville—in 1984."

Cliff Beach left WROV around the same time to return to his music, and after both were gone, WROV hired long-time Roanoke jock John Andrews for the all-night show. During high school John had worked at Pixie and then did a short stint on WROV in the late 1960s, and became well known for spending much of the 1970s on Q99.

WROV remained active and visible in the community throughout the year. Matt, Rob, John and June broadcast live from Roanoke's Festival On The River. And by Summer 1982, all saw that the effort was paying off. Though K92 finished #1 in the ratings and WPVR #2, WROV had by then climbed into the #3 slot and could boast of being the top rated AM station in town, beating out WSLC who was suffering from the loss of long-time star King Edward IV who passed away in 1981.

Rob & Bruce at the Roanoke Centennial Parade, 1982.

Incidentally, by the summer of 1982, K92 could claim 6 former WROV personalities: Bart, Bill Jordan, Vince Miller , Larry Dowdy, Linda Silver, and Pat Garrett. Also, former WROV receptionist Carole Beane was at K92 working as an assistant to the programming department. Bucky , by then, had left K92 and was working at Q99 and as an engineer at WSLS-TV.

This 1983 ad was intended to position WROV as Roanoke's adult station.

Summer '82 saw WROV hire a new program director. John Gabriel, from Albany, NY, was programming station WCHS in Charleston, WVA. WCHS had once been programmed by Mike McVay and when Burt wanted a new PD to move forward with the station's "adult" oriented format, Mike suggested John for the job.

His first assignment at WROV wasn't one he enjoyed. "My first job at ROV was to fire John King. This was difficult, since he sounded like he belonged on a major market station. But, my job was to take over afternoons and John took the firing nicely. He soon got a job in Richmond at WRVQ-94."

A crowd of about 8,000 people rang in the new year of 1983 on the City Market at an outdoor celebration sponsored by Downtown Roanoke, the City Market Association and WROV. The party was the official "close-out" of the Centennial year. Bruce Jacobson and Matt Eakle were on hand with a crowd of folks of all ages who together drank 720 bottles of champagne.

New Year's Eve 1982-1983 was celebrated on the City Market and the official close-out of Roanoke's Centennial year.

Kazoos were handed out and the intention was to set a world record for the largest number of people playing "Auld Lang Syne" on kazoos, but Jeff Dickerson recalls that folks started throwing the kazoos at each other and it turned into "a game of dodge the flying projectiles." The turnout surprised Matt who said "we didn't think it would be anywhere near this, we thought everyone would have plans for New Year's Eve." The station broadcast live from the four-hour event.

In February, 1983, WROV commemorated the end of the M*A*S*H TV show by hosting a "M*A*S*H Bash" at Tanglewood Mall. The promotion included contests to find Roanokers who looked like the M*A*S*H cast members, trivia contests and other related fun.

John Gabriel, June Poteat, Matt Eakle in 1983.

Throughout 1983, John Gabriel was the PD and afternoon man. Larry Bly continued his weekend shows and Jack Fisher continued his monthly show, though without Fred Frelantz who left to go "into fulltime showbiz" with The Vikings, who were now being produced by Wes Farrell and going by the name Roanoke.

Matt continued doing middays. About this time, June Poteat, who wanted to work at an FM station, left for a job at WSLQ-99, so Bruce Jacobson, a newsman at WROV since 1979 and the former lead singer of The Royal Kings, moved over to the other side of the glass to do the 7 - midnight show. The station continued many public appearances at events such as the Highland Fling and Old Salem Days.

John Andrews at the Summer Beach Party Reunion, 1983.

Fred and Jack were also there along with John Gabriel.

WROV did a repeat of the previous year's successful event on the City Market. This year's event took place in August and was billed as the "Summer Beach Party Reunion '83." The station even had a truckload of sand and sea shells hauled in and dumped on the street for the occasion which included a "best beach hat" contest.

Rob O'Brady continued doing the morning show and being a champion for charity. In October, Rob raised money for the Leukemia Society by taking part in the Cimmaron Rose restaurant's "Celebrity Wait Night," an event where local stars waited tables and donated their wages and tips to charity.

In early 1984, John Gabriel left and was replaced by Mike Chapman, who held the PD job for a short time before it went to Steve McFarland.

Steve was born in Roanoke, went to Patrick Henry High and had worked as a part-timer at WROV in the early 1970s. His radio career took him to Wisconsin, Milwaukee, New Orleans, San Francisco and Charlotte then brought him home. "I grew up listening to this radio station and I know the legacy. I'm close to Nirvana. I have the opportunity to come home and be with my folks and do my profession. I don't know that a guy could ask for more."

Steve McFarland & Lee Eames, 1984

Steve's arrival signalled the end of Rob O'Brady's long tenure as morning man, the show he'd done for nine years. Steve took over the morning show and Rob joined Bruce Jacobson on the afternoon shift. Saying "when you've got good talent who have proven themselves, let them do more" Burt billed the change as "a return to what we do well—making radio the exciting business it used to be." Rob and Bruce did an "off the wall" sort of show that made good use of the pair's long friendship and knowledge of each other. They went to movies, visited clubs and talked about it on the air.

Bruce Jacobson moved from the news room into the studio in the mid 1980s.

Matt continued doing middays, copy/promotions man Bill Young did the night show until Lee Eames was hired, and John continued on overnights. Another pairing of friends for a WROV show put Larry Bly together with longtime friend and "Cooking Cheap" co-host Laban Johnson.

Larry and Laban did three Saturday afternoons per month with Jack Fisher and eventually, Fred Frelantz (back in 1985 from his stint with Roanoke) doing the other one. Larry described the show as "not so much of a comedy show as a combination of music and chitchat and call-ins and call-outs. We don't want this to be your typical two stooges sitting behind the mic taking pot shots at each other."

The 1980s brought a stream of bad luck to WROV which helped lead to Burt Levine finally deciding to sell it. The advent of FM Top 40 radio in Roanoke with K92 caused the station to lose its status as the top-rated rock station in town, but that wasn't the worst.

In May, 1983, Burt's wife and long-time business partner Muriel suffered a ruptured cerebral aneurysm that left her in a coma. Muriel always took care of the bookkeeping and scheduling of commercials from her office in the Levine home and truly was the "power behind the throne."

Listeners got buttons when Bruce did the night show in 1985.

Burt recalled "We were finishing up a breakfast meeting when she put her head down on the table, like you might if someone had said something you didn't agree with. Then about five seconds later she came to and said she didn't remember what had just happened. We were a little concerned but everything seemed OK. But a couple of minutes later her whole body just went limp."

Though Muriel never regained consciousness, Burt continued to consider her to be part of the business and signed her name to the company's holiday gifts to employees. But he now had to spend more time tending to the responsibility of running the station and over the next five years it seemed to wear him down.

To reflect a more mature image the station began using this logo around 1982.

In October 1984, Rob O'Brady's dog of six years, Rampart, was found dead in his back yard. The dog was most likely poisoned, but his body was cremated before any sort of a veterinary autopsy could be performed.

Authorities "guessed" that the dog had been starved to death and an over-zealous press and public saw a chance to make a big splash by taking down a celebrity. Remember, these were the mid 1980s, the decade in which cable TV gave us Geraldo Rivera and cable channels resorted to sleazy tabloid fluff to fill the schedule and attract viewers. News stories quoted "unnamed" sources and aired video that had been edited to make Rob's yard look like a crime scene in what had to be an alltime low for Roanoke journalism.

Rob, who has probably done more for local charities than any other person in the history of the city, was put through three weeks of hell for something he did not do. Burt, as always, refused to act on a whim with a knee-jerk reaction and stood by Rob, though he did take him off the air until the mess blew over.

When it did, Rob bravely returned to his show, showing he had more character than those who had falsely accused him. But the episode had taken its toll on Rob, who seemed to have aged several years from the stress, and on the station which had again weathered a PR nightmare.

Following the Flood of 1985 Burt did his best to grin and bear it. All of the carpet (in pile behind him) had to go, along with most of the record library which was kept in the lower "quonset hut" portion of the building.

The next year on Halloween night, 1985, it started raining and didn't stop for five days. The rain, indirectly related to Hurricane Juan, became heavy on Monday, November 4 and continued through the next day causing the Roanoke Flood of 1985. Before it was finished, it had killed 10 Roanokers, cost $440 million dollars in damage, and knocked WROV off the air for more than just a few hours for the first time since it went on in 1946. The station's location in "the heart of P.D. Bottom" about 100 yards from the river was a bad place to be for this record-breaking flood.

Steve McFarland was the morning man and PD in 1985

Burt and the rest of the staff stood by his desk watching the water come closer and closer, saying "it hit us all of a sudden like a fire hydrant opening up." He finally made the decision to take the station off the air and move the transmitting equipment and everything else they could out of the quonset hut to the higher part of the building.

Jeff Dickerson recalls "Mike Bell was the last one on air before the mighty 'Noke flooded the studios and the last words he said before killing the power were 'Thanks for stopping by.'" WROV was back on the air in about a week, though the building sustained much damage. Especially the music library which was in the "hut." Many of the actual records Roanoke grew up listening to were ruined and had to be thrown out, as well as all of the carpet in the building.

Rob O'Brady & Bruce Jacobson did afternoons together for a while in 1984.

And this came on the heels of some of the station's worst-ever ratings. In a year that saw K92 dominate as it never had before with a 34.9% share of the listening audience, WROV slipped to seventh place with only 4.2% and finished behind (in this order) K92, WPVR, Q99, WSLC, WFIR, WJLM and WTOY. Roanoke was now dominated by FM stations, which accounted for 72% of all listening in the valley in 1985.

Ironically, WROV—the station who rose to prominence thirty years prior by making radio "exciting with local personalities to take the place of national personalities" saw itself increasingly doing just the opposite. In 1985 they began carrying a Wednesday night program with David Brenner and occasional "album parties" featuring certain pop stars. Plus much more sports with the addition of UVa football and basketball games.

A WROV / Mr. PIBB bumpersticker from the mid 1980s.

And the station continued softening up for the new adult target audience of 25-54 year olds where they actually saw modest gains in the ratings; for example, while Burt approved of airing a special on the history of the band Chicago, he refused one on the Rolling Stones saying "an hour and a half of solid Stones would turn off too many of the station's female listeners."

But the year wasn't without highlights, among them WROV's "$100,000 Cash Grab" at the Salem Civic Center in June. Beginning on April 4, two people per day qualified for the big giveaway by being the correct numbered caller on Steve McFarland's morning show.

Over the next two months, a total of eighty-four people won the chance to spend sixty seconds grabbing as much "cash" as they could from a mountain of play money. Totals would be tallied and in the end, the person who had grabbed the largest amount of play money would win that amount of REAL money in payments that would be spread out over the next year. In the end, the winner took home about $30,000.

The WROV $100,000 Cash Grab of 1985.

This sort of contest was quite a shift for Burt Levine, who in the fall of 1984 said that he preferred to attract listeners with quality programming instead of massive cash giveaways. This time, said Burt, "we thought we shouldn't take too many chances, we should do what is expected." And it drew some criticism from competitors including K92, who called it "a deception to the public" because the promotional announcements made it sound as if the winner would get the entire $100,000. K92 even ran promos on the air calling the cash grab "B.S.—a broadcast sham."

By 1986, Steve McFarland was doing mornings and Drew Lane, who had formerly played on the Virginia Tech baseball team, was doing sports for him. Mike Bell, Rob O'Brady, and Bruce were still around, as well as Sam Giles and Dave Cowan. The station continued its trend toward more syndicated programming, especially on weekends when listeners could hear the Beatles-oriented show "Ticket To Ride" with WNEW, New York's Scott Muni on Sunday nights.

Drew Lane worked mornings in the late 1980s and is now part of a morning team in Detroit.

Sam Giles did an "Album Tracks" show on Sunday nights. Laban & Larry continued doing their weekend shows three Saturdays per month with Jack Fisher working on the fourth. Laban and Larry were offered a full-time show on the station. Laban enthusiastically wanted to do it, but Larry pointed out how the "time-consuming" nature of it would interfere with his advertising work and they turned it down. McFarland eventually left and was replaced as PD by Mike Bell.

Fred Frelantz, back from three years with "Roanoke," had just announced that he was going to return to WROV, joining Jack once a month as they had done in the early 1980s. But this was not to be. WROV's bad news continued in June, 1986 on a Friday the 13th when Fred died in a fire in his apartment. Fred, who always left burning cigarettes in ashtrays and standing up on tables, unknowingly dropped ashes into a stuffed chair in his living room while enjoying some popcorn and TV before going to bed.

Fred had his hair permed in 1983 when The Vikings became Roanoke.

The chair smoldered for several hours and the intense heat melted the smoke detector which apparently held dead batteries and probably would have saved him. One of Fred's upstairs neighbors awoke to a popping sound and smelled smoke but decided to check the doors of the building's apartments to find the location of the fire before calling for help.

Fred was found on his bedroom floor. The fire department thought that he became aware of the fire, got up and was overcome by the smoke and heat in the living room. Fred was dead on arrival at Roanoke Memorial Hospital. John Andrews was on the air at WROV and was the first to receive the bad news. Since Fred had no family in Roanoke, Fred's longtime business/music partner Tommy Holcomb made the funeral arrangements. Fred was a legendary personality and was the "king" in Roanoke. And in retrospect, his life paralleled the radio station's. It really took off just before Fred arrived, and it began fading away a few years after he passed away.

Fred in a drawing by John Earle of the Roanoke Times & World News.

By 1987, Muriel's poor health, the tough business competition in a market that had finally discovered FM radio, the flood and the run of bad luck had begun taking a toll on Burt Levine. In 1988 he remarked "The last five years have been difficult ones for me both professionally and personally. And it's only natural to feel sorry for yourself, but after a week or so you find out that they don't pay anything for that. I just tried to fight that, to think positive. You do the best you can with what you've got."

Still, selling WROV to advertisers had been increasingly difficult since K92 entered the market and became the ratings leader. Burt began to realize that the only way WROV could ever operate as it once did was to affiliate it with an FM station. He said "You've got to have an FM if you want to get back into the big league again, because, without the opportunity to reach that many people, you're limited in how much you can make and how much you can spend." He hoped to find a way to do that without having to sell the AM station. And most people don't realize it, but he almost succeeded in pulling it off.

Burt Levine poses outside of the control room in 1988.

In early 1988, Burt is said to have worked out a deal to buy WJLM 93.5 FM from Lloyd Gochenour and at the last minute, the deal fell through. John Andrews recalls "They had agreed on terms and price and had shook on the deal. When they next met 'Gokey' had decided to go up on the price which of course nixed the deal. I had never seen Burt so mad, and he never had a kind word for 'Gokey' again. It makes you wonder though. If Burt had bought J-93, he would not have left the business when he did and instead of 96.3 'ROV it would've been 93 'ROV. Food for thought."

When this didn't work out, Burt and two silent partners formed a company that applied for a new low-powered 3000W station in Roanoke. The rules under which his group applied for the new license prohibited him from owning another broadcasting property in the Roanoke Valley. Also, building a new radio station is not inexpensive.

So Burt saw selling WROV as a way to honor the terms of the license application as well as generate some much needed cash. He began looking for a buyer for WROV and in September he agreed to sell WROV to North Carolina station owner Tom Joyner for approximately $500,000.