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1972
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2004
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1972
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2004
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I grew up in Roanoke, listening to WROV...never had any thoughts about going into radio....
I got into the business at Va. Tech in 1963 as a result of Tech's unfair rules for female students (that's a longer story that will be a chapter in my "book" someday). Spent the next nine years in Martinsville, Va., Wilson, N.C., Roanoke and Texas. I ended up being hired by WROV in Feb. 1972. I did 6-10am under the air name Charlie Bell. That's where I met Larry Bly, Phil Beckman, Bart Prater, Jim Carroll, Dick Bentz and Ron Tompkins. Don Foutz was the GM and the receptionist was an Asian-American girl named Nelda Frye.
It was an absolute rush to be working at the radio station I had grown up with. However, my tenure there was not long. In the Summer of '72 I decided to go back to college, so I left WROV, entered Roanoke College, and graduated in '74 with a BA in Theatre. From there I continued on in the radio business in Peoria, Ill., Charlottesville, Va. Charleston and Orangeburg, SC and Lufkin, Texas. I ended up owning 3 stations in South Carolina and sold them in the Summer of 2003 and my wife and I retired back to our beautiful Roanoke Valley.