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1965
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2006
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1965
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2006
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I started working on the air at WMEV on my 16th birthday. Also worked at WOLD, where Bart once built a 1KW AM transmitter from some old burned-up parts and a thousand pound ball of steel wool. I also did a very brief stint at WIST in Charlotte, NC. All this before coming to WROV at the age of 22, a neophyte with much to learn and lots of stellar teachers, including Fred, Jack Fisher and Burt Levine.
I got back into radio with WMEV-FM & AM in the early 90's as a management consultant; and then later as GM. Took the FM station to 100,000-watts, changed the on-air ID to FM94! and went to a top-40 style country format just as "new country" was emerging. Also claimed the NASCAR racing turf and branded the station as the NASCAR station for the region. The combo worked beautifully.
Later formed a management/ownership arrangement with my life-long friend, Hugh Gwyn, who had purchased the station in the '80s. We made FM94! a regional powerhouse when everyone said it couldn't be done. (That was the obligatory self-serving statement, which I am obligated to insert in all my communications, regardless of the subject.) We sold the stations to Holston Valley Broadcasting in June of 1998 and we both retired; Hugh for good and me - well, I have retired another 2.5 times since then.
How's that for more information than you really wanted?