WAYT, AM Radio, Daytimers and Wonderful Wabash
There are times when the Internet frustrates me completely And there are other times that I thank Al Gore, or whomever, for inventing such a fascinating and amazing part of my life.
Today I was surfing for something I needed in my work. Don’t quite remember how I got there but I found a very cool site that pretty much explored radio towers from the northeast. www.fybush.com. Very fun place.
And lo and behold, through various searches I found a link to the FIRST radio station I worked for on his site. Yup, then it was called WAYT in Wabash, Indiana. A daytime AM kicking out a booming 250 watts (yeah, I was ALWAYS a QRP fan!) before sunset when we signed off. The building occupied about 800 square feet overlooking the Wabash River’s journey through the city of Wabash in the county of Wabash! So what was our station slogan? “On the Banks of the Wabash”. What else?
Anyway the site brought back some really enjoyable (and a few not so) memories of that first experience in broadcasting.
I started there as news director in February, 1974 just in time for the great frying pan murder. The story goes a woman killed her husband by smacking him on the head with a frying pan the Saturday night before I came to town. And apparently right downtown. Wow. That kinda news would have made CNN today!
Getting there was the first problem. After packing up all my worldly possessions in a fairly small U-Haul, we drove overnight on one of the clearest and most starlit nights of my life through the countryside of western Ohio and eastern Indiana. I arrived in Wabash early on a Saturday morning.
Today I was surfing for something I needed in my work. Don’t quite remember how I got there but I found a very cool site that pretty much explored radio towers from the northeast. www.fybush.com. Very fun place.
And lo and behold, through various searches I found a link to the FIRST radio station I worked for on his site. Yup, then it was called WAYT in Wabash, Indiana. A daytime AM kicking out a booming 250 watts (yeah, I was ALWAYS a QRP fan!) before sunset when we signed off. The building occupied about 800 square feet overlooking the Wabash River’s journey through the city of Wabash in the county of Wabash! So what was our station slogan? “On the Banks of the Wabash”. What else?
Anyway the site brought back some really enjoyable (and a few not so) memories of that first experience in broadcasting.
I started there as news director in February, 1974 just in time for the great frying pan murder. The story goes a woman killed her husband by smacking him on the head with a frying pan the Saturday night before I came to town. And apparently right downtown. Wow. That kinda news would have made CNN today!
Getting there was the first problem. After packing up all my worldly possessions in a fairly small U-Haul, we drove overnight on one of the clearest and most starlit nights of my life through the countryside of western Ohio and eastern Indiana. I arrived in Wabash early on a Saturday morning.
Unfortunately, our arrival was before the office at Meadowbrook apartments, where I was renting, opened. Since the apartment complex was across from a little shopping center, I pulled the U-Haul into the shopping center and decided to sleep there till daybreak.
Not long afterward a Wabash PD officer pulled up, asked me what I was doing and checked my drivers license. I told him (with great pride!) I was the new news director at WAYT! He took the info, said good night and drove away.
Five minutes later, the WPD arrived en masse. In the case of Wabash at that time, en masse is defined as three patrol cars! Obviously they didn’t believe my story. They made me open the rear of the truck (which must have proven that NO ONE would be stealing stuff as old as I had in that poor old U-Haul!). Then they called my new general manager, O.J. Jackson, who confirmed that yes, the station HAD hired a kid from the Buckeye state and that yes, he DID get an apartment at Meadowbrook apartments (Shady Oak Lane, if memory serves!). Eventually, they went home, I settled back in the cab of the truck to stew awhile and then rested till dawn.
And it never got less interesting.
During my nine months at WAYT I was able to be knocked over by an escaping inmate while I headed to the county jail one morning during my morning rounds. I saw my first drowning victim up close and personal. I experienced the great April, 1974 tornado outbreak that destroyed Xenia, Ohio. And I learned how special the infield at the Indianapolis 500 can be in May!
The wonderful part of the job, though, was likely the people I worked with…Fred Ramsey every morning. I still can hear him doing his live Hamm’s beer commercials! Steve Ford (Brelsford) afternoons. He was a production guru to me. Not to mention he owned pretty much every rock & roll record ever made to that point. I remember the two of us visiting Penguin Point for lunch and then checking out Star Trek repeats before heading back to the station. The boss, O.J. Jackson, who taught me more than he’ll ever know (even though I still laugh at him referring to Cat Stevens as “Catherine Stevens” while intro’ing “Peace Train”). Dave Gross before he made the move to Marion and WGOM, the “Giant of Marion”. I believe he went to Indy sometime after I left. Leigh Ellis who began as an intern salesman for us and later ran stations in Valparaiso, Indiana. All were very good friends to this Buckeye.
I remember long drives back to Akron, Ohio to see the family. Stopping in Findlay, Ohio one snowy, winter night while heading to Ohio to watch the premiere of “The Hindenburg”. A complete inability to find a pizza delivery (good or bad) in the whole town of Wabash. And the only thing that made up for no pizza…Curby’s Crispy Chicken!
Yeah, radio in 1974 was a very cool thing to experience. And to experience it in a wonderful little town like Wabash, Indiana was special indeed. Though in those times I could hardly wait to get to the major markets, I now look back and remember with great fondness how nice it was to be a part of a small town station in small town America.
Lord, do I miss it!
Not long afterward a Wabash PD officer pulled up, asked me what I was doing and checked my drivers license. I told him (with great pride!) I was the new news director at WAYT! He took the info, said good night and drove away.
Five minutes later, the WPD arrived en masse. In the case of Wabash at that time, en masse is defined as three patrol cars! Obviously they didn’t believe my story. They made me open the rear of the truck (which must have proven that NO ONE would be stealing stuff as old as I had in that poor old U-Haul!). Then they called my new general manager, O.J. Jackson, who confirmed that yes, the station HAD hired a kid from the Buckeye state and that yes, he DID get an apartment at Meadowbrook apartments (Shady Oak Lane, if memory serves!). Eventually, they went home, I settled back in the cab of the truck to stew awhile and then rested till dawn.
And it never got less interesting.
During my nine months at WAYT I was able to be knocked over by an escaping inmate while I headed to the county jail one morning during my morning rounds. I saw my first drowning victim up close and personal. I experienced the great April, 1974 tornado outbreak that destroyed Xenia, Ohio. And I learned how special the infield at the Indianapolis 500 can be in May!
The wonderful part of the job, though, was likely the people I worked with…Fred Ramsey every morning. I still can hear him doing his live Hamm’s beer commercials! Steve Ford (Brelsford) afternoons. He was a production guru to me. Not to mention he owned pretty much every rock & roll record ever made to that point. I remember the two of us visiting Penguin Point for lunch and then checking out Star Trek repeats before heading back to the station. The boss, O.J. Jackson, who taught me more than he’ll ever know (even though I still laugh at him referring to Cat Stevens as “Catherine Stevens” while intro’ing “Peace Train”). Dave Gross before he made the move to Marion and WGOM, the “Giant of Marion”. I believe he went to Indy sometime after I left. Leigh Ellis who began as an intern salesman for us and later ran stations in Valparaiso, Indiana. All were very good friends to this Buckeye.
I remember long drives back to Akron, Ohio to see the family. Stopping in Findlay, Ohio one snowy, winter night while heading to Ohio to watch the premiere of “The Hindenburg”. A complete inability to find a pizza delivery (good or bad) in the whole town of Wabash. And the only thing that made up for no pizza…Curby’s Crispy Chicken!
Yeah, radio in 1974 was a very cool thing to experience. And to experience it in a wonderful little town like Wabash, Indiana was special indeed. Though in those times I could hardly wait to get to the major markets, I now look back and remember with great fondness how nice it was to be a part of a small town station in small town America.
Lord, do I miss it!
