More on York County’s radio history
This undated, submitted photo from the York Daily Record/Sunday News archives shows WORK Radio 1350 announcers conducting an interview. The radio station was one of the many entertainment organizations to start during the Depression.
I continue to be thrilled by the response to the “radio memories” posts I’ve done this year. The original post, “Calling all stations: A starting look at the radio history of York County,” was one of my most highly trafficked posts all year!
Then, we talked about Q-106 in this October post, complete with some great photos from commenter Brenda Neff.
Well, since that time, I’ve gotten many, many more responses, including one special one at the very end of this post that I think you’re going to want to see. I want to share them with you today, in the spirit of both cleaning out my inbox in preparation for the new year, and more importantly to ask you to please keep the memories coming!
Commenter Bob Michaels Roerig also remembered the past of Q-106. He writes, “I also remember those days. I was a senior in high school having just moved to Lancaster from Wilkes-Barre where I was an intern learning how to write and produce newscasts. I had lofty goals and Bill Shepard took me around and showed me WSBA. He was a gentleman and was very generous with his time, but I was certainly not ready for working there yet. I did land a job at WHEX-AM (oldies) in Columbia. In 1977, I got a job from Dave Marino at WNOW (he now lives in Florida) and then was the first night jock on Q106 when we flipped to go ‘live’ in March 1978. One year later I got to use my news-gathering capabilities with Three Mile Island. Thank goodness I thought to roll tape on that … they still exist today. Working at Q106 was the best experience I had with some amazing people. Today I am the head of research for Clear Channel Radio…but Q106 was the best radio station because we had fun on the air and we always let the audience have fun with us.”
Commenter Scott Bradley Little says, “I worked @ WSBA in the early & mid 1980s, which were probably its last great years. I grew up listening to Harry West in the morning & got to work with Hal Raymond. We had a great news department with people like Ron Corbin, Marty McClain, Dave Collins, Leonard Roberts & Terry Eisenberg @ a time when stations really ‘did’ news and were relied upon for information.”
He continues, “I broke in @ WZIX with people like Rick Shockley, Tom Shannon, John Hess and Dave Shaffer, all working for Jeff Greenhawt & Dan Cohen. When the station was sold & changed to WOYK, I had the privilege of working with Doc Daugherty, who was one of the classiest and nicest people I ever met. For a short time after the management change, I even worked with a man named Roland Dennis, who professed to have ‘babysat Pete Townshend’ of The Who. Radio was fun in those days. Now, it is hard to listen to because of its impersonal nature, reliance on Hollywood ‘dirt’ and often caustic tone.”
Jonathan Tuttle brings up a phrase many of you WSBA fans might remember: “From the mighty 9-10, won–der–ful W-S-B-A.”
John Loeper mentions another station that even I remember! “As long as we are remembering York radio stations of the past, let’s not forget Starview92, York County’s first AOR (album-oriented rock) station. Also there was WGCB in Red Lion. (The call letters stood for ‘God, Christ and the Bible’) and it was all preachers all day and night. The AM side did have to sign off at sunset but the FM kept going. For Bill “Shepherd” I think the weather service that WSBA used before Accuweather was called Compuweather and it was out of Long Island, NY. Also, does anyone out there remember a morning DJ on WNOW in the first half of the 60s named Tom Howard? he was very funny and also did a Saturday morning rock-and-roll show that was sponsored by a record store on East Market Street whose name I do not remember.”
And finally, I have to pass on this note I got from one special reader. Randy Daugherty writes, “Just a note of appreciation for all the lovely comments regarding Dad (Doc Daugherty). I was directed to the blog when looking, rather ironically, for information on WNOW-TV in 1949 when Dad was there. Most are probably unaware of early TV in York but then that’s another matter. Anyway, lots of names included in the comments are familiar and Dad was always appreciative of your friendship, drive and ambition as well. If you ever desire additional feedback, history or information on any matter related to this blog please do not hesitate to ask. It’s always interesting what you find when you least expect it. Needless to say, this series of comments brought back many happy and pleasurable memories. Keep it going!”
I couldn’t say it better myself. Thank you, Randy, and please, let’s do exactly that and “keep it going!”
I do have one special request – for Randy, and for anyone else, too – I was scanning the paper’s archives and realized I don’t have a good Doc Daugherty photo, nor do I have photos representative of a lot of the stations and personalities mentioned! So, if you have any that you wouldn’t mind me publishing here, could you e-mail them to me at jconcilio@ydr.com? I’d love to share them!
