Elwood P Suggins...

Happy Birthday to Eddie Beacon "The Swingin' Deacon"!

The question is not "did you" work with Eddie, but "when did you" work with Eddie.

I spent 1982, The World's Fair summer, working with Eddie at 62 WRJZ My Country of Country. What a cast of happy campers we were...GM Mark Heiden, PD Steve Bridgewater (Dr Don West), Jessica James, Bob Ziegler, Martin Baker, Jim Montgomery, Bill Beason and newsies Brad Schultz, Ernie the Bartender Baker, and David Henley. 

In 2010 I reunited with Eddie (and Jimmy Vineyard) as he hosted a racing show called Bumper 2 Bumper on powerhouse 100.3 FM WNOX, a Johnny Pirkle station that featured Ed and Bob in the morning time slot.

For those who don't know, Eddie was born Clay Huskisson and adopted Beacon as his radio surname after debuting back in the 60s as Eddie Knight.

Oh, as most DJs do, Eddie has a made-up sidekick named Elwood P Suggins. 

Send your Eddie/Elwood stories to KtownRadio@gmail.com, fact or fiction.

Bandit...

 

Bob Anderson landed at WKGN in the early 70s...as Bob Parker. 

I air checked this, it's a classic via The 101 Audio Vault.

Bob was a world-famous DJ under the name Bandit and other monikers.

(foto is AI...his senior high class photo and a WKGN studio, awh modern technology).

The 101 Audio Vault travels way back (about 50 years) to Mike Beach on WETE...

 Page 3...

Happy Birthday to Martin Baker!

It's 1973...

 ...and on February 19 Jim Clark was new at WETE 620.

On February 26 it was Jack Diamond and Guerilla blasting the evening time slot at WKGN 1340. (Jack became even more famous as a DJ/PD in Louisville as Coyote Calhoun).

In late March Bob Baron and Jack Diamond visited Bearden Junior High (I was in the audience).

I was dial twisting that summer and listening to Ron Gregory on WOWO (incredible call letters).

In late July UT volleyball captain John Blair, and my neighbor throughout childhood, was named to the United States team and participated in the Student World Games in Moscow. 

It was happy birthday time on August 21 to WKGN News Director Joe Anderson.

That fall Mike Beach was morning DJ at W-149 and Gary Adkins hosted afternoon drive.                                                                                                                                                                           

TV featured Clayton Startime with Jim Clayton, Kathy Hill, and Karen Clayton.     

Smokey Burns joined WKGN...what an all-time great DJ name!                                                                                                                                                                             

...and holy cow, Your Dave Young debuted on WKGN 1340 on Sunday night December 16 after a long run at WNOX 990.

Where were you in '73?                                                                 

It's November 1973 at WIVK...and Bobby Denton was promoted by Jim Dick as Operations Manager. Booby joined the station in 1961. 

Page 3...

Do you remember Rebel Railroad which became Goldrush Junction which became part of Dollywood.

Also, Rowdy Busch...RIP.

...more about radio ratings-

I was going over Arbitron diaries for an A/C in Las Vegas in about 1990, and one in-tab showed no listening.

Every day was carefully checked with no listening indicated. Then looked at the comments section, and it said... "I'm deaf". 

Alan Sneed (AD)

Page 3...

Happy Birthday to our friend and radio legend Possum Riley aka Paul Randall Dickerson!

George - 

Interesting to hear the WIVK promo that it was No. 1 in the Pulse ratings.

Pulse, Hooper, and Arbitron have all gone to their graves. As far as I know, Nielsen is the only game in town. I’m not sure what their methodology is, but it has to be better than its predecessors. Hooper was a telephone survey and - while it strove to reach a cross section of race, age, and gender - it only measured in-home listening. Most radio listening, even back then, was done in cars. Arbitron was a diary that started on a Thursday. I read hundreds of completed diaries on trips to Beltsville, MD. They would start out strong on Thursday, show good listenership on Friday, then people would be out of routine on the weekend so they would check “didn’t listen today” for Saturday and Sunday. By Monday, they had forgotten about the diary, so there were (probably belated) “didn’t listen” checks for Monday-Wednesday. That drove down the numbers for total listenership. In 1972, I was programming a station in Buffalo that aimed for 35-49s. The book came back and showed us gangbusters with 18-24 males. I went to Beltsville and read every diary for that sweep. I found two - TWO - diaries that had been filled out by young oldies fans. Both claimed they listened to us 24 hours a day for seven days. Yep, both of those diaries were tabulated.

...thanks for hangin’ with the Possum

Back in July 1972...wanting the entire company to celebrate together, WIVK asked Johnny Pirkle to fill in on the air, this proves that Johnny really did it all!

One of our 101 Facebook members posted an unscoped aircheck of Bobby Denton's afternoon show on WIVK AM back in 1967. I grabbed a bit of the audio.

Here's a promo via Claude Tomlinson regarding the 1967 Pulse Report results which showed WIVK as #1, followed by Bobby...

                                            

 

George...My father-in-law Bill Brabson, who went by Bill Bailey at WKGN passed away 3 weeks ago at his home in Gulf Breeze, FL. Maybe some of the Ktown Radio people remember him. Funny coincidence is that Bill worked at WLIK in Newport in the early 70s for Arthur Wilkerson at the same time I was working as a teenager just getting started for Arthur at WLIL in Lenoir City.

Dave Lambert

101 heard from two of the greats about our post of U-102, Gary Adkins and Kerry Lambert...

A preface to the story. In 1979, Dick Sterchi was helping promote a concert in Gatlinburg featuring the Earl Scruggs Review and (I think) the Amazing Rhythm Aces. He met with Skip Trotter in Sevierville to make an ad buy on WSEV-AM. During the meeting, Skip told Dick about WSEV-FM. As I recall, the FM had just been sold. Skip said it was authorized for 100,000 watts but had never run on full power. FM was just starting to really take off. Dick was intrigued and gave me a call. We decided to try and buy the station from the new owners or get an LMA, thinking they had no idea of the potential of the station. The owners were Frank Woods from Nashville and H. L. Townsend from Parsons, TN. Dick and I brought in Joe Sullivan for his outstanding experience in radio and his deep pockets. We met with Frank and H. L. and talked about it. They didn’t know what they had but quickly figured it out. They started shopping the station and the price went up. Way up. I vividly remember visiting the tower site on Bluff Mountain (when we still thought we had a chance to buy the station). We were drooling at the possibilities. But…it wasn’t meant to be for me and Dick and Joe. Oh well. (Gary Adkins)

George that’s a great recap of how U-102 happened. I had forgotten about Mooney buying the station first and vaguely remember Phil working there. Like you said, it was radio. We had a lot of moving parts. (Kerry Lambert)

 In late 1980 Mooney Broadcasting purchased WSEV A/F for $1.3 mil. 

In March 1981 Mooney was granted licenses for the AM and FM combo.

In April it was announced that the new call letters would be WMYU. (U-102)

Jerry Adams was GM with Bill Burkett PD and Colvin Idol News Director.

The original lineup was Dave Dunaway 6-10, Burkett 10-2, Tom Van Hart 2-7, Steve Harrison 7-12, and Rick Hudson at midnight. 

Mike Clark shortly joined the news team from WATO Oak Ridge and Mick St John joined the on-air team.

U-102 scored a touchdown when Phil Williams was added on June 8 to work 4-8p!

Fast forward to June and Phil Jarnigan was now handling the overnight show.

6-10 Dr Dave Dunaway, 10-noon Bill Burkett, noon-4 Tom Van Hart, 4-8 Phil Williams, 8-12 Mick Saint John, 12-6 Phil Jarnigan. This lineup didn't last long, hey, it's radio.

In August Steve Harrison was back working nights, Mick St John back to middays, and Tom Van Hart overnight. 

...then in November Phil Williams exited, returning to WNOX 990 and morning drive. 

6 Dr Dave

10 Mick St John

3 Bill Burkett

7 Steve Harrison

12 Tom Van Hart

And that's a look back at U-102 in 1981.

Hello from Mike Clark

 

I had forgotten, but was reminded by Facebook memories, that it was on this day in 1995 I did my last newscast on U-102. 

I was hired as afternoon anchor in April 0f 1981, soon was moved to morning anchor, and did that for the next 14 years. 

If you were around Knoxville in the 80's and early 90's you would have been familiar with the station. It truly was, in my opinion, one of the great ones. I'm very thankful for, and always will treasure, my time there. 

Page 3...Mike is still on the radio in Knoxville at Praise 96.3 (WJBZ).