Palm Trees and Beacons

It's 1973 and Eddie Beacon "The Swingin' Deacon" is nowhere to be found on the Ktown radio dial...wanna know why?

Eddie had migrated to the great state of Florida, the city of Daytona Beach, and 1450 AM on the transistor radio dial!

I wonder if he attended the Daytona 500 or the Firecracker 400?

It's 1982 at WNOX 990

1982 started with WNOX still playing Top 40 music!

530 Phil Williams

10 Jim Donovan

3 Bill Evans

7 Jeff Shannon

12 James Maurice

By springtime Bill Evans had exited for Q101 in Meridian, MS and The Aardvark was back, as Scott Majors.

6 Phil Williams

10 Jim Donovan

3 Scott Majors

7 Suzanne Dalton

12 James Maurice

As April arrives so does "AM 99 Proud Country" featuring Your Dave!

6 Rick Kirk

10 Scott Majors

2 Dave Young

6 Jim Donovan

12 Suzanne Dalton

BTW...Phil Williams flipped to the FM dial joining Mike Beach in the morning at Rock 104.

In late May both Rick Kirk and GM Chris Gallu are gone from WNOX, Scott Majors is Program Director.

6 Dave Young

10 Scott Majors

2 Jerry Howell

7 Jim Donovan

12 Jan Jennings

At the end of August WNOX is gearing up to add a sister station, WNKX 95.3 (KiX) with Phil Hunt as PD.

Some familiar voices join WNOX/WNKX...Jimmy Vineyard, Joe Grant, and Bill Jeffers.

In September the WNOX line up included- (Jerry Howell PD)...

6 Dave Young

10 Jim Donovan

2 Jimmy Vineyard

6 Joe Grant

12 Bill Jeffers

In October WNKX debuted!

6 Phil Hunt

10 Rick Davis

3 Jimmy Vineyard

7 Doug Bingham

12 Elaine Scott

...and over at WNOX-

6 Dave Young

10 Jim Donovan

2 Jerry Howell

6 Bob Berry

12 Ann Charice

...and the year ended with Your Dave Young exiting stage left from WNOX!

Hi George!

Cutting to the chase, I did morning drive on 99 WNOX "Proud Country" back in the early 80's. Fred Lee (news), Adina Chumley (traffic).

Jimmy Vineyard was PD and on the air, Eddie "insegrevious" Beacon on air too. Lively times back in the day.

I recently found some old Kodak color paper photographs (remember those?) of myself in the 99 WNOX remote van at an event.

What I remember most are the Saturday night "live" music broadcasts from the old auditorium on Whittle Springs Rd. Now, torn down, wow!

Also remember hanging out with country music singers-groups backstage and chatting before performances. And I am grateful for those moments.

Faron Young, JD Sumner and the Stamps Quartet, Sheb Wooley (who insisted I join him on 'Purple People Eater"...ha). Vern Gosdin, many others.

One particular female trio comes to mind. The McCarter Sisters, comprised of Jennifer, and the twins Lisa and Teresa. Hailed from around Sevierville.

Their mum and dad always invited me to "come and spend the weekend with us". Ha! Never did. Really nice folks.

At some point I was told to do morning drive at our new sister FM station, in I think Maryville. I politely declined and handed in my walking papers.

Remember packing up all my belongings (at that time) in a small paper bag and driving to the folks in the Detroit burbs in less than 10 hours.

Luckily within mere days I hooked up with a former broadcast group in Michigan and did a popular morning drive "oldies" show...until-

Moved to Traverse City, MI back in early '84 and have been there ever since. Left the biz in early '02 to pursue another "calling".

Cheers and thanks again for the memories!

Mark Staycer

ImagineLennon.com

This was posted on our 101 Facebook page...some very prominent names joined WBIR 1240, at that time, a very unfamiliar format aka 24 hour news!

Thanks to Derrick Anderson for posting this on our 101 Facebook page! 11/8/81 Knoxville newspaper ad.

I was on the original on air staff back in November 1980-

6 Jeff Winters

10 Mike Stewart (PD)

2 Ralph Emery

3 Rick Hudson

7 Daniel Collett

12 David Brownell

George Michael (me)

Don Cutts

Jan Jennings

Happy Holidays!

This classic surfaced recently...Scott Sams during his TV days in Knoxville before Dallas!

Scott ran the gambit of the Knoxville radio dial...I think everywhere but WIVK, and was even Jamie Rivers on 15Q! 

In the late 70's AM radio was still playing music with WNOX and WRJZ battling for that band's TOP 40 market.

The 101 Audio Vault features Bill Beason and WNOX and Adele on WRJZ...

Back in the late 70's WNOX 990 was sounding really good, the 101 Audio Vault features CC McCartney...

WRJZ in it's "Top 40" format last about five years, late 1976 thru 1981...I was a DJ there in 1982 during the country format era. 

WRJZ created the legendary morning duo of CP and Walker and housed a young up and comer named John Boy Isley after dark.

The 101 Audio Vault features two of the mainstays...Rick Kirk and JJ Scott~

The Your Dave Young 101 Wall of Fame

Happy December!

Earlier this year we announced the 2019 Living Legend Award recipient- Johnny Pirkle, and the 101st member of the WOF- Chip Guberlaksi*.

Chip is that little DJ in my head that signed WGMV 1300 (my imaginary station) on the air on this day back in 1971. I bet you still play DJ while driving in your car too!

Here's the new class...

Chip Guberalski

Allen Dick

Allen Presley

Brad Allen

Dave Elrod

Harry Morgan

James Maurice

JoAnna Huffman

Joe Grant

Mike Keith

Sam Thrower

Skip Broussard

Steve Bridgewater

Tony Igar

Win Maxwell

Congrats to all...now it's time to get back to some groovy dial twisting!

Happy Thanksgiving...gobble, gobble!

He's an ageless wonder...Mike Beach!

This photo with Ron "Tater Salad" White at the Peabody Auditorium in Daytona Beach is from Ron's show on November 22.

We all have radio heroes, Mike was one of mine, particularly during his time as afternoon DJ at WKGN in mid 70's working with Dr. Al Adams.

Mike worked the Ktown dial positions...WETE, WIVK, WNOX, WKGN, W149, 15Q and of course mornings on WIMZ teaming with an equal legend Phil Williams.

Send your photographs and memories to 101!

Back in '79 Suzanne Dalton was reading news at WNOX 990. On this newscast she mentions the American hostages being held in Iran...remember those times?

Page 3...

RIP- Skip Woolwine, age 61, passed away on Novemeber 7. Skip attended Vandy and worked as a DJ at WSM during his college years. Skip also mic'd at WLAC and Y-107 as well as at public radio stations in Nashville. Skip was a founding member of the Tennessee Radio Hall of Fame!

...hangin' with the Possum

George-

Did I ever tell you about the 1969 WKGN promotion where anyone who rode their motorcycle from Tyson Park to the "Rocking Chair Theatre" out on Kingston Pike got in free. Skip Broussard had a Suzuki and I had a Honda. We led a long procession of bikes out the pike to arrive for a special midnight showing. After the movie ended, around 2 am, I felt the need for a "nature break" and I walked out a few minutes later to find my bike was the only one left in the parking lot. It surely was a lonely ride back downtown seeing as I had just watched "Easy Rider".

Possum Riley aka Paul Randall Dickerson