Scott Black...
Hey, Cool Site! I worked in Knoxville Radio from about 1979 through 1985. Man, has it been that long? I started out working for Mike Anderson at WGAP AM in Maryville along with Becky Ridenour. Those are golden memories for me. Spinning 45 records, playing the UT Football games with John Ward, making hardly any money and loving it! After that, I worked weekends for WIMZ and met Kerry Lambert and Larry Solomon. I attended UT and I was one of the founding members of the University of Tennessee student radio station, WUTK - FM 90.3. In fact, I was the very first voice on the air! That would be a really cool thing, except I doubt anyone was listening! From there, I kept working weekends to pay for school at various places. I worked for Mike Hammond at WIVK on both the AM and the FM side. He really worked with me and taught me a lot. When Ed Brantley was doing his talk show on Sunday mornings at WIVK, I ran the calls and saw another side of the station that way. I filled in for Bob Thomas a number of times and did the "BIG MUSIC SHOW" on Sunday evenings on WIVK-FM. More good memories. Whatever happened to Dan Bell? I guess Bob Thomas has a kid who is famous on Nickelodeon or Disney Channel. My daughters would know.
My most vivid memory at WIVK was working on a Saturday night... It was late, and I ran out to the car to get something. As I did, I remember the front door going "click" behind me and I had no keys! They were sitting up the studio. I ran to a nearby business and called...hmm, I think it was Bill Ottinger and he came over and let me in. There was dead air for quite some time. No one ever said anything about it and I kept my job. Sheesh! There was also the night that some idiot threw a 50 pound rock through the WIVK front entry door on a Saturday night. I came down and asked him what his problem was (stupid thing to do in hindsight). He said he wasn't going to hurt me, just wanted to make a point about all the satanic "cheatin songs" and "crap" on WIVK. Said he was sick of it and walked away. I called the police, but I don't think they ever found the guy.
I went full time up in Lafollette at WQLA with Jim Freeman after I graduated. The station owners were Charlie and Charlotte Phillips. If you met them, you know they were real characters! WQLA was country format like WIVK, but much more local station of course. Those were some really great times with Jim Freeman. We had fun. He's a TV news anchor in Kentucky now.
After that, I was invited to come to WMDR (The Music Doctor!) in Alcoa with Walker Johnson. WMDR was a ground up station and we had a great time there too. Becky Ridenour was there, Walker, some guy named Paul _____ who loved to eat Smoky Mountain Market Slaw Dogs and Roosters in the studio. God, what a mess each day from him! I did morning drive and lots of remotes and production work. It was cool. Thank you Walker for all of that. Yep, I still have my "Music Doctor" silver jacket.
About that time I moved to Indianapolis with my new bride. I also had a technical/construction background so I went to work in that industry instead of radio. I was a little fish in a big radio pond in Knoxville. If I had tried the Indianapolis radio market, I would have been a really little fish in a really big ocean. So, I opted out of radio.
So, here I am, 20 years later, doing marketing, sales, presentations and operations for a architecture firm. Go figure. But, surprisingly, it brings everything I've ever done together and I'm pretty good at it.
Thanks to my radio station daze, I'm still wrapped up in doing Haunted things. Seems like every radio station I worked for in Knoxville was involved in some sort of Haunted House each October. Fast forward to year 2001 I got involved in a huge community haunted hayride here in Brownsburg, Indiana where I live. The "Haunts of Hidden River Haunted Hayrides!" has turned out to be one of central Indiana's biggest Halloween events. We sold over 11,000 tickets last year in seven nights! Here's a link to the website I did (my first!): Haunted Hay Rides! You can see, its some event. Now I'm the main organizer and wondering how many volunteer hours I've spent doing the Haunts each year. Its a blast though! Come if you ever get the chance.
I'm married 23 years with three beautiful, healthy kids. Counting my blessings everyday.