John E. Douglas-
I came in from Chattanooga to replace program director Bob Savage, I think it was in '80. We started Phil Williams to do mornings for me, we had Scott Majors as the midday guy & music director and a host of afternoon guys who went on to major markets like Pittsburgh, Minneapolis and Cleveland. I believe Tom Michaels was one of my PM drive guys who also dupped as the resident engineer. One of my favorite jocks was Gary Beach who I brought in from Chattanooga, there was also my night guy Jim Donovan, and Jeff Jarnigan worked for me at night or on the weekends and my overnight guy was James Maurice. One day my General Manager Chris Gallu, myself, and a person we won't mention from the News-Sentinel (Scripps-Howard owned it & us) went down to do lunch and to check out the newly started construction of the Knoxville World's Fair and to see if this newspaper guy would get us some press as WRJZ was kicking our butt rather handily. There was this giant crane, one of those L-shaped things that sits in the middle of the project and swings around the entire place. It goes straight up in the air and then at a 90 degree angle spreads itself out like 50 to 75 feet. We're standing there looking at this monster and Chris says, "Wonder how we could get our WNOX banner up on that crane on the extended part?" I said, "If you think I'm climbing that thing you're crazy!" The newspaper guy said, "If you get a banner up there I'll shoot it and get it in the paper, no problem!" Just then this guy of Native American decent gets out of his truck. I wave the guy over and said we're from WNOX radio and was wondering what would it take for you to put our banner up on that crane? He said, "NOX ... damn I just won some concert tickets and I listen to you guys all the time, come back tonite with $100 bucks and 4 t-shirts and it'll be up all weekend before the bosses find out about it!" Later that night I return, with the loot and sure enough that banner hung there on that crane all weekend and it was the talk of the town.
I came in from Chattanooga to replace program director Bob Savage, I think it was in '80. We started Phil Williams to do mornings for me, we had Scott Majors as the midday guy & music director and a host of afternoon guys who went on to major markets like Pittsburgh, Minneapolis and Cleveland. I believe Tom Michaels was one of my PM drive guys who also dupped as the resident engineer. One of my favorite jocks was Gary Beach who I brought in from Chattanooga, there was also my night guy Jim Donovan, and Jeff Jarnigan worked for me at night or on the weekends and my overnight guy was James Maurice. One day my General Manager Chris Gallu, myself, and a person we won't mention from the News-Sentinel (Scripps-Howard owned it & us) went down to do lunch and to check out the newly started construction of the Knoxville World's Fair and to see if this newspaper guy would get us some press as WRJZ was kicking our butt rather handily. There was this giant crane, one of those L-shaped things that sits in the middle of the project and swings around the entire place. It goes straight up in the air and then at a 90 degree angle spreads itself out like 50 to 75 feet. We're standing there looking at this monster and Chris says, "Wonder how we could get our WNOX banner up on that crane on the extended part?" I said, "If you think I'm climbing that thing you're crazy!" The newspaper guy said, "If you get a banner up there I'll shoot it and get it in the paper, no problem!" Just then this guy of Native American decent gets out of his truck. I wave the guy over and said we're from WNOX radio and was wondering what would it take for you to put our banner up on that crane? He said, "NOX ... damn I just won some concert tickets and I listen to you guys all the time, come back tonite with $100 bucks and 4 t-shirts and it'll be up all weekend before the bosses find out about it!" Later that night I return, with the loot and sure enough that banner hung there on that crane all weekend and it was the talk of the town.