Happy Friday! Today 101 cleans out our in box...

Chris Huff of KSCS Dallas shares the 1984 Fall Arbitron numbers from Ktown-
Persons 12+
WIVK-FM 21.6
WIMZ-FM 15.8
WEZK 14.8
WMYU 8.0
WOKI 7.7
WNOX 5.7
WBMK 4.3
WIVK 4.3
WNKX 2.0

Martha Woodward sent her link and told 101 about Talk Radio Today....Doug Young, aka Wild Bill Lindley, began the radio show Salute America 4 years ago at Horne Radio Station 850 AM. The show is a political talk show which focuses on national and international news, but, also includes guests from the local political arena. The producer is Doug's son, Scott Young, the board is handled by Tracy Meares, and the co-host, who was added last September, is Martha Rose Woodward, writer with the Knoxville Journal. Doug Young, who grew up in Knoxville, is a Fulton High School graduate who moved to Los Angeles where he attended law school...The Salute America Show includes a lively discussion of the issues. Doug Young is a liberal Democrat, while Martha Woodward is a conservative Republican. Their conversations often become heated.

Aaron Campbell (WYSH Wildman) reached out for memories. Where is the love for WKXV? Yeah AM 900 isn't the most popular station to ever grace the air waves in Ktown, but it is the oldest continuous format in town. Not to mention WYSH. What about that little gem that can hit the north Ktown airwaves. There is some history on those stations, and I think they should see some love from your blog. Keep up the great work.

Where were you in '84?

Today 101 strolls down radio's memory lane...

The new year started with a "bang" at WATE TV 6. Out the door were Lloyd Immel, Jeff Jacobs, Keith Brunson, and Sundra Thompson. Ouch!

The Big Orange basketball team featured Willie Burton, Rob Jones, Fred Jenkins, and Tyrone Beaman. Don Devoe was the head coach.

In late January Michael Henry Martin took over mornings at U-102. Bill Miller (Suitcase) was Program Director. Anchoring the news were Mike Clark and David Henley.

U-102...
6 Mark Herzog aka MHM
10 Tom Van Hart
3 Larry Trotter
7 Jeff Freeman
12 Bill Bailey

Remember this?...WIVK AM became WHIG and featured CP and Walker in the morning, Becky Lynn middays, and Your Dave afternoons.

In '84 WRJZ had not yet turned gospel, the DJ's there were Bob Ziegler, Martin Baker, Jim Donovan, and Lynn Davis.

In May, Sam Brown returned to WATE TV from KDKA Pittsburgh.

Robert Redford had another big movie hit in '84..."The Natural"!

Over at WIMZ, longtime great Phil Williams did morning drive and the station was programmed by Kerry Lambert, who also did middays.

In the summer of '84 WEAG Alcoa "The Doctor" was on the air with Jim Donovan doing mornings, moving from WRJZ, Paul Vincent middays, and Scott Black was on in the afternoon. Ernie Baker, aka Ernie the Bartender, was news director.

ABC hosted the '84 Olympics and their coverage was headed up by Jim McKay, Frank Gifford, and Kathleen Sullivan.

By fall WHIG was back to being WIVK-AM and the AM/FM simulcast morning and afternoons with Claude Tomlinson in the morning and Ed Brantley afternoons. Bob Thomas was middays on FM and CP worked 10-noon and Your Dave was on 12-3p on AM 850.

In the fall WOKI-FM 100 was Jeff Jarnigan 6-10, Greg Williams 10-3, Jim Wilson 3-7, and Shotgun Stevens 7-12.

There you have it, some tid bits from 24 years ago in Ktown! Do you have great radio memories from '84?

Happy Memorial Day! 101 wants to hear from you. Please share any and all great Ktown photographs and memories!

Here's former Ktown DJ Tony Eubanks...

Thanks for including me in this great blog. I have really enjoyed reading about some of my friends as well as my old cross-town rivals. Keep it up, it's outstanding. It's hard to share a lot of my radio memories without embarrassing someone. I mean the stuff we all used to do would be unheard of today. I remember one time leaving my brand new ugly bright yellow 1975 Dodge Colt in the parking lot at WIVK where I worked from 7-midnight. I don't even remember why I left it there all night instead of driving it home but it was a huge mistake that never happened again. I'm not mentioning any names but the initials were JA and YDY. Sometime in the wee hours of the morning these two upstanding employees decided to detail my new car. Now, there was no washing, waxing or vacuuming involved. They stuck about 500 mini and maxi pads all over my car. Heck I was so naive back then I think someone had to tell me what they were actually used for. Imagine coming back during afternoon drive and having Bobby Denton take his cigar out of his mouth long enough to say, "Hey big boy, did you leave your car here last night?" I wanted to crawl under the board. The stare he gave me was enough to say DON'T DO IT AGAIN. I never did either.

Bobby was always good to me (as long as I didn't compete against him). He gave me extra tickets several times to the WIVK Shindigs and time off when I asked for it. When I got out of radio years later and picked up a singing deal with Green Leaf Records he was quick to play my records and mention that I was a former employee. I played golf with him a couple of times after that and enjoyed his company. Speaking of golf, I'll never forget one of the first assignments he gave me. To make extra money he had me work for Mike Hammond in the news room. They sent me to the Deane Hill Celebrity Golf Tournament to interview some of the stars. Bobby told me what time to meet them and to be on time. I sat down turned my recorder on and for the next 10 minutes I didn't get a word in edge-wise. I have never heard that kind of cursing in my life. One would start to tell a story and then use language I couldn't use and then the other would pick up where he left off. The assault was so well orchestrated it dawned on me I was being set up. Sure enough, when I got back to the station Bobby asked, "So, did you get us something big boy?" When I told him what happened he laughed so hard I thought he was going to bite his cigar holder into. He kidded me about that for a long time. I have many stories, about K-Town radio and some I have included in an independent film I'm writing called, "Jock". It's all based on my experience at WIVK, WBIR, WSEV, WMTN and WETQ. (names are altered somewhat to protect the guilty). Thanks again for your time and effort in this blog!

As 101 continues our "How I got started in radio" theme, today we get Buzzed...

I got my start in radio shortly after my senior trip to beautiful sunny Vietnam and subsequent discharge from the Marine Corps. My first gig was part-time doing nights on weekends at WLIK Newport. In about three months I got the night shift from 6p-midnight full time. The station was 5000 watts day and 500 watts directional nighttime. That meant the night jock had to work at the transmitter site. At the time, the road was filled with potholes big enough to swallow a VW Beetle. When it rained in the summertime you had to watch out for swimmers and sun bathers around those potholes.

Like most small market stations during that era, "The Big LIK" had a fairly nice control room at it's main studio. However, the transmitter studio was something of a nightmare...a console Marconi built, two Gates turntables large enough to replace broken down rides at a carnival, one cart machine that would not play anything longer than 30 seconds, if it worked at all, and the mic was a Shure brand that Elvis rejected. Also, the headphones would not only take patches of hair every time you took them off...they would hurt your ears when you slapped 'em on. The monitor speaker went through several repairs during those days. I often parked my car near the front door to use its speaker as a monitor. The only thing that worked properly were the phone lights to let you know someone was either calling in a request or another employee letting you know the mic switch was left open during the last record!

You also had to carry some coins to put on the turntable arms or find a good boat anchor! All music was carried in an AP teletype box along with news copy from the day shift since there wasn't a teletype at the transmitter site. Cue burns were common on all records. Songs like "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" by Roberta Flack got butchered by those tone arms! Edwin Starr's "War" was burned so bad you had to pot it up at "Absolutely nothing", which is the second verse.

It was great having no one around to interrupt you except for the occasional snake that would get in. In the summer, it got so hot you had to leave the front and back doors open. In the winter, you could close one of the doors. Even snow melted within 20 feet of the transmitter building! My FCC ticket was proudly hung near the transmitter. No wonder it was dried out and cracked when I took it out of it's frame!

When WLIK started carrying UT football and basketball I got to do nights from the main studio. Shortly thereafter, the FCC relaxed the rules and I did my gig from the studio on the hill overlooking the Newport Drive-in Theatre. It was silent movies and loud rock 'n roll. But, that is for another story in the future!

Looking back, with all it's faults, those nights were great! Radio was fun. The music was great! As Billboard once reported, small market radio was the backbone of the industry and I am proud to have been a part of it when AM was king!

Thanks 101 for all the wonderful memories.

Bill Beason aka Buzz Dailey

101 asks the question, "How did you get your start in radio?"...Here's Mike Clark-

Man, that picture of WATO brings back memories. I worked there for a couple of years 1979-1981. I remember babysitting the FM WUUU, and wondering why the owners didn't flip the format. Finally, not long before I left, they put Q-94 on the air on the FM with a country format.

My start in radio came in 1975, when I did an internship at WKGN. It basically involved working with Mike Beach in the afternoon, listening to the scanner and passing along traffic problems to him. But I also got a chance to go into the production room and make a few air checks. I learned a lot from the Beachman, and still consider him a friend even though I haven't seen him in years.

My first on-air gig was in '77 at WEZK. I worked about every shift there for the two years I was there, but started out Saturday night from midnight-8:00 AM. I was in college then, and had another job in retail. It was a lot of fun getting home from working at the store at about 6:00 on Saturday night, and trying to catch a few winks before heading up to the top of Sharps Ridge!

101 wants to hear from you too!

I got my real start as a part-timer at Citadel in 2002. I ran ball games, NASCAR races, etc. Then I became the PM traffic reporter and a news reporter in October 2002.

On May 5, 2003, Ed Brantley offered me the full-time job as traffic reporter for WNOX (then NewsTalk 99). I started on mornings the next day. I got a brief training on the scanners and radios in the Traffic Car, then the Earl Duff Subaru Freeway Forrester, from Dan Bell and Dave Foulk.

I finished my first week without incident, graduated from UT that Saturday and back to work on Monday.

It was Thursday when it happened. I remember it as my wedding anniversary, May 15th. At 7:29am, it went something like this....Hallerin Hilton Hill: Time for traffic and weather together on the nines's here's Jay Kersting..good morning Jay. Me: Good morning Hal, getting busier out here this morning. Got a wreck on I-40 West at Watt Road and..Ug..(crunch)..uh..ah..another one here..squeak and squeal of radios...guys...(static)....Hallerin: I think we need to get Jay Kersting some help.

I wrecked, LIVE, On-The-Air, in my eighth day of full-time employment. I was treated at released from Fort Sanders Regional for minor injuries. That afternoon, there was a tornado that was spotted over Bearden Hill. Not my official start in radio...but my memorable beginning. By the way, if anyone has that audio, I'd like a copy.

Jay Kersting
NewsTalk 1240 KLIK
Jefferson City, Missouri

In our April 21 post, Ktown legend and Knox attorney Gary Adkins mentioned the, quote, death of Jimmy Buffett! Larry Solomon adds to that story...

I don't mean to steal Gary Adkins' thunder....but I was working at WIMZ-FM (Rock 104) in 1980 (or maybe this happened in 1979?) when one of our jocks "killed" Jimmy Buffett. (I won't mention the jock's name, because he is a good guy and really didn't mean any harm.) At the Rock 104 studio, we had a private telephone "hotline" that only station staff members were supposed to have access to. Jimmy was coming to Knoxville soon to do a concert on the UT campus. The jock was on the air, and he received a call on the hotline from someone who claimed official knowledge of Jimmy's death in a plane crash! The jock then announced this on the air (without verifying the story!) Within a short time, Irving Azoff (Jimmy's manager at that time) had heard about this and called the station! The jock was fired. Given that he wasn't dead, Jimmy's concert went on as scheduled. At the start of the Knoxville show, a spotlight revealed a hat and coat, but Jimmy was nowhere to be found! Jimmy certainly had a sense of humor about the whole thing.

Thanks to Chad Austin for sending this WNOX logo and photo of the WNOX plaque...got logo? Send your photographs and memories to 101! PS...Do you know the story behind the WNOX plaque?

Congrats UT grads...

It's Friday...so it's Foulk time! Once again we hear from Ktown morning news giant Dave Foulk...

I am sure some of the contributors have some interesting tales of the more memorable firings and dismissals in Knoxville radio. The only time I was actually told I would have to leave the building in Knoxville, I managed to re-invent myself in another position and stay. I left my Knoxville home in 1977, and worked fifteen years at WSB Radio in Atlanta. That's where I saw some doozies. One overnight fellow had a great voice and was on many commercials and sweepers. He decided to quit, but before he did he bulk erased every cart with his voice. Another overnight worker- probably the engineer- noticed and called managers who in turn had an all-night recording session. At one time the station had bright red blazers with WSB patches on the pocket (a women's version was also available). At the time, the company regulation for men was -always- shirt and tie. One reporter who was dismissed returned his coat to me with the arms tied in such knots that it could never be worn again. This same guy also nailed a note to the managers (oak) door. Then there's what I call the alien abduction dismissals. Once I was told to do the nine-o-clock news for the person who co anchored the morning drive news with me. It was not unusual to substitute for someone who might have another assignment or a p-r appearance. I went into the booth for the nine, and in the commercial break the news director, Lee Hall, popped his head in the door and said "all hell is breaking loose out here" and then he had to duck out and let me finish the news. When I came out of the booth, I was told that the morning co-hosts and my co-anchor for the news had been let go and were already out of the building. The practice at WSB at the time was to have the accounting department on hand for you to sign papers, and the guard escort you to your car. Any personal stuff you left would be packed and sent to your home. The station had huge photos of the air talent along the wall....attached with Velcro.

Let's go way back...to Tony Eubanks! Tony did nights at WIVK in 1976... And we'll have more from Tony later-

I started there on Kingston Pike and a small war broke out when I moved to WBIR. There was a lot of dirty politics that went on and I found out first hand. I was known more for the guy that sung "Wamplers, Wamplers it's great sausage" than all my days as DJ at WIVK, WBIR, WSEV, WMTN, and WETQ. More about that later. Love your blog and commend you for all you have done to keep it going. Thanks again for including me. Give 'em Love

How did you get your start in radio? 101 wants to hear from you! Here's Carson Cooper...

WATO was the first station I ever worked for. I grew up right next to it and – as a kid in the '60s -- used to have nightmares about those towers falling on my house. The equipment inside when I worked there (mid-late 70s) included several Gates Yard 80 boards and some really sweet sounding RCA ribbon mics. The transmitter (Harris, I believe) had "hand cranks" to make phase adjustments (three tower array) for the night pattern.

When I was around fifteen I begged for a job there: I went from emptying garbage cans and cleaning out the coffee machine (yuck) to board op for Atlanta Braves (on WATO-FM, later WUUU) to part-time news anchor on AM before James Freeman (now in TV in Knoxville) hired me away to WBIR-FM during the final months of the country format.

Foulk's Friday Follies!

You might be a Knoxville Radio Relic if...

*You remember live broadcasts of city council (added credit if you remember the meeting where Cas Walker punched another council member in front of WBIR's Walt Martin)
*You had your own stash of Q-Tips and head cleaner to use before your shift
*You ever tasted "walnuts" after using so much cleaner it absorbed into your skin
*A cart mis-fired on your shift because you failed to pull back the latch for the pinch roller
*Your transmitter reading showed a burned out tower light and you had no idea what to do except wait until you got the call that a plane was stuck in your wires
*And you (illegally) made transmitter log entries a few hours ahead in case you forgot- com'on admit it!
*Left a gag cart instead of the legal sign-on for the morning guy
*Someone brought by home made cookies to get you to play their favorite song
*Used a certain window at WNOX on Whittle Springs to access fans
*Crawled hand-over-hand up an ice covered Sharp's Ridge to get to work
*You remember those HUGE metal turntables and the metal inserts for 45 rpm records
*You ever started a record on the wrong speed on one of those turntables
*And you still remember how to "slip cue" a record
*You could cruise Shoney's Drive-Thru and listen to see if anyone had your station playing
*You wished you had a voice like Ron Ashburn
*You could play anything the program director had okayed on the album
*Wore a leisure suit to a remote
*And you knew which records had the best rest room break cuts

These are a few to get you started with some smiles and "golden oldie" hallmarks.

By Dave Foulk

Whenever Mike Beach speaks, Ktown listens! The Beachman adds his opinion to our recent CP and Walker controversy. In case you weren't here in Ktown back in the day, Mike is truly one of the greats!


The history of Knoxville radio in the past 25 years or so revolved around CP and Walker. While some may not like them, or the attention they get...I say get over it!! The boys did their time...very well. And as far as the statement "they can no longer land a job in radio..." That is just plain wrong...both guys currently have other interest...plus today's radio is a mere shadow of itself.

The only thing that would keep them off the air, assuming they WANTED to go back on, is the cheap ba****ds who are running this business. They would try to get them for 25G's a piece.

Face it, they did some big things in K-Town, and don't for one minute think they couldn't do it again. They could.