I was a member of the original Q94 (WETQ 94.3 Oak Ridge) on air staff. The station signed on in late '80 succeeding WUUU and was the sister station to the iconic WATO.
The GM was Janice Bond with Mike Stewart PD and my former teammate at WIVK, Jeff Winters, morning drive. Some big names passed thru that microphone including Eddie Beacon.
The DJ line up on day one featured Jeff Winters 6-10, Mike Stewart 10-3, Rick Hudson 3-7, Daniel Collett 7-12, and Dave Brownell 12-6. I was still a student at UT so I worked weekends along with Dan Cutts. Tom Barish was the morning news man with Jan Jennings anchoring the afternoon news...day one was Tuesday November 25th 1980.
As 1981 rolled in Russ Brown was named News Director, Jan Jennings exited and Debbie Carroll came on board.
Over at WATO 1290 Dennis Willard was PD with Mike Clark and Gary Wallace as on air personalities. PS- in April, Eddie Beacon popped up on WATO!
In March Tony Perry was added to the DJ line up at Q94 working 1-3p allowing Stewart to only be on the air three hours daily to concentrate on programming.
April '81 saw Rick Hudson exit for the all new U-102 so Tony Perry moved to afternoons, Dan Collett to middays and Debbie Carroll went full time at night. Mike Clark also took off for U-102, Joe Grant was added from WIVK...next thing you know, Your Dave Young is hired to be GM of WATO/WETQ and The Joe Show (Joe Grant) slides in to afternoon drive on Q94.
In May Your Dave offered me a great opportunity...mornings on WATO, assistant PD at WATO, and music director for WATO/Q94. YDY also named Eddie Beacon and Linda Scott as the morning team on Q94. Mike Stewart was shifted from Q94 to be PD at WATO. My time at WATO was short but sweet...not many can say they were morning drive in the Atomic City!
More shuffling occurred in June as both Your Dave and Eddie Beacon exited stage left...shorty thereafter Ken Mynatt came on board to run the stations.
...and that's a whirlwind look at year one! Fast forward- do you recognize this voice? It's Q94, morning drive, 1982...