Here's former ktowner Art Miller...
"What happened to George Mooney? Can you post any tapes of some of his great ball games?
With people like Mr. Mooney and Ron Ashburn (both gentlemen), Knoxville radio in the 1960s definitely was a cut above the rest.
I have an old George Mooney story...from about 1983. I was on a Delta Air Lines airplane coming back to Knoxville via the usual ATL connection. It was mid-evening and 140 or so folks were gathering in the gateway for the trip (Mother Delta used stretch 727s and MD80s on its TYS runs then). Anyway, as people gathered, they spotted Mr. Mooney and gathered around him. This is not an exaggeration -- he knew more than half by name, recalling their first name without prompting, often asking how was the wife (named, usually) or their business.
George and Joe Sullivan, WKGN PD, gave me my first opportunity to write and read an original news story on the air...it involved, of course, a railroad train. I still have the faded UPI Saturday morning credit list showing that story in 1964. I was 14.
Not long after that, I started dating Professor Frank Thornburg's daughter, Courtney. Professor Thornburg began to convene J.203, Writing News For Broadcast classes when I would come down to his west Knoxville home to visit Courtney." (Art Miller)
With people like Mr. Mooney and Ron Ashburn (both gentlemen), Knoxville radio in the 1960s definitely was a cut above the rest.
I have an old George Mooney story...from about 1983. I was on a Delta Air Lines airplane coming back to Knoxville via the usual ATL connection. It was mid-evening and 140 or so folks were gathering in the gateway for the trip (Mother Delta used stretch 727s and MD80s on its TYS runs then). Anyway, as people gathered, they spotted Mr. Mooney and gathered around him. This is not an exaggeration -- he knew more than half by name, recalling their first name without prompting, often asking how was the wife (named, usually) or their business.
George and Joe Sullivan, WKGN PD, gave me my first opportunity to write and read an original news story on the air...it involved, of course, a railroad train. I still have the faded UPI Saturday morning credit list showing that story in 1964. I was 14.
Not long after that, I started dating Professor Frank Thornburg's daughter, Courtney. Professor Thornburg began to convene J.203, Writing News For Broadcast classes when I would come down to his west Knoxville home to visit Courtney." (Art Miller)