Bob, tell us, tell us about the old record hops, because that was always a lot of fun.

You know, the whole world record hops, and we, we, you know, that was quite a quite a situation.

We started those in 1954, in, at that time, I, I if you you never knew him, you missed one of the most remarkable people in my lifetime.

Guy Harris wasn't even an incredible guy.

He was our program director at the time.

And, he did the wildest things and also did some incredibly good things.

And one of them was record hops.

He realized that, there was a void for entertainment, and we had now broken out of the networks, and we were live music personalities all the time.

Where do we go to let our personalities be seen?

Exposure.

Yeah.

So the first thing he did was go up to, to, it would have been Hamilton Lake and talk to the Watkins Watkins brothers up at, Hamilton Lake and at Cold Springs Resort.

So I Cal Stewart, Bullwinkle, and I go up the first night with Guy Harris for this record album.

We've been plugging it and plugging a nice big dance on, and all of a sudden about 150 people show up and nobody dance.

They're all sitting there on the edge, kind of looking at it, you know, figuring out, what do we do?

Well, it didn't work too good, but Harris, you know, undaunted, came back next week.

He says, I got an idea.

So he goes to do a florist, makes a deal for a couple hundred boutonnieres and a couple hundred rosebuds.

So the first 200 girls got the rosebuds, the guy's got the boutonnieres.

And we came in and we started to hammer.

So we ended up with about 350 people, but they're all sitting around the edge.

They weren't dancing.

We're dancing.

And that was one of the problems of the time.

It was after the war in that the big bands had pretty well gone and they just weren't doing it.

So the next time up, we do the snowball dance, the reverse invite in the whole thing and make it a long story short, by the end of the summer, not only did we have that thing just brimming full of people, we had also gone to Bledsoe's Beach at that time.

And then I think we branched off and went over to Ohio and later went all the way down Celina, the dance hall, and it was incredible.

We'd bring at that time recording stars when they were very accessible.

And, we bring a recording star with us and we'd have all his pictures or her pictures or their pictures.

They'd do the autographs, they'd mime a couple of records, and we'd go up to a place like Bledsoe's and have 12 or 1400 kids in that building.

And when I got up there and look, now, you know, it scares me to think, how did we ever get there?

But what a terrific opportunity, though, for for kids in those days to mix and meet each other.

There was, especially in the summertime when you didn't have the school environment, you know, it was it was just a great idea.

Well, we'll record hops for we're on there.

They were I happening to carry on with that story at I remember at, Cold Springs at Hamilton Lake, some of the, children, when our students would go out and hide liquor in the hubcaps of their car, they'd go out to drink, and they'd split the hubcap back on, and then eventually fights would break out, you know?

So to contrast and follow up on that same story, I had a record hop two years ago at Cold Springs Resort, and we had over 1500 there, standing room only the same, the Advertiser, the the same students that showed up at my hop where they'd, have a little too much to drink and fights would break out.

They were perfect, ladies and gentlemen, sitting at a table having one beer, you know, and I thought, these are the kids that used to get into fights at my hop.

Yeah.

Now they're perfect, ladies and gentlemen.

Yes.

But I remember those days.

They were probably still hot, but not the same guys.

Yeah.

Well you know we got so we did them everywhere.

I mean the summer hops that Bob mentioned of course were traditional.

But all year long at the high school civic clubs, any place they could have a dance, they wanted a WOWO record...Indiana.

You can see the hop boxes go up there, and the kids would just be packed and dancing to these song play, just playing plain old 45 rpm records on the big raunchy speakers.

None of this state of the art equipment you have now, but it was.

They were so popular we were still all the way through the, late 80s.

We were still getting a couple of thousand people at the Grand Wayne Center.

You ready for the big that, Oh, boy.

Up at Rome City, Sylvan Lake.

They had this gigantic aluminum barge, but Sylvan Belle, what I know I don't.

That was a Rome City in Rome City.

I had a record hop on that boat.

So we go up to do these record hops, and we get out.

Maybe we get 80 or 90 kids a cruise and away we go.

Well, the minute we get the music going, the thing would start to bounce up and down.

We, we we couldn't keep the music on.

I don't think I ever lost on it though.

So now the guy scratching his head and he comes up with this great big washtub, puts an inner tube in it and puts them.

Remember, that puts the turntable on top of the inner tube work because it wasn't bouncing around.

Bouncing around.

Yeah.

Was that ever funny?

Kind of like when Smokey would walk across the stage?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Oh, those were very popular.

Those and Air Aces basketball.

Yeah.

You know we had that basketball team started what about 66 I think it was on as the Purple Heart from the Air Aces.

I think the only Purple Heart ever awarded.

Yeah you got well it's only that hospital one night.

Well a guy it was after the water routine.

You know we have the the pale of confetti Harlem Globetrotters.

And then eventually you get the real water out, you splash somebody.

Well, somebody got supply, but the water, they left it on the court.

I went running down there full speed.

And all of a sudden it's like one of those cartoons where the guy jumps up and legs that it's not like that.

And I just landed flat on the front of my face, right?

My nose and teeth just washed and.

Oh, boy.

And then I look down and I see all of this red around me, and I'm going, oh, that can only be for me.

Yeah.

No, it wasn't water.

No.

And they, Ron Latham and Dick Miller, took me to the, the hospital at night.

Yeah.

And I never sued anything.

I just want you to know, one of the things that I. And I remember to this day, though, I, you know, because I think it was a couple of days before you could actually talk on the air.

Yeah.

And so, so I when I saw you the next day, to see how you were, I remember you telling me, you know, I went to a dentist, as an artist name was Doctor Crash.

Yes.

You're kidding.

Right?

He may be watching the show tonight.

I was all right.

Price.

As a matter of fact, his name was Jack Crash, and he was over on State Street.

And he calls Art and Dean on sports talk almost every night.

You'll hear me right?

Like when you hear somebody named Jack, you'll know that's him.

And he's retired now.

But that's, that's a true story.

So we, you know, we took our lumps here and there, but the money we made for those schools, Bob, you know, you were in promotion at the time, and that was a situation where we were looking for another venue to get involved in.

And, it seemed to be the right thing and, once.

But that's when we went into the promotion about the Air Aces.

Yeah.

And, so then we had the Air Aces and put the team together.

And then we realized now wait a minute, we're going to be out and we're going to be playing a lot of faculties, a lot of the athletes on those faculties who have played a lot of basketball, etc., were good.

So we figured, got to have a ringer, too.

So the first ringer we got was Bob Pilkington.

And now Pilkington, when he played at Xavier University, was the nation's leading rebounder in his senior year of college.

Then we felt, well, maybe we better try somebody else, just to be sure.

So we bring in Ron Latham.

Now, Ron Latham played at Ball State and anything from 25ft on in Latham was deadly.

Had one of the would he'd be a millionaire today in the NBA.

Another Reggie Miller he hang up no doubt.

And then the word got around and all of a sudden we end up with, Neil Rankin.

Yeah.

And of course, Dick Miller was on staff at the time, and I played a fair amount of basketball in my life time, as had some of the other guys.

Chevy played with us and we had a, a pretty respectable team, and we'd go into these various schools as, as I think the format always went and the people were incredible.

They have these big lunches after it was over and we just have a great time.

But if we them with one of these faculties that were chippy and trying to show the kids how to go, we took some bruises.

We some we would just, we'd grab them.

Yeah.

But if it was a group that was having a lot of fun, there'd be no way we could win.

We'd stumble our way through those games and it was just incredible.

We did the stuff.

Jack would go in, as the as the announcer, and Bob was the coach.

Jack would go into the locker room before the game started of the opposing team, and he'd say, he'd say, now, fellas, remember, this is for charity, and this is for fun.

We want to try to keep the score as close as we possibly can.

We'll keep our disc jockeys in, which is really what the people came to see.

Unless you guys decide you want to run up the score on us, if you want to run up the score, our disc jockeys will sit down and our ringers will take over and they'll embarrass you.

And there were a few times where we're the disc jockeys would sit down, and then we'd go in and we'd run 20 points up on them, and then Jack would go back to him on their bench and say, you fellows want to go back to show business and I went back and, you know, part of the routine Chevy, when I was working on the afternoon traffic and if we were within 30 or 40 miles, the minute he got off the air, he'd wheel it up there, jump into his gear, and he'd always get there at halftime.

So we build this thing, build this thing.

Bill and Chevy come trotting out at halftime and did it, so we'd whip in the old basketball.

And from center court, he let one fly.

Now, there was week after week that Chevy that he just never got there, never made this one night he walks out somewhere up around end goal.

And maybe it was an end goal.

He walked out at center court.

He let that thing flag pitching nothing but net.

You go.

What?

You broke a guy's love.

This fellow.

His religion.

I don't know if he was Amish or what, but they weren't allowed to have radios.

And finally they did get a radio and they were listening to it the night before.

And when WOWO signed off at midnight, the radio went dead and he was lying there.

This was his first morning load that he had a radio on the house.

It was back when he used to sign off on Sunday night.

And then every night, every night on a clock.

Those days we signed off every night at midnight or one.

So he was lying there in the morning at 5:00 in a dark room, not thinking of anything, and right at 5:00 in the morning.

And he was there.

I said, good morning.

Boom!

He gave one leap and fell out of bed and broke his leg.

These days, as Don, as you pointed out, the earlier you'd have been sued all he could be.

Well, he would have won that suit, but he didn't have a leg to stand on.

Oh, well, that's the end of this problem.

This man has not changed a bit.

No, he has not.

In fact, You're right.

No, I think we had things going to changed a bit.

Bob, were you in a situation when we had, a promotion out at the Coliseum?

Well, we all had to ride a burro.

Sure.

Yeah, I was the.

I was the kid that put you on that burro.

my friend that was doing the promotion work.

And the other credit, a couple of pictures in there.

They got we got ready to race, and John Cigna pulled out a safety pin and I burro in the rear and that's right burrow took off.

I way ahead of everybody.

It was aiming for you.

It was trying to stick it in your rear end.

He missed the donkey.

I never thought, well, what about when I started?

Well, we'll get the elephant in a minute.

Okay.

And I started to roll off the side of the burro.

But he kept going, and I gradually kept getting lower and lower till the very end.

I went plunk right before the finish line.

He fell off and, you know, going down the court on that donkey.

And it stopped instantly.

You kept going.

You almost went into the boards.

Remember the thing I knew I fell off, but I didn't know which direction.

See, that was that donkey patrol the Shrine had.

So when we got the donkeys, I said, like, I'm on a real nice, docile donkey.

Perceived.

And he said, he's here's a good one.

And he was, he was a good donkey till somebody whacked him on the hind end.

And you could see Bobby kept stiffening up the farther he got on your arm.

Yeah.

Oh, Mr.

Bill, why was it that all of our promotion managers through the years wanted us to do these things in front of standing room only crowds at the Coliseum?

Everybody wanted to see?

Yeah.

That's what well, remember, Bob, the Coliseum before every Komet hockey opening game of the season, always had to be every sport, vacation and boat show.

They had a big promotion where I said, Bob, we were doing one stupid thing after another group including football, fighting with alligators.

That's right.

I was going to say, I've got a picture of you wrestling alligators and I and more in wetsuits, and we had an alligator.

We promoted like the Dickens.

We were going to wrestle alligators at the sport vacation and well, when we came out, we had the alligator.

A little baby.

When about this long, say harmless.

They threw him.

We threw him.

I was scared to death of that little alligator.

He wouldn't get within 20ft of it.

And so once we got on the water and of course, act like we were wrestling, and I came up with the thing and came the signal, and he took off running around the Coliseum.

Yeah.

And I chased him with that.

The crowd thought he was a put on.

He was afraid.

Why would you be scared of an alligator this big?

Unless it had a rating book?

Well, but you're right.

He I, I could carry that story on.

But then Bob and I were on elephants one time.

Do you remember that?

Thanks to him, he got us into it.

That was that.

Sure.

That was writing from the railroad yards to the, to the Coliseum.

I'm in the circus.

And I looked up at that big elephant.

I thought, how in the world can I get on his back?

And there was no saddle there.

I finally used a rope or something to get up on him, and after he walked two steps, I knew that I could never make it to the Coliseum without falling off the pavement.

So I grabbed the rope and and fell or jumped off.

And we had a young couple from Portland, Indiana, riding on the elephant next to me that we might be listening.

And, about two weeks later, they sent me a tie with an elephant on it.

There you go.

As a memory of my two, for you said it was an elephant with a tire on it.

Well, well, what you told me, you know, one of the great promotions I remember with Bob and, Oh, I think some of you were involved in that thing.

It was a it was a Komet opener.

And we opened on Halloween night.

So we had a special race at each end where the nets were.

We had a little basket and we had tricycles.

And in the middle was this big barrel with apples.

I drag your tricycle, Bob the at the at the other end, and that water was cold, too.

But not only that, but Bob Sievers never, ever gave it anything less than 100%.

And he was getting frustrated going after the apple.

And the next thing I see water squirting out of the barrel, Sievers is in headfirst right to the bottom.

And I think what that apple all that in those same promotion.

You remember when we had the wheelchair races out there, were any of you on there?

There's some pictures in there.

Somebody had cautioned me not to do it too energetically to start out with, but I'm in my wheelchair and I'm way out ahead of everybody.

I thought, oh boy, I got this waste run easily ten feet from the finish line.

I got cramps in both arms and sat still, and somebody else won and we all passed you.

You remember one?

You all.

Pat.

You know, so many people, though, of of great import, would come to that radio station over the years, though I can remember, Bob, you told me a story about the bell at the time they brought Hirohito's horse up in the elevator.

Oh, yeah, they did a big white horse.

Well, by the third floor in the Gaskins building.

Yeah.

Why did they do that?

It was some anniversary, and he was in town.

Yeah.

So they brought the horse out a horse or a horse and up in the elevator.

Now, I don't know if Hirohito was along or not, but his horse came up and they brought the horse in the studio, but was ours was in there.

I don't remember what year it was.

Ours was a 1943.

He brought the horse, you know that.

But they brought the horse up in the elevator.

It fit in the elevator?

Yeah.

A lot of times the promoters of these events would forget that we were a radio station and not a television station.

Being out of the afternoon, they would parade people up.

I had a guy up there one time who was the fastest draw in the West.

He could draw a 45, Colt 45, six shooter on radio shoot, put the thing back in his holster and faster than the blink of an eye.

And we're here.

We are on radio.

Yeah.

And and I, you know, I don't know what to say.

So he was appearing at Glenbrook and Glenbrook.

Wanted the guy to be on the air.

So I, I said, well, Mr.

So-and-so, would you go ahead and demonstrate?

And I have the tape at home, and what you hear is the silence, and then you hear, bang!

And I go, wow, that's fast.

And then one time we had fired the bird from, from, the Baretta show, remember?

Baretta?

Yeah.

Yeah, we had Fred the Bird up and Fred's talking, and I'm thinking, you know, the audience has no reason to believe this is a bird.

It could be anybody.

Yeah, right up here.

But, yeah, that was, they did trade them on.

Well, you know, the people, the the recording artists and stars and movie actors and all that used us back in those days.

We could have the doors wide open.

You didn't even keep them locked up.

And you'd be up there doing your show, and maybe you'd get a call from, say, hey, well, listen up on the toll road.

Can we stop Daniel J. And The Americans or Chubby Checker came up.

All kinds of poor freshman used to call.

Yeah.

Stop up.

We have a way to interview them on the air.

They do.

We have a picture on my.

What a gamble.

What are how many people remember these and may have one of these was one of our promotions when we were the top cats.

If this will show.

Oh this is rather worn and faded.

But this was in the closet at home and we gave these out promotions or just a different event that our names on the back.

And I know some people out there because I've had them tell me that they still have their top cats.

Ran into one of those guys two years ago in Milwaukee.

Ed Carr.

Ed Carr.

Yeah, Ed Carr.

And Doug Stevens, of course, were on staff after Underwood and you went off the air and they became a part of the staff at the time.

We're on the basketball team.

Do you remember Bill Fisher at all, Don?

Well, I, I was going when he came, but I, I knew him.

I mean, I don't, you know, the late night news.

Right.

And he was on my show and bill would do every single night.

He would make the same mistake.

And after about three years he was still doing it.

And when you hear what it is, you won't believe it at all.

Bill would come on in the midnight news at 12 midnight.

We're listening.

And he would do the first couple of stories and he'd say, WOWO news time is three minutes after 12.

It's four after 12 in Ohio and Michigan.

Yeah, he never even he did this for like three years, you know.

Yeah.

I will never forget that.

I had the worst experience of my life on air that I can remember.

And you reminded me of it when I was doing the night show.

We had a newsman, Jim Slade, who does the space stuff for ABC, CNN, the big.

Yeah.

And, he was John Snyder on the air while Jim Slade on the air.

Snyder's, oh, Snyder's his real name.

And he would do the last news at midnight.

I was on one at that time, and I did the 1:00 news.

I was the only one in the station, you know, ripping Reed off the wire newscast.

And I started that newscast, and I got the hiccups and I started and let out a big burp right on the air.

And I thought, oh my God, I got five minutes to go see.

And I read some more and another burp.

And I was I was so embarrassed.

And so I got to the point where I was trying to time out the burps when I thought they were coming up so I could tell the mic for a second.

I saw I didn't make it, and I hiccup all the way through a five minute newscast.

I never felt so foolish in my life.

Bob, you just remind me what ever said.

The thing about it though.

So maybe they weren't listening now, I. I had forgotten that, but I know what that would be.

But I had a similar experience.

I've learned never to eat popcorn before I go on the air.

I was eating popcorn and I had to do a five minute newscast, and I swallowed a kernel and got stuck in my throat.

And that, that that was really my longest five minutes.

Oh, and there was there was no other way to go.

Really?

When you had to do the news, he had to do the news.

Ron always had a way to subvert the program directors, though.

The program director.

I remember one time they didn't want Ron talking with the news person before the news, which is, you know, when you're working at night, you know, you have the other person studio and the program director said, look, I told the news person, when you hear what we used to call the boom in those days, that was a little Westinghouse news boom.

Yeah.

When you hear the boom, just read the news.

Don't respond to anything that Ron says.

Yeah.

And the it was live.

And I remember I'm driving home after I know that the program directors made a big deal on this.

And I'm driving home listening to Ron and Bill Fisher was about ready to do the news.

And and Ron says 50,000. watts on 1190 WOWOW Fort Wayne Group Westinghouse broadcasting.

Boom.

And before Bill can say anything, he says, hey, Bill, what's that on your tie now?

Why, Ron had gone into the studio to look and see what Bill's first line was.

So after Ron says, hey, Bill, what's that on your tie?

Bill thinks, I got to read the news.

So he goes, it's called the B-1 bomber, and, Roger Griffin's learned never give a direct order because it allows you to figure out a way around it or do exactly that way for.

Oh, yeah, well, that's a good one.

You know, I have the hiccups thing two one time, and the guy put out a memo the next day.

He thought it was a bit he thought I was trying to be.

He said, don't do that anymore.

He said, you know, it was funny for the first 30s, but you kept him coming for like ten minutes.

And it was, you know, I had the Jag surplus that he does, and I could not convince him that I actually had the hiccups.

I mean, people were calling from from Massachusetts and New York and Florida trying to give me remedies, breathe into a paper bag, you know, swallow seven times and do this and, you know, drink.

Sure.

Not standing on your head.

Yeah.

It's it's the worst thing.

And I you do it again.

I didn't I had him through the whole five minute newscast.

Yeah.

So I got there and there's no way you can time it because.

Oh, oh you think you can time when the next one's coming in.

You can't.

But it really hurts when your boss thinks you're doing it on purpose.

Yeah.

For the next week or so.

That's all I heard.

I don't think the boss was listening at one of the mornings, and now they throw a spot in it.

But then they're canned and yeah, that's what you had to read.

And everything was like, you can get rid of most of our commercials.

We did.

We're live.

Yeah.

At that time.

And so you didn't have a lot of space.

Do you know what that was, though, down there?

There is a reason behind that which I found out, which I thought was pretty intriguing at the bigger Westinghouse stations.

Not bigger in power, but in bigger cities, KDKA Pittsburgh and WBEZ Boston and places like that.

They had big union contracts with their announcers, and if a commercial was read by one announcer and ran outside of his or her show in another announcer show and get paid for that.

So, although we didn't have an announcers union here, they, they still followed that very same policy.

They figured, well, if we make them read them live, then they can't appear on someone else's show.

That's interesting how times have changed.

Yeah.

Names out of the past.

You know, we're talking about people like Sam DeVincent that people remember.

And Jay Gould, and I'm thinking of names like, Happy Herb Hayworth, happy early morning with Jay guy.

The way I talked to one out of the past yesterday, you fellows wouldn't remember it.

But in the days when we had live talent, we had a local show called Sari and Elmer.

I forget who played the male part, but Shirley Wayne Bowersox played the female part.

She was Sari.

What year was this?

Oh, this goes back to when I first started.

Oh, to 36 to 40 longer.

There back when Marconi first up and, everybody was listening a while to play the violin on the show.

Broadway show.

Hell's a puppet.

Yeah.

And what she did there was unusual.

She'd play the violin with boxing gloves on.

There's a pop up on Broadway, and then she came back.

And I know many people watching tonight will remember Sari and Albert and Shirley Wayne Bowersox.

And I said that sometime in the next few weeks and things slowed down.

I'm going to stop up and see her in person.

She's still alive.

She used to write continuity when I was there.

Yeah, yeah.

And if she lives in the Fairfield Manor.

But how how did she play the violin with boxing gloves?

Very careful.

Yeah, but this was, this was.

I don't know how she saw it.

Yes she did.

You got this weapon here.

Oh, well, that was typical of those old Ted Mack and Major motion.

Hal Cessna news director just talked to him a couple of weeks ago.

Bud Stone still in town.

He's still in Derby.

Newest guy.

And, Joe Buchanan was on our mobile news unit at the time.

Still have his paper.

Oh.

I was playing oh.

Bob Edgington was the night news person.

All names.

Really?

I talk to Hal Cessna just a couple of weeks ago.

He's retired, living in Annapolis.

He had a great career in news, you know, in Washington, DC, radio news and, he and she are having a great time out there in the big driving park, the RV, anywhere we go.

You know, we have a lot of firsts in, in, in some of the, you know, first generation broadcasters in the station and Bob Chase, Don Chevillet, Bob Sievers, you guys are first generation broadcaster guys, guys who got in it when it was still a young business.

Yeah, a new business.

And worked it on up.

I mean, for example, you know, here's a, here's a guy like Bob Chase who has done play by play for the same hockey team for more than 40 years.

And probably as far as we know, you were the first disc jockey in the United States.

Could have come pretty close to it, because when they broke out of the, out of the network modes, at that time, and Bob, I believe was were you were still in, in the Korean War, I believe when that.

No, you were back by that time, but but you were the hired hand in a Little Red Barn.

And per se was a talent other than a just disc jockey.

Yeah.

And that's when Westinghouse began to, began to experiment with putting together formats for disc jockeys.

And, they had people, pack and cattle and would come down and they'd stay at the Keenan Hotel, and I would do a half hour or whatever whenever they could do it.

And they had wire tape at the time, and they'd tape it and play it back and take it out.

And they add a little, add a little, add a little.

And every time we drop a network piece, they'd give me another half hour.

Well, finally we cleared out enough space where, the word came down.

Okay.

You have done a lot to work with this thing.

Now you've got your choice.

Morning drive or afternoon drive?

So I pick 3 to 7, at that time, and then they move Cal Stewart in to do the morning.

And then, of course, is Cal, elevated?

Then, Jack came along and, it kind of went from there.

And then after they changed that whole format.

But Bob would always start and I mean, he was really he wasn't a disc jockey, was a personality that played all kinds of music originally back in the 30s.

Actually, we didn't call it disc jockey, but, we had block programing.

We'd have a a half hour by Jan Garber, by Guy Lombardo, and one by Rosario Borden and the Symphony Orchestra, and one by the Buccaneers Quartet on thesaurus transcriptions.

But, I missed them.

They were.

They were actually scripted shows.

And they'd give you the transcription, engineered pull them out, and you could actually put it on a crystal set.

That's what I think he played for Fleetwood Mac.

Not whatever happened to Benny Goodman and Tommy Dorsey?

It was it was a they came later.

But I mean, I think they gave up two years later.

They were upstarts.

Yeah.

They say, oh yeah, Paul Whiteman, that young kid, you know, people like that, like, Wayne.

That's amazing.

Well, Bob, Bob actually found a goldmine when he started, and I think I was fortunate enough to get in on the early stages of what I still consider the golden age of radio.

I think we had more fun, did more things, had more service for more people.

Yeah.

And to say thank you especially to WOWO and Westinghouse, we had a tremendous amount of effect on a tremendous amount of people.

And there was always we were always pros on the air and including you guys as you came along into this thing.

And that's why yet today and I travel all over the country now because of where the hockey league has gone.

And you can't believe the buildings I walk into, whether it's, Orlando, Florida, the Omni in Atlanta when it was standing, Quebec City and the Coliseum, somebody always comes up and says, you're Bob Chase, you're from WOWO.

Boy, I listened to you.

And then what happened to so-and-so is so-and-so, and we've just.

I mean, how many people and how many radio stations anywhere in North America can say that?

Now, I want to say pleasure, but I want to say something.

I tune across the band tonight and I'll hear hockey announcers all over the country.

I've never told this to Bob in person, but of all the announcers, I think Bob does the finest job of describing hockey of any announcer I have ever heard.

Bob had his time.

He's to go to the National Hockey League.

I remember when the Saint Louis Blues, you had a chance to get that job over Jack Buck, who had all the political pull in Saint Louis, of course, you know, ended up with the to go with that.

The day I was appointed as the, sales promotion manager at the station back in 1967.

I got in the office at 9:00 in the morning.

And I'm just reveling in the fact that I'm I'm getting my hands on this situation.

At 1115, the phone rang, and it was a friend of mine from Detroit, Michigan, who represented the Stroh Brewery who wanted me to come up and be the voice of the Red Wings.

For the Red Wings.

I'll be darned.

And you know what?

That says something that so many, so many of the WOWO announcers, be they play by play news disc jockeys have had great opportunities and great offers and, oh, Bob Sievers.

Jack Underwood had been offered big positions in Chicago at WGN.

And Ron, there were a couple of program directors over us, over there after us over the years and in much larger some of them right here in town.

Yeah, I do know there's a look at Underwood.

He could have been.

He could have been the Dick Clark radio show.

That's my point.

If my point is that is that, you know, here, here was this this radio station.

That's that's, it was fun to work at, it it meant a lot because it was part of our family.

Our kids grew up with it.

We grew up with it.

And Ronand my kids and kids on it, and, and and we love the city.

And it was this great flow back and forth between the audience and the station, the station and the audience at a time when, you know, when, when the station would even save lives.

I mean, Bob, you landed an airplane with the radio station, didn't you?

Yes.

Right.

I tell a story.

Oh, well, he doesn't remember what this was.

This would have been the fellow.

Who was it?

Lost in the fog.

Oh.

Yeah.

Yeah, but I haven't really.

That's why for so long, I think that was out.

It.

Was it Smith Field?

As I recall.

He could hear what?

Well, they determine that he could hear.

WOWO.

And he in the cockpit.

But he could not communicate with the, with the airport.

And they.

I forget how he did it.

Well, people, I'm all in his foggy and I in some way I was able to help.

As I recall, the airport called you and they said we think he is listening to WOWO for direction finding purposes.

He was going to take it for a walk to find Fort Wayne.

Right.

We're going to take a chance and, and and then what?

As I remember you telling me the story, this has been years and years ago.

People called you then on the phone and passed over my house.

Yes.

It's so foggy.

And, now it comes back and, he would, get to the shoot past the runway, some of our valleys out of, Arcola.

And he's just out of my house now.

So while I'm on course, he now he's had.

So I told him where he was and he'd look on the map and he'd go back and.

And he must have had to circle.

He had to circle Baer Field about, I think it was eight times before he hit the runway.

All right.

Yeah.

Let's see some of the modern day.

But thanks to the listeners, because they say he just flew over my house now.

Yeah, I some of the modern day program directors.

What?

I said, Bob, can interrupt that direction there.

We got to play the number one song.

Right, right, right.

But you know, it's amazing, Bob, that, airline pilots who I have known over the years and basically have their navigational systems.

Yeah.

If they were going, say from Minneapolis, say, into Cleveland, they would throw WOWO on ADF on a AM and listen to that while they're riding the sky.

And they'd make the turn when they got to the pilot.

Right.

Oh there's no way there's no way that a radio station could ever dominate like that again.

It can't be done.

There's too many state.

Every town has its own little 2 or 3 FMs.

Yeah, and back in those days, the small towns had their little AM station and WOWO.

We used to come in to do personal appearances.

They didn't like that because we everybody less than 2000.

Yeah.

Boys of a thousand Main Street.

Now of course, everybody goes for that little teeny chunk of the audience that you're going for now, and you hope you can get it and get a few ratings points out of back then, everybody from 3 to 90 listen to WOWO, everybody.

I won't hold the way it was.

Drives the cameras crazy.

But, but this is a, maybe they can get a shot of it.

It's, it's a memo from a program director in 1980 from Ned Foster who says Bulletin.

Once again, WOWO is number one in the nation.

And here's a list of, of 100 radio stations.

And at the top of it, with the, the leading, metro, what they call a metro rating is, is WOWO with a 62.5.

Yeah.

And that's something like 62.5% of the people in this listening area throughout the course of a week.

I want you to.

Is that 1980 or I going say 1987?

I saw in the mailbox we were number one with a 70 rating on.

But I saw that same seat in 1970.

Radio.

Well, Chase, you remember back, when the ratings that WOWO from morning till night were so high up there that some of the national buyers didn't believe them.

Well, I know they thought they were rude.

I was in sales promotion at the time we did this national presentation all over the country.

Tommy Longworth, Jim Cassidy, myself, we'd go out and we went from bordered border coast to coast, and we had this, we call ourselves a, one of the one of America's top 20 radio markets because actually, our population didn't justify it.

But with our half millivolt coverage with with the big circle, we had, we had enough to qualify as about the 15th radio market.

The nation would come in with these figures, whether it was Chicago or San Francisco or Cleveland or Muncie, Indiana, and all of a sudden when they'd look at it and this is no kidding, we'd have people saying, man, you know, where do I sign up?

You know?

And, we had the majority of all the national advertising businesses that came into this market, including the print business, because of the presentation we made by bypassing agencies, pardon my French, and going directly at the took the dog.

Exactly.

Yeah, yeah, the projector and everything up to the mark.

But, you know, you guys came up with a great idea in those days.

And that was you, you made this whole area out to be a major test market.

And you interested the major national advertisers in testing products in this area that you truly want it.

It was a nice play on words because it was called the Great Test Market, and it worked out real well.

I think there's some good promotional pieces in there, too, that they can bring up to show us some of the promotional stuff that, you know, and of course, you and so we had the benefit of the greatest major market marketing organization in the nation and Westinghouse broadcasting in it at the lift of a phone.

If you needed an idea or you needed people, man, they were here to support you and back you up.

I mean, it was it was an education that you, you couldn't get through university.

You had to be with with the real experts.

And they were just those of us that had the fortune to work at night.

And.

And you, Bob, early in the morning when it was still dark.

The awesome power of the station was, you know, it really it has a right over the head.

Have visionaries report and you'll hear me every morning in Africa.

Yeah.

And every winter I'd get about 50 letters from farmers in Norway and Sweden.

That's right.

They didn't tune in to hear Jay or me but they wanted to get the price of corn and soybeans.

And WOWO was the only stateside station they got consistently every morning of the year in Norway.

First week I was here late at night.

I picked up the phone and, this is even before we had the 800 number.

So people had to pay for these calls.

And the guy said, Ron, you'll never believe where I'm calling from.

Where?

Boca Raton, Florida.

And he was so excited.

I said, sir, can you hold on a second?

I'm answering a postcard to a listener in Paris, France.

I was like, yeah, and that's actually a true story.

I didn't keep them waiting long, but that's a true story.

Oh, there's a Navy.

We got a letter once from a sailor, and he said that they piped, WOWO onto the ships.

This was out in the Atlantic.

Yeah.

Piped the station on to hear the music and whatever on World War.

I'm a Navy ship in the Atlantic.

Well, during Desert Storm, there's a marine captain.

From around the Churubusco area who was on the, that attack, carrier that the Marine Corps runs all their, their choppers off from.

And he said he could hear us, at the proper times of the year, all the way through the Mediterranean.

But then when they went past the Suez and got into the canal and around the other side, they couldn't hear us any longer on nighttime.

And he had asked me if I would say happy birthday to his two little kids on their birthday.

So I called them to let them know that I was going to say it, and did.

But they listened to us all the way through that.

Sorry.

No.

Well, there used to be, again, this like you, when I started, I was new on the night before going on afternoons and on that night shift and early morning when you were on.

I mean, to tell you, I remember I used to get mail regularly from a a missionary in the remote western part of Cuba, a husband and wife.

And she wrote to say that they listened to get stateside news and the only station they could pick up there was another fellow that used to listen up north of the Arctic Circle.

He lived up there somewhere in nowhere land.

And his mail, he said, had to come down from where he was to the nearest post office by dog sled.

And then it was posted at that post office and came on and yeah, used to read it on the air.

And then he left.

That was his, that was his connection with the outside world.

When did, Castro took over?

In about 59.

I think it was, 56, 59 or 60.

And, so they really, you know, they were looking for entertainment at that point because everything, you know, local was government controlled and then propaganda.

Chase, you and I, were, at the very day of the Bay of Pigs, the very morning of the Bay of Pigs invasion chase, myself, Len Sorenson.

Who else was along?

I think George Drysdale and, what's his name used to play.

Went on to Muskegon there for a while and came back and forth.

Joe Castlely cast like five of us, went up to Detroit in April because we wanted to see the Detroit Tigers season opener.

My uncle managed Tiger Stadium, so he had a seat right in is probably the Stanley Cup.

Yeah, yeah.

And then that evening we were going to the seventh and final game of the Stanley Cup Chicago in Detroit.

That's when they retired Gordies number.

Right!

Snow storm like you wouldn't believe at.

When we got up there.

It was so bad.

Tiger Stadium was covered.

Game was called.

We managed to trudge through to the hockey arena and saw the hockey game, but on the way back it was still snowing and there was no Interstate 69, right?

Was there an Interstate 90?

Right.

You had a big Oldsmobile station wagon, right?

Driving.

I was sitting in the front seat helping you see, because the road was just two tire tracks and the other three guys were in the back sleeping.

Took us all night to get home, but we had WOWO on in the wee hours.

And Jay Gould came on and mentioned that there had been an invasion of Cuba.

Yeah, by the mean that was the same morning, and we were listening to that all the way home, you know, and that was the same morning that happened.

There's a there's a one report that I know of the station, literally going all the way around the world.

Not that I'm aware of.

I'm sure there are others, but, for some of the viewers who might not know the the signal, is pushed to the east at night to protect some of the western, stations on the same frequency.

And, so we got a call one night about 10:00 at night from a guy in a phone booth in Los Angeles, and he said, I can hear the I can hear WOWO in Los Angeles.

He said, I'm going to kind of, have a dxa here.

It had to be going on.

So we didn't believe it because we'd never gotten any reports of being heard in Los Angeles before.

Because we knew we went, east and, so, he said, no, I can prove it.

He said, you call me back.

And, so he gave us the phone number, the phone booth, the 213 area code area.

We called him back.

He answered the phone and he went out and got his radio on and brought it up to the phone and we could hear it.

So we knew we were talking to the phone with.

Now you remember, Chris, how how bananas the management when, when I put the guy on from England at that time or called over there to let him talk to his family.

Yeah.

So.

Oh right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Oh my gosh.

No again no watch lines at that.

That's right.

Oh this is like 20 years ago.

Yeah.

Like there was a lot back in those days of personal messages or something like that.

Oh no.

But it was broadcast for the general public.

It was an interesting thing.

So there's this poor guy called one night.

He says, I miss my family.

They're over in south London.

I said, well, no problem.

Yeah, yeah.

On the air.

You hear the dial tone.

You know, the the operator, the things.

Yeah.

Put them through, guys.

They talk for like 20 minutes.

The next day, the oh my gosh, 3 or 400 bucks.

Yeah, yeah.

Second and only by the ship to shore a bill that I got there that the, the station got when rod called me out, I was out in the middle of Lake Erie.

Yeah.

Them out there on my boat and and at the time I had this boat was called Chriss Craft.

And I hear, oh, Chriss Craft.

This guy here, I hear Chris's Craft.

Chriss Craft Lorain marine mobile.

And I'm thinking he's calling me who would even though I'm out here.

So I go back to the lady and she says, or move you up to another channel.

And she said, oh, one moment, please, for Ron Gregory.

Oh my God.

Oh, on the air, that's funny.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The so the engineers came, but they came in.

I think they had some legal problem with that.

I don't recall what it was, but it worked anyway, making a legal.

So I went to jail.

Speaking of legal problems, do you remember when, Calvin Richards, became program, promotion manager, the job that you had for so long.

And you remember we first got our new two way radio?

And all of these rules and regulations, it can only be used for this and never would you do any personal messages or anything.

And what did he do.

He ordered a pizza on it.

Oh that's right.

We have a second.

More in a, in a format like this that we don't have in lots of other times.

And I got to hear the story for once and for all from the man that happened to during the Cold War era back in 1971, when the big alarm went off and by accident, the government of the United States and the military sent down the code words that indicated this country may be under nuclear attack.

That was 1971, Saturday morning, and usually at a time when there was a test at 9:30 in the morning.

And it was in October.

And you are an over, Bob, you are the sole operator now with the news person of the most powerful broadcasting station in the area.

And what did you do?

Well, first of all, we had three news machines United Press, Associated Press and International News Service.

As you know, in those days, every time we got a bulletin, the bell would ring ten times.

We turned the bulletin off and go in the studio and read it.

Well, this particular Saturday morning, all three machines were running the ten bells.

So I went to them and there was silence.

Nothing was printed.

And finally, they printed alert, alert, alert, alert.

Then they were silent again.

I thought, what in the world do I do now?

And I thought, well, the only thing I can do is be honest.

I said, folks, we, evidently have some kind of an emergency.

I don't know what it is, but you stay tuned and I'll let you know the moment I know we were the control station.

And, so I went back in, in the in the top 25.

The record I had on was “Easy Going on Your Nerves.” This is unusual, isn't it?

I wonder where do I begin?

And, and it was Henry Mancini and the orchestra and the love theme from Romeo and Juliet.

So it was 2.5 minutes long.

The record.

The machines were still silent.

So, but, no, in the meantime, they did print a code word.

And I reached back on the wall and tore off the envelope.

Only if we had a code word and I looked at the code word was cauliflower.

And I looked and lo and behold, on the news machines, the code word was cauliflower.

So I told the folks on folks, we definitely do have some kind of an emergency.

I still don't know what it is, but I have received the secret code word.

I have verified the code word.

Now again, stay tuned and I'll let you know the instructions and follow.

So I put the needle back and went through Henry Mancini again.

Then finally the bell started ringing.

Just just, disregard disregard the alert.

Forget it.

Forget forget mistake mistake mistake.

Then I went and said, folks, the story does have a happy ending.

They send us the wrong tape, so there is no emergency.

But I tell the folks I'm out speaking that five minutes in which I played Henry Mancini in the Orchestra and “The Love Theme from Romeo and Juliet” through twice was the longest five minutes of my life.

And now.

And that was the height of the Cold War, when other things were very tense.

All right.

Another point of this story was, weren't you the only guy in the whole country that did it the right way?

I don't know about that.

I mean, it wasn't that.

Well, I was working in Cleveland at the time, and I was I was playing cards with one of the other disc jockeys, and I heard the ten bells go off.

And I thought, well, that's the Saturday morning test.

It's 933.

And, you know, it usually came about that.

And so I ignored it.

By the time I got back, I didn't, you know, I, and I had to write a, a rather lengthy letter to the Federal Communications Commission explaining why I didn't do what you did.

But I seem to remember you weren't the only one.

I seem to remember of all the 50,000 line stations in the country that were supposed to alert all the smaller stations, the whole system actually fell apart.

Bob Sievers was the only one that actually followed it, word for word.

And but I thought, and, you know, hit the alarm.

I thought in doubt, though.

What can you do?

I'll be honest.

Know we're dealing here with a media man listening to you.

Yeah, yeah, but the Navy man.

Oh, that's the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

It really was my longest five minutes in radio.

Bob.

Yeah.

I'm sorry, I know I was just going to tell you one, shocking story, and I have many.

I have notes scribbled here, but one the most, one of the most shocking stories I've experienced was about three years ago.

I was, listening to, an I tune across the band tonight, hear all my favorite talk show hosts, and I was listening to WJR.

Detroit was 1:25 on a Sunday morning, and the fellows and folks, we have some sad news to announce tonight.

He's an announcer that I grew up with as a boy in Dayton, Ohio, died yesterday, and it was none other than Bob Sievers of WOWO.

I remember that.

And I heard that, you know, I really woke up.

I, I pinched myself and I thought, what the heck, I'm alive.

And I thought, I can't let that go on.

So and he's giving his phone number.

So I call this phone number.

But think of the insurance - think of the insurance you could have collected.

So I called him up and I said, hi.

As a so-and-so.

Yeah.

He said, who was this?

I said, this is Bob Sievers.

It was a long pause.

A lot.

He says, where are you calling from?

I said, I'm calling from heaven.

A payphone right next to the pearly gate.

So anyway, like a movie.

What?

It was two days before that, a lady had called him who worked for General Motors and moved here from Wisconsin and got me mixed up with Jack Underwood.

It was Jack Underwood who had just passed away.

Yeah.

She told him that I had died and he was shocked because he grew up listening to me.

Oh my God, I thought it was the old baseball player, Roy Sievers, maybe.

No Roy Sievers.

Yeah.

You know, for your Washington Senators, right.

I've always confused, Ron and me.

Have they have they turn turned off.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

See, when I came here about the same time and people will come up to me, they'll say, Ron, how are you doing?

And I always tell him, no, he's the one with all the money.

Yeah, right.

And so I and I, and I, and I never correct them, you know, it's just to the you Chris sometimes.

Oh yeah.

All the time.

Tell him.

Bob Chase and me.

I don't know how many times people thought I was Bob to this day.

Yeah.

And the only thing I regret, it has gone by too fast.

I cannot believe I mean, this fella, he's.

I'm just a kid compared to him.

And I've got 45 in here, and I just can't.

I can't put a finger on it.

It go on.

Yeah.

Do you remember speaking in when we used to sing as disc jockeys?

You know, first of all, the Pussycats one way up against the Beatles.

That was.

That was really something.

Yeah.

We were singing.

Sam DeVincent came up with the idea and the Beatles were coming to, Indianapolis, September of 64 on their first U.S tour.

So we got a promotion up, and of course, we're singing.

And so we decided to go on the air and play our songs on the air.

And as I said, we were out doing personal affairs, always singing everywhere, and we were asking people to send and vote who they liked the best, the Pussycats or the Beatles.

Well, of course you know, the Pussycats out of, you know, got a lot of votes just as a joke.

But at any rate, as Bob will tell you, we ended up getting what was it over 50,000 pieces of mail.

Oh, yeah.

In response to that promotion, of which 50 people were picked to go down there and we the deejays took them down and, we had a Beatle bus, regular Greyhound with signs all over the Indianapolis, the Beatles and all.

And we used to sing.

And I remember we sang at the Coliseum when the Rolling Stones came in.

I have that at home in pictures.

We sang the Dave Clark Five when they played.

It was his birthday, so we got up on stage and sang Happy Birthday to Dave Clark.

I mean, that was quite a promotion.

And Sam DeVincent has all of those recordings of all of those songs we did, which is out in his collection.

His wife, Nancy Lee, has it.

It takes up about six rooms and a two car garage, and really, all the noise got organized like Sam did after the rest of us.

All all.

So that was the ultimate collection.

Yeah.

You remember when I used to sit in for you in the morning on the Little Red Barn show every once in a while, and you had a portion of the show where you'd play only country music.

Oh, I remember that.

So here I come, wheeling in from Washington when the Boston or the Boston like it either.

I know about the first week I was in there.

I started playing jazz records, you know, Benny Goodman and Buddy Rich and stuff.

Yeah, never.

And I had a guy call with the same thing that happened to you with a cow that wouldn't give them milk any more.

But, yeah, I just couldn't get into Buddy Rich's beat.

Yeah, but, but a lot of people enjoyed that.

A lot of people like that.

Oh, yeah.

And, it was, you know, we were in our office.

Would fill in for you, too, I think.

So we all had a chance to do that that morning show at one time.

Right on it.

When you play Franklin McCormick's Melody of love, the Boss.

Yeah, right.

You know about it, that right?

Yeah.

Right.

Right.

They say when so many announcers get together, this would be an excellent place to build a radio station.

Yeah, yeah.

Right here.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, Bob put something together that, that I used to like when I did, my standbys form or did the Monday mornings when Bob would get in, the first thing he do, put a tape up on the reel and start making his police calls.

He'd call every sheriff and state police in the lower border of Michigan, northwest corner of Ohio and Michigan and Ohio.

And, the people looked forward to it, including the officers themselves.

They were always talking around.

And, I mean, if you happened one day, maybe two, maybe somebody wasn't available or you missed them all guaranteed within five minutes, somebody call and say, what's going up?

And Papa, we haven't heard from them yet this morning.

Yeah, that's right.

But I mean it was it was it prepared the day honest to goodness.

Reasonably for the news department.

Anything overnight.

He had it on tape and it was just it was just darned interesting to listen to because, you know, even though you tape those calls ahead of time, Bob, the audience, hadn't heard them yet, and, and they would get their very first bits of information, then just a year and a half ago, living in Van Wert, now, where I operate, a couple of businesses over there, I got a chance to go to the retirement party of the lady who used to talk to almost every morning, Joe Van Meter.

Joe, I, I remember she just retired from the Ohio State.

The.

How did you you see her?

Tell her we met.

I guess, she can watch the show and she'll say, you know, Bill Fisher and I celebrated our birthday the same day, and, we went over to Joe Van Meters.

He went with me for dinner.

That.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's 1204 in Ohio.

And Michigan, Ohio and Michigan.

Oh yeah.

Tell Joe I said hello.

Oh my goodness sakes.

Well this has been fun a lot of memories.

Yeah.

At that radio station that's as I said, I, I don't think there could ever be another one like it.

Radio is not that way anymore.

You know, it's going to have a station dominate like.

Oh, yeah.

And I mean, I think you you hit a point there when you say, war was again, very special beyond the point of it just being an exceptional radio station.

There were a lot of other good radio stations around the nation, and many of them were 50,000 watt stations.

But there was an effect this station had, you could when you cruised the dial.

And I found this to be very true.

You could set it on the signal seek.

And when it came back, when you hit.

WOWO.

There was a sound to that signal.

You knew you were.

That's right.

Yeah.

Bingo.

It was there.

And you could pass a lot of other stuff, but bingo boy, when it hit, the WOWO spot, you were locked.

Yeah, yeah.

That's right.

It's, It's it was so dominant.

I mean, even even our news people were celebrities.

Like, when we would do that beach ball up at, Lake James or anything.

I mean, even the news people, Bloodstone and Chester and all people washed up for their autographs and all.

I mean, where else would you find the newsman being, you know, personalities, like.

But they were, and, it was just amazing.

You look back on that now and you think, how could that ever have been?

People like Art Saltzberg, who was still there.

Yeah, I started in news.

I remember Ed Kasuba, right, in Philadelphia and absolutely, Jim Slade that you mentioned Bill Reese thing with ABC.

No.

Jim Slade.

Yeah, he does all this.

Jimmy, his first airplane ride when he when he was a newsman at.

WOWO.

We had Winter Wonderland going up at Paul Kagan.

And it was a quick day in in order to get there and back.

I went out to Smith and got a Cessna 172, and Jimmy and I flew up there because we had some things to do, and then we came back.

And that's the first time Slate had been in an aircraft.

And from that point on, I mean, it's it's here's a space expert on the Kennedy Space Center for ABC.

Yeah, no doubt about it.

He was a little he was another one that shocked people when they saw him.

Yeah.

Jim Slade was probably four feet eight about 85 pound.

He was an all right wing voice.

You know, on the air.

People see him.

They were in total shock.

I just have one question.

When, when, when are Chris and I going to get to do some funeral home commercials?

I mean, if I see you two one more time, I'm.

He got me so old.

You guys have been dying for the last ten years, and we we we didn't get a for we didn't trade it out either.

Oh, no.

You remember the first time you ever came to Fort Wayne and what happened then?

Do you remember the first time you ever came to Fort Wayne?

And what happened then?

Yes, I, I, came to town.

The program director at the time was a PhD doctor, Roger Skolnick.

Yes.

Oh, yeah.

And Roger came, to where I was in Canton.

I was the program director of a station in Canton, Ohio, and said, well, you know, now we know what you look like and what you sound like, and why don't you come and see what we look like and sound like and see if you'd be interested?

And I said, I probably will be.

So he said, well, come on into town, let's talk about it.

So we, we I drove into town and and stayed, I think at the Ramada out on 14 and and, and he says we're going to a party tonight.

He said a couple of our employees at the station, have these famous parties, and he said a lot of theater people and broadcasters come with these things.

Well, it was in a house in the Northcrest edition.

And when you were fortunate enough to have one of these parties to host one of these parties, you went way out.

These people took everything out of their house and put it in storage so that they could fit the hundreds of people who would show up at this party.

So here is my first night in town, and I'm thinking to myself, I'm at this party.

And it was so crowded in this, in this house that you literally couldn't walk through it.

You were there.

Yeah.

Everyone was, was there.

And, there were many of those parties in succeeding years.

But but do you remember when you drove into town?

Yeah, I drove right through it.

Yeah, I did the same thing when I didn't.

You stop in New Haven and what else?

It was, I no, I, I was, I was coming in on 30 from Canton and it was a Saturday morning that that same day, and I, drove through New Haven and I drove right past WOWO, I didn't even see a downtown at the time.

I was in the Gaskins Building on Washington, drove right past it, and, and I got all the way up to I-69, and I thought, you know, as I looked on the map, I saw New Haven and Fort Wayne and I, I saw a smaller dot of yellow indicating an urban area, which was New Haven.

I realized time and a larger dot of yellow.

And I thought, well, any town is going to have a 50,000 watt radio station owned by Westinghouse is going to be a much bigger community.

So I thought the downtown Fort Wayne was New Haven.

Oh my God, we only had the we had the Fort Wayne National Bank and the, the Lincoln Tower.

But I went right through it and I stopped at, at the there's a gas station right at the intersection there at, at at 69 and 24.

And it was a time and these like the plants that are now are some of those a Pure gas station.

And I pulled in there and, and asked directions, and I was filling up the car with a guy with came out filled with gas.

And he said, I was asking where, Fort Wayne was.

He said, well, you passed it.

He said, I saw you come in this way.

I said, yeah, I said, you weren't right.

So I said, what do you, what do you need to find?

And I said, WOWO.

And he says, oh, he said, are you going to work at WOWO?

And I said, now this guy's pumping gas into my car.

He said, you going to work at WOWO?

And I said, I think so.

He said, I used to work at WOWO.

So I'm thinking, well, here's my future.

Oh my God.

Oh, it's a noble life.

But when I finally go, the funny thing is when I finally got, got the job, and was offered to me, and, and I accepted it, Rogers said, I need you to be here in exactly one week's time.

He said, when you get here.

He said, for gosh sakes, whatever you do, don't go up the elevator and walk in.

He said, I'm going to have to explain you to Mr.

Vandegrift.

I look considerably different in those days, as many, many of us did.

Much, much longer hair And, so he, he went into Carl Vandegrift and he said, Mr.

Vandegrift, he said, I have a new announcer out here now.

He you heard his tape.

He doesn't look like he sounds, but he's.

Yeah.

Hes an okay guy.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

We done lots of things.

And when I first met Carl, as only, like, four months before you, I think I got here in March, and you were in, like, what, October or something?

Like, you know, September 3rd.

September.

Yep.

And and, I had been in Baltimore for a year and a half and then before that college.

So the longest tenure I had of the station was a year and a half.

And I walked in and he says, Ron, I want you to sign a two year contract.

And I said, two years.

I don't know, Mr.

Vandegrift.

I two years.

And he says, Ron, it'll go by like that.

When I was 20, you know, 26 years, I yeah, I but but it just, it just goes to show you how comfortable and professional the station was.

It was a fun place.

And once you got there you didn't want to leave.

Well, you know, I, I was really impressed with it again because, when I first came in, Bob was gone.

This was the Korean days, and Bob wasn't there.

But occasionally Bob would come home on a little, rehab and stuff, and you'd walk in the building and the receptionist would say, Bob Sievers is in there being with Jane Westen or whatever, these doors talking, telling sea stories and whatnot.

But, the staff we had at that time on the air, from our news people to our other announcing staff, they were so incredible.

I mean, the voices that, you know, they were better voices.

And a lot of the network staff and they were all just great, great people.

And we had one fella in particular who had one of the greatest booms in the world, maybe Dan Minter.

Oh, yeah.

Wow.

And he spoke out of the basement all the time.

In fact, Dan still around.

He's up in South Bend these days.

But he was a great announcer.

Yes.

And, then, of course, once it went to the music format, things did a lot of changing the news.

People kind of fanned off and went to other news, you know, news operations because we didn't have the same intensity with news.

And it changed around an awful lot.

And of course, the guys who survived it were you and Jay Gould.

Yeah.

I listened to the station, when I lived in South Bend, right up till the time I came to work over here.

I mean, they had we had radio stations, all of us working at the one out of Notre Dame.

But.

WOWO.

And that's what I listened to.

Well, you know, when I got the job there, their memory is for the listeners.

But, you know, for us, this is our life.

And I don't think any one of us would have done it any other way.

No, no, no.