Radio
has always been of interest to me. As a senior in high
school, I convinced my parents to pay for a 14 week broadcast school in Pittsburgh which required riding the bus into Pittsburgh every Monday night. My instructor was a Pittsburgh radio personality, Bill Lynch. Bill was named General Manager of a new station in Monroeville, WPSL, and I was hired in April of 1965 to do what ever needed to be done including weekend Oldies and Polkas. After 3 years in the military I returned to WPSL in early 1969 and then accepted a position at WLOA in Braddock, PA playing easy listening music and the classics. It gave me a great opportunity to complete lab assignments.
Upon graduation, I relocated to Baltimore as a telephone engineer with Western Electric and landed a weekend radio job on WTOW in Towson Maryland. From there it was on to a small station in Belair Maryland where I had the opportunity to do sports, remote broadcasts, news and, of course, play the Oldies.
But there is no place like Western Pennsylvania and in 1973, Bell Telephone had an opening in Indiana and I jumped at the opportunity to return “home.” In addition to my telephone engineering position, I began doing weekends and a little sports on WDAD in May of 1974.
The big change came in 1989 when
the opportunity to move the Oldies to Saturday morning arose and it was off to
the new Homer City station, WCCS, where the door to the Oldies Attic opened on
May 11, 1989 and the “good stuff” from the roots of rock and roll ushered in a
new era of Saturday morning radio in the Indiana Area. Along the way came
numerous oldies dances, bus trips to oldies concerts and a few concerts here in
Indiana.
With the consolidation of all Indiana County radio stations by Renda Broadcasting, the Oldies Attic continues and has been joined by Indiana In The Morning on WDAD which features interviews, comedy, news and information….. and oldies.
Radio is a people business and it has been the people that has made it all worthwhile. It has been a 41 year ride around the turntable and what a ride it has been.