Myrtle Beach Magic, Part I

Early one Monday morning a good friend of mine stopped by my office in New Martinsville, WV. He had just returned from a week vacation on South Carolina's Grand Strand, Myrtle Beach. West Virginia's favorite vacation mecca.

These visits to my office were a regular weekly event, but this one was different. This time he had visualized something in the last week that was going to open financial rewards beyond our belief. The year was 1983 and he had discovered that this little slice of heaven on Earth in the Palmetto State "was exploding with growth and development" This was something that we had to be a part of, it was the "mother lode"

As the enthusiastic observations and projections continued, and me always being quick to jump at any entrepreneural venture, I asked, "okay what do we do to get in, what business opportunity is
really there now? His answer "an oceanfront hotel"

"A hotel, what the hell do we know about hotels?" I asked.

"What is there to know? You check people in and take their money, he informed me"

Both of us still being in our thirties and not knowing the meaning of the word fear, nor did we know what the meaning of doing business in a resort town like Myrtle Beach was, we booked a flight to Myrtle Beach to search for our fortune on the Grand Strand.

During this era there was a popular real estate investment tool called Limited Partnerships. Simply, how LPs worked were investors could invest in a portion of a large real estate package with a potential large upside profit with tax benefits and the project would be managed by the General Partner who would get a small share of the deal and an ongoing management fee.

We created a South Carolina corporation, Ocean Properties Management to be the General Partner. OPM for short, which the two of us knew was really meant to stand for Other People"s Money.

In true form to our self known magnificence and business aptitude any trips that we made on this venture required us to rent luxury cars and smoke expensive cigars while canvassing properties. Which I am sure was much less impressive to prospective sellers than it was to the two of us.

We retained the services of a commercial real estate broker there that specialized in hotels and motels,
Bob Coker.

Bob was a native of nearby Conway, South Carolina and he never slept. We could receive telephone calls from him at 1:00 am, 6:00 am, made no difference if there was a hot deal Coker was not shy about letting us know. This was also the year that he earned the distinction of being the number one top biller for Century 21, not just in Myrtle Beach, or the United States but in the entire World. This guy made Zig Ziglar look like a piker.

On our numerous trips from West Virginia to South Carolina to inspect potential properties to purchase we looked at motels and hotels of all sizes in all parts of the beach. It seemed almost any hotel that we might want was for sale. We also learned that very few of the buildings included the land upon which they were built, the land was leased and in many cases already had three or four mortgages on them.

Even for the two of us at the time that were blind with the confidence of our exceptional business and marketing prowess felt this might be an indicator of problems. In expressing this concern to Coker he said we were missing the "Magic" and that he would pick us up the next day to show us the "magic" that assured success.

Somehow, apparently Coker had determined that his clients were a couple of marks or pigeons from the North that he was going to be able to dazzle with trickery.

We agree to join him for breakfast at a local restaurant between Conway and Myrtle on Route 501 and then afterwards to go discover the Magic. After a southern breakfast with biscuits, grits, eggs and country ham we join Coker in his car and drive down to Ocean Boulevard where he pulls straight into an oceanfront hotel parking lot facing the beach. "this is it" he says, we say "is what?" Coker says "the Magic, this is the magic. The Ocean is the Magic, each foot of that beach down there is selling for five thousand dollars and that is what you are buying boys, Magic. You can't go wrong with anything you buy here"

 After that inspiration, numerous trips, due diligence, and dozens of cigars we decide we are going to purchase the Ocean Reef (pictured above how it looks today, not then) it was a high rise, oceanfront, in a central downtown location and the real selling point was it had an oceanfront penthouse that was well suited for General Partners housing. The Ocean Reef was owned by Bhoupa "Boopie" Patel, who owned several properties in town. He was selling in order to invest in condominium construction which was a new idea at the time, that we felt would probably not catch on.

We meet with Patel and made an offer of 1.75 million which was less than the 2 million he wanted, Coker felt sure he could convince him to take the offer. At this point in the negotiation I should point out we had raised no partnership money, we had opened a bank account in the corporate name though and had a $100 balance. Patel held firm in his price.

Meanwhile we had learned of several radio stations there that were for sale, both of us knowing something about radio and me thinking at the time that there was no such thing as a bad radio station just bad management. when you coupled that with the Myrtle Beach "magic" to which we had been introduced, perhaps it was an omen that if we could not get our hotel, that we should buy a radio station. Then while we are cranking in the huge profit from that we could wait for the right hotel property to become available.

WMYB AM. Myrtle Beach's original radio station was purchased by the Corporation. The operation and story of this includes humor, intrigue, sex, several deaths and learning lessons never to be forgotten, but that is a story for the next essay as the Magic continued.

Burma Shave and Mail Pouch it wasn't

This weekend while watching a baseball game between the Atlanta Braves and Philadelphia Phillies from Atlanta's Turner Field on TBS, the Turner Broadcasting Station which was originally Atlanta's Channel 17 WTBS. The Braves were wearing their "throwback" uniforms from the 70's. I recalled the first Braves game I attended in Atlanta in 1977.

Sometime during my sophomore year in high school I decided I wanted to be in the Advertising business.

That period in my life was pretty much in the sweet spot of the Mad Men era, and during the first Darrin that was Samantha's husband on Bewitched. The glamour of Madison Avenue in New York, New York looked quite appealing from my perspective on Chestnut Avenue in Oak Hill, West Virginia.

Unlike many that jumped from major to major, I stayed focused on Advertising and was able to major in the field at both the University of Tulsa and took (earned may not be the right word here) a degree in the field from WVU.

During my Junior year in Morgantown I began my search for a career in New York, Chicago, or Los Angeles, sending dozens of letters of interest to all of the well known ad agencies I had followed for years in my favorite read the trade journal Advertising Age. Occasionally I would receive a form letter in response promising to keep my information on file. My goal was to find an ad agency to intern with the summer before my senior year so as to start feeling comfortable in oak paneled board rooms and refine my taste for dry martinis.

Having no luck with the J. Walter Thompsons, McCann-Ericksons or the Cooper Daniels of the world, my hopes of being a Don Draper or David Ogilvy was waning.

Ever resourceful I started searching local yellow pages for any businesses locally that were classified as Advertising. All that was listed in West Virginia was Outdoor Advertising. Outdoor Advertising, billboards. Billboards, this was not really how I had envisioned myself as the Gregory Peck character in The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit, not a guy in bib overalls and a pick up truck.

Rationalizing that these local billboard companies may have some knowledge as vendors of Madison Avenue ad agencies, the same linkage we used to make in small town West Virginia with the big city with the excitement of the Kroger tractor trailer coming to town every Thursday. I wrote letters to all four outdoor advertising companies then in business in the State. Hearing back from two of them, one in Bluefield and the other in Charleston.

Woodie Advertising, in Bluefield, WV was the closest to me, and the President and owner of the company Ralph Woodie had invited me over to discuss my future.

In driving over to Bluefield that morning I was picturing in my mind that I would be meeting with a guy in white overalls with paint and paste on them,  chewing tobacco, overweight and probably struggling to get out of his run down pick up because of obesity. Who I met was a handsome fit man in his early 30s, in a tailored suit wearing a Pulsar watch, and driving a new silver Lincoln Continental.

I was excited to find that he had worked on Madison Avenue prior to coming back to the South, to work for a friend of his that owned the billboard company in Richmond, Virginia. He sang the praises of his friend and reinforced all of the attributes of the billboard industry. Woodie told me he would be happy to hire me after my graduation. I respectfully declined, explaining I had New York, LA, or another major market in mind. he understood and told me he would support me in anyway he could including giving me a reference to his friend, Ted Turner who now owned the billboard company in Atlanta.

This experience had pretty much refocused me from Madison Avenue to take the contrarian route of outdoor advertising through Cleveland for a year and back to Parkersburg, WV to manage a company there at the ripe young age of 22.

I learned that every spring Ted Turner hosted a large client party including bagpipers, trapeze artists, magicians, open bars, and some other censurable activities.

The morning after WVU had beaten NC State in the Peach Bowl in 1976, while waiting on a flight I read on the front page of the Atlanta Constitution that Ted Turner had bought the Atlanta Braves Baseball Team to air on his newly purchased television station. He had paid one million dollars down and a million a year for nine years. One hell of a deal, considering the TV station had been paying the Braves $800,000 a year for the rights to carry their games, and Forbes now values the Braves at 450 million dollars.

The Spring of the next year I was asked to make a presentation at a regional outdoor advertising conference to be held in Atlanta and the conference would coincide with "The Party" and another night a reception at the Stadium Club at the old Fulton County Stadium hosted by Turner.

As a 25 year old, I had some trepidation on having to present to a conference of my peers that were all older and more experienced, but the opportunity to attend this infamous shindig and a major league baseball game with a team owner outweighed those butterflies.

"The Party" was all it had been billed to be, held in the warehouse facility of Turner's billboard business. I was able to first meet Turner's best friend and roommate from Brown. Peter Dames, who now was his right hand man in the media business. Pete was quite a character himself and in most circles would be considered a renegade but in the Turner Organization he was the cool calm hand. he shared with me one of Ted's secrets of his successful philandering was that his wife was named Jane, his secretary was named Jane, and his mistress was named Jane. This was long before he met and married Jane Fonda. I suppose you might say he had a Jane Addiction.

A huge rare roast beef and shrimp, bigger than your thumb dominated the buffet table in the oversize suite in which our reception was held. Positioned above the third base line at the stadium. I was at buffet table loading my plate, standing with Lewis Manderson and his new wife. Lewis was a hard driving entrepreneur that had built a large outdoor advertising company in the Southeast. The Manderson School of Business at the University of Alabama is named for him. The Business Schools at the Universities of Texas, Texas A&M, and Arizona are also named after Billboard guys. About that time and expectedly late the elevator doors to the suite opened and out stepped Ted Turner  and fellow Georgian and bother of the then President of the United States Billy Carter. They both had cans of beer in hand, it was also apparent that those were not the first that Ted and the First Brother had consumed that day.

Turner and Carter came straight to the food table and Manderson introduced me and his new wife who was wearing a low cut blouse. Turner focused his slurry eyes toward the new Mrs. Manderson's cleavage and said "are those real?"

The party moved outside to the seats in the stadium and a constant flow of people brought dollar bills for Turner to autograph, a practice I had not seen before or since. Other than that and sitting with the Owner the balance of the evening was no different from any major league game I have attended. There was one little hiccup in leaving I was riding with a couple of young guys who worked for Turner in a company car. Well over the legal B.A.L. they managed to hang the vehicle on a curb puncturing the gasoline tank and spilling fuel onto the parking lot requiring fire trucks to flush the spill and me courageously to hail a cab back to my hotel. my presentation was the next morning.

Fortunately the morning session started late in that Pete Dames was the moderator and had to be at a photo op with the Mayor of Atlanta for a billboard they had donated for a new lion exhibit at Zoo Atlanta. Dames had come up with copy for the board himself, it had a photo of lions and the copy read "Visit Atlanta's New Cat House"

Turner went on to start CNN, the Cartoon Network, Turner Classic Movies and other revolutionary landmarks in the cable and broadcasting business. He merged with AOL Time warner and at one point was worth over 3 Billion Dollars. He is the largest individual land owner in the World. Turner's father committed suicide the day after he had purchased the Atlanta business and Ted at 24 years old convinced the lenders to let him continue, and he built a multibillion dollar media empire from the back of a business I once had no respect.

Turner's motto is "Early to bed, early to rise, work like hell and advertise"

Cheers Ted, and thanks for the invitation.

Looking Back and Looking Forward

I am apparently in a period of my life where I do too much looking back.

 I understand psychologically that one does this in order to recapture the feeling of their youth. I believe this theory, in that I find it quite enjoyable. I do try to keep it in the minority of my thoughts, embracing all the excitement and gee whizzes of all the great technology today in the majority.

But in my recognition of this, ironically, I recalled back to the middle of August of 1969 when I was 17 years old. My mother had driven me to the airport in Charleston, WV to board a prop airplane to take me to Tulsa, Oklahoma to begin preseason football practice for the Tulsa Golden Hurricane Football Team.

Tulsa, which was then and continues to be the smallest school in the Nation playing Division I athletics.

The previous Fall the Fighting Golden Hurricane had played their oil city rival, the University of Houston in the  then new Astrodome. Unfortunately for the boys from Tulsa the Cougars of Houston scored 100 points and Tulsa only one touchdown, that's right 100-6. Larry Gatlin, later of the Country Music Gatlin Brothers as a fourth string receiver caught the last touchdown pass bring the score to 99.

For this humiliating reason and that the monied supporters new multi million dollar LaFortune Hall, a dormitory exclusively for the student athletes had just been built. It was decided rather than to drop football they would throw more money at the Program. Hiring the Defensive Coordinator from a powerful Michigan State University team who had featured  players like Bubba Smith and George Webster. Vince Carillot was to be the head coach and bring the magic of his boss legendary Coach Duffy Daughtery that had been so successful in East Lansing and is credited with the quote "Football is not a contact sport. Dancing is a contact sport. Football is a collision sport" The first time I heard the quote was from Carillot on my previous recruiting trip to visit the campus and the City of Tulsa. I'll have to confess for a 17 year old kid that had done everything humanly possible to get my weight up to 210 pounds, the quote gave me some pause.

When I landed at Tulsa's sparkling new and vast International Airport there was a Graduate Assistant there to meet me, notice I didn't include greet. Bob Junko. Junko, who hailed from Washington, PA had been the only bright spot on the previous years team as a fearless linebacker of which legends were made of, he is not a big man. But he has that same look in his eyes that is usually found in those housed on Death Row. Accompanying  Junko that day was the guy who was to be roomate, Gary Tretter from Monessen, Pennsylvania. This was as much of home as they could offer, in that it was somewhere near West Virginia and there was not one other student in the school from the Mountain State. Less than a week later Gary snuck off from the dorm and went back to Monessen leaving all of his clothes and belongings behind. Some indication of what preseason training was like in the 100 degree Oklahoma sun. From that point forward when any player had reached near his breaking point he would verbalize that he was thinking about pulling a "Tretter" Last I heard the guy whose name had become a  disambiguation  of a verb was the Police Chief in Monessen, which would seem to be to be more of a collision sport in itself.

 Junko turned out to be as crazy as he looked while on the practice field, but a pretty supportive friend when you weren't donning the pads. He had explained to us that in signing our letter of intent that we had sold our bodies to the University; therefore we had no right to even consider not attacking the man with the ball with reckless abandon and absolutely no consideration for the body that was no longer owned by us, but by the Trustees of the good old University of Tulsa. Nothing, absolutely nothing excited Junk more than extolling a hit that would draw blood. I remember one of my proudest moments, in that we were trained there to spear tackle which was legal at the time In doing it properly you drove the point of your helmet into the chin of the man you were tackling and then continued to drive him back to the ground. This one day I performed, the now illegal act to perfection, but in doing so caused myself to have a bloody nose, which bled profusely all over my face and jersey. Well Junko could not have been happier had he seen his first born, he was giddy with excitement and praise declaring that I now, had in fact sold my body to the School. Bloody noses really don't hurt so I was basking in the glory and gladly letting my hemoglobin shine for this fine Presbyterian Institution located in the great plains oil fields. Junko is now and has been for years the Director of Football for Pitt, there is probably some symmetry to that, I am just not sure what.

During that era Freshman still were segregated from upperclassmen in their practice and games. Playing an abbreviated schedule of only four games. The"Gales", as the Freshman team were known, opened their season against the University of Oklahoma, OU. This was a very big deal because Tulsa is a weak stepchild in Oklahoma, as an understatement to the Big Red of Norman. Oklahoma had had a great recruiting year with some real blue chippers, best of which was a running back, Greg Pruitt who later played for the Browns. OU was always known to have some, if not all the best high school players that money could buy from Texas and Oklahoma and this year was no different. Though this year Oil Barons of Tulsa had ponied up some cash for a pretty good team too. We had Drew Pearson from South River, New Jersey who later was an All Pro with the Dallas Cowboys as our quarterback, Drew is the guy who caught the original "Hail Mary" pass. His high school quarterback had been Joe Theisman, who was then playing for Notre Dame and later the Redskins. Steve King from a small town in Oklahoma and now a one of my Linked In contacts, as a linebacker who played several years as a starter for New England and about 5 other guys who made it into the NFL. My bloodletting did not trump my lack of speed so I knew that I had no chance nor desire to "go pro" Pearson's first year as a Cowboy he made $11,000 and had to have a second job at first to survive. Things were different then.

The night had come and I remember standing in the tunnel of Skelly Oil Stadium waiting to run onto the field, standing there seeing the lights reflecting off of the bright red OU helmets that I had watched on television for years, and now in just a few minutes I would be on the same turf with these guys and then it occurred to me I was 1500 miles from Oak Hill, WV and there was not one person in the stands that cared whether I was there or not. I wasn't in high school anymore and this football was different and I had sold my body and it was a collision sport, still fun but not like it had been on sandlots and high school.

We played the "Little Boomers" even most of the night and only lost by a field goal. This was a huge moral victory for the Investors, I mean supporters of the Program. We were the toast of the town and the great hope for the future. This was also only the second year Tulsa had allowed Blacks on the team.

The next week we played the University of Arkansas again at home, they were also loaded with studs, their quarterback was Joe Ferguson who was the second coming of Terry Bradshaw; from the same Shreveport High School as Bradshaw. At that time there were no limit on the number of scholarships a school could award and Arkansas had given scholarships to every starter on Ferguson's high school team in order to sign him.

 Building upon our momentum from Oklahoma and the rumor that one of the car dealers in Tulsa may be offering some of the more outstanding players some "really good" deals on new Pontiacs. We soundly beat Ferguson and all of his blue chip teammates. ferguson lived on to have many better days and for several years was the starting quarterback for the Buffalo Bills.

We went on to beat Wichita State of which a couple of years later would lose all of their team to a plane crash. We barely lost to a Junior College team Northeast Oklahoma State in Miami, Oklahoma. When the coaches had recruited us they had promised we would have a trip to Miami, and as God is my witness I did not know there was a Miami in Oklahoma, and that it was a damn long bus ride from Tulsa.

The strategy that had brought and bought this team together drew the attention of the NCAA, Tulsa, the School that I had contractually sold my body to, was suspended for the entire balance of my classes tenure there. Coach Carillot was forced to resign. I had blown out my shoulder and many of us were considering either pulling a "Tretter" or transferring to other schools.

Drew Pearson had been offered a scholarship to Marshall prior to Tulsa, he liked Huntington. We liked each other and seriously looked into transferring back there together. We didn't and the next Fall was the year of their tragic crash, so that decision was fortuitous.

So I transferred back to WVU where Bobby Bowden had just taken over for Jim Carlen. I had met with Coach Bowden and was considering sitting out the required year and playing for him after my shoulder healed. Bowden always referred to me as the "Oak Hill Flash" in reference to my lack of foot speed.
I tell folks that are not real familiar with the sport that if I had been one second faster in the 40 yard dash I could have been an All Pro. They find this small measure seemingly very close to greatness. I used the line once when introducing Larry Csonka, the former Miami Dolphin great at a banquet comparing my speed to his using this, Csonka saw no humor in the remark.

I had received a grant for my tuition, fees, and books. I got a work study job appropriate for a jock as a Librarian for the Physical Education Department, and a small academic scholarship in my field of advertising. So after a year of healing having a better "ride" than a "student athlete" being reunited with my high school sweetheart, I decided I had played major college football and it was time to move on forward never to don the pads again. But with these and many more great experiences and stories.

Several years later I overheard my mother telling a friend of hers about taking me to the airport that day in August. Unlike today, there was no security then and she described to her friend how she noticed after hugging her goodbye. when I walked through the chain link gate onto the tarmac to climb the steps used at that time she said "he never once looked back, not once"

Now some four decades later I am giving myself permission to do just that.

One CEO Under 30: Part II

January traditionally is the worst sales month in the radio business proved no different in 1980. When the month ended the total gross revenues for the Station were only about $3500. The monthly revenue shown on the financial statements prior to the purchase had sales in the $8,000 to $10,000 a month range, but it had taken the FCC about seven months to transfer the license of ownership to the station and in that time a new FM station had started to get traction in town. With a new Owner that was not going to retain him the motivation to sell ads for the Station's Commercial Manager and local legend George Eubank's was gone. So it was January, cold and gray, revenues were less than half of what I thought they would be, we had learned that our second child was on the way, we had no house in which to live and my dream business was basically the laughing stock of this community where I was an "Out of Towner" that had bit off more than he could chew.
Of the $3500 in billing almost half of it was from the Preachers that were on the air on the weekday mornings and in order to broaden the base of the audience I was going to have to take them off of the air. I met with each of them personally and offered them airtime on Sunday mornings where available or 60 second messages to run throughout the day. To a person each one turned down my offer and promised to let their flocks know what I was up to, that I was a disciple of the Devil,  and most likely would rot in hell for preempting them in order to play Satanic rock and roll music. (For the record all stations that I ever owned aired Robert Schuller's Hour of Power audio on Sundays at no charge to his ministry for years. We were the only radio stations in the Nation that carried the audio portion of his television ministry, this was sort of saw this as my Get Out of Hell Free Card)
The television show WKRP had come on the air a couple of years earlier, it was about a struggling but spunky ensemble of characters that were in the radio business getting no respect in Cincinnati. This light hearted effort at the radio business had glamorized and lent humor to what we were trying to accomplish, and anyone who has been in the radio business will confirm all of the craziness that was portrayed in the series were authentic to what happens inside a radio station. I took some solace that someday Radio WETZ could become that fun place to be, how I wasn't sure. In fact I didn't know how I was going to pay the electric bill what else write myself a paycheck. Also that year MTV had launched on cable television and the video they premiered with was the Buggles, "Video Killed the Radio Star" which more realistically seemed to define my predicament.
So I was running low on funds, and yet had to terminate the two original announcers, so as to hire real radio announcers that would cost me more money than I could afford. What else recruiting talent to come to work at an AM Daytime station in a West Virginia town of 7000 people, even if I had the money, it was not going to be an easy assignment. Also, somehow I had to convince the community that I knew what I was doing, no matter what they had heard from the Sunday morning pulpit.
I continued to be at the station every morning at 6 am when it signed on and to repaint, carpet, and throw out years of useless artifacts including 78 RPM records and stacks of 45's that were not even saleable at discount at the now defunct Pied Piper record store. Nothing was left unchanged. Commercials and Public Service Announcements at that time were individually recorded on plastic cartridges like the old 8 tracks. All of them at Radio WETZ were labeled with ragged hand written labels. I had them all color coded and labels typed, no exceptions. This seemed trivial, but I believe it is the small things that make the difference in excellence and mediocrity. This place had suffered from apathy and mediocrity for too long.
The building reeked of years of cigarette smoke and the dampness of being built on backfill of a dam construction site, the previous owner used to take delight in telling people it was "the best radio station in America by a dam site." If that were indeed the case, it was certainly the only one in America near a dam.
There was just something in my makeup that I take whatever business I am in personally and feel its image directly reflects on me. I was hellbent and determined to make this little radio station the best it could be and better than it needed to be. I had grown up in the 60's listening on my six transistor radio to WABC from New York, WLS from Chicago, and WOWO from Fort Wayne. I could see no reason that we could not strive to emulate the best. The reasons of course were that we were in a small town in West Virginia, had no money, and I had no radio experience. I should have been scared to death. As former WVU Coach Bobby Bowden once said about one of his football players, "he doesn't know the meaning of the word fear and I have seen his grades, he doesn't know the meaning of a lot of other words either" this was applicable to me.
Unbeknownst to me, Brent Walton the Sales Manager at one of the local car dealerships in town had been a popular on the air talent and music director at Top 40 radio stations in Altoona. PA and Wheeling, WV. Though there is rarely much money to be made in the radio business something about it gets in your blood. The automobile business was in one of its down cycles financially during the malaise of the Jimmy Carter era, so Brent could envision what I was trying to do and offered to work part time at the station doing the morning drive shift, picking the music that we would play, and use his contacts and experience to find other talent that would buy into the turn around. All for an amount of money that was more than I could afford but a bargain for his talent and experience. Buffalo Bill Robins was his on air moniker, "Robins in the Morning" was going to be our new morning shift, but we wanted to change the entire programming at the same time. Music, On Air Personalities, and jingles. The Region's best known fast talking and hip Disc Jockey was Uncle Dugger, who had worked in Altoona and Wheeling with Brent and most recently at Parkersburg, West Virginia's first FM Top 40 station WXIL. The Dugger had a reputation as a egomaniacal bad boy which was a plus for listener appeal, but an issue on top of all the others I had and that I could not afford, I didn't want to tackle another. The Dugger had left his job with WXIL for, shall we say, some mysterious artistic disagreements with management there and was willing to come back to work with Brent. Again for more than I could afford but reasonable for his talent. Brent had assured me that for all of his reputation that he really was a pussycat and would get on board with what we were attempting to achieve. Brent was right and Dugger was fun to work with and tease his fragile real life ego.
We had a first class morning jock in Bill Robins and the Regions most renowned and notorious DJ in the afternoon with the Lovable and Huggable Uncle Dugger. Brent was able to find a local young man who was trainable to handle mid days, Don Michaels, who wasn't a Star but ably bridged the two better know  guys and was ingrained to never "break" format by ever playing any record that was not pre selected and approved by Brent and me.
We learned of a local guy that had a graduate degree in Journalism, a good voice and wanted to be our News Director. Bill Abraham became our Les Nesmith and tended the old Associated Press teletype rewriting wire stories and delivering live local newscasts.
Brent knew of another local young man that had a great voice and a passion for radio that he mentioned to me. Brent said he may have one of the best "set of pipes"(radio jargon for voice) he had ever heard. There was just one problem, he had mic fright. In other words when he got near an open microphone he would freeze and was unable to say anything. Brent convinced me that he believed he could take him on as a project put him at ease in the studio. After weeks of practice and coaching George "Spike" Riel became "Spike at the Mic" and took over the weekend air chair along with Otis Bishop who was at that time the Regional Manager for Burger Chef restaurants. Otis lived in Columbus, Ohio and had his own radio studio in his home and would pre record his "Big O Show" for Sunday afternoon broadcasts.
We had a Magnolia High School Student who wanted a career in broadcasting who came on board to be a part time announcer and newscaster, Jim Forbes. We had two exceptionally bright and personable young women from the local high school working as interns, Santina Taylor and Bev Titus. With Brent's help we had created a little radio station that sounded as good if not better than any radio station in any size market.
We all had a common goal and worked long and hard to achieve it tending to every detail of how we were "sounding" no matter how long we had to be at the station or how many retakes it took to sound right. It did sound right, it sounded great and people started to take notice and turn us on and enjoy what they were hearing. We were all having a blast and felt great about what we had created.
With listeners and excitement, advertising sales began to grow. Two young guys from Washington, PA, Dick and Don Cameron had bought the local Coca Cola Bottling plant, they like me, were young, aggressive and wanting to build their Company. They supported us with heavy advertising and promotion schedules for all of their brands, it was an election year and Jay Rockefeller was spending a lot of money on radio. Otis helped us in placing large buys from Burger Chef. The local merchants had bought in and the mic frightened Spike Riel also developed into a productive salesman. By June of that year we were in the black financially and the programing was consistently sounding great.
The Little AM that Could, did. A small group of us had a common mission and passion. In a short amount of time we had completely turned around a radio station and it's community.
What a great feeling of satisfaction that is, and the experience of working with these people is unforgettable.
Now over 30 years ago and I think almost all of these people are still friends on my Facebook. Brent is now retired. I understand that Dugger just recently retired from radio and has been enshrined in the West Virginia Broadcasting Hall of Fame. Spike Riel is in Pittsburgh and has his own Ad Agency and Production Studio, is far from mic shy, doing voiceover work for National and local clients. Jim Forbes after college worked with me in another station in Myrtle Beach, SC and  now has his graduate degree and is a TV Anchor in Wheeling, WV. Santina earned a Bachelors and Masters from Marshall University and now a stalwart pillar of the New Martinsville Community. Bev is living in Georgia, and last report Bill Abraham was working for the Wetzel County Hospital in New Martinsville
Once this was accomplished and never being satisfied I acquired the FM station in town and later three other stations in West Virginia; our daily revenues were double what that January 1980 total was and for a time I was President of the West Virginia Broadcasters Association. But none of it was ever as rewarding or fun as that great adventure with a special group of people with something to prove. We proved it and I am proud to have been a part of a great team of exceptional folks and thank each of them for  playing a part of that dream.
It is the 21st Century now and technology has changed the playing field for us all. I am now undertaking a new venture that has different but difficult challenges, but because of what I lived with a little run down radio station on the banks of the Ohio River I know with the same determination, focus, and support of good people anything can be accomplished. Perhaps next year there will be a "60 Over 60" list that I can shoot for...

One CEO Under 30: Part I

I noticed online today an article "30 CEOs Under 30" which caused me to wax nostalgic as too these dot com Whippersnappers and reflect back on my life at that age.
January 1, 1980 I rolled out of bed at 4am to make a one hour drive to start a new chapter in my life, running a business that I owned. WETZ AM a 1,000 watt daytime only radio station in New Martinsville, West Virginia. I was 28 years old, my wife  was a school teacher, and we had a two year old son. I had walked away from a great management job that I had for six years, we had sold our house and drained our savings to buy the second radio station I had ever stepped foot into.
The first morning of a new decade was cold, but dry as I made the drive on WV Route 2 and Ohio Route 7 North along the banks of the Ohio River constantly adjusting the knob on the radio to try to get the very weak signal of Radio WETZ. Finally I was able to detect the scratchy audio of what was and continued to be the most popular program on the station "Swap and Shop" which was a live telephone call in show where local listeners called in with items they had to sell or trade. When the signal finally cleared which was not much further than the shadow of the tower, a caller from Clarington, Ohio called and offered to sell a goat for the best offer, he explained the goat was blind and only had three legs. I was in the broadcasting business, a communications mogul. I wondered if Ted Turner had goat issues when he started.
This did not deter nor discourage me as I walked into the little flat topped house that station was located, these little stations were built like houses in the 1950's, so if the whole radio fad didn't pan out the owner would still have a house that would have some value.
The Seller and the only previous operator of the Station was a man by the name of Harry Bright. Harry had been with the RCA Blue Network(predecessor of NBC) in the 40's and was able to purchase WETZ in the early part of the 50's from the fellow that had put it on the air. Harry was indeed a unique character and much could be said about him, but he spent some of the money I had given to publish a an autobiography entitled "I lived on Air" which is much kinder than I could be.
Progressive would not be a word that described Harry and the block programming on the station had not changed in the nearly 30 years he had operated. Block programming was the practice of having a diverse type of broadcasts during the broadcast day. In this case you had country music in the mornings that "bookended" the popular Swap and Shop, then at 9am the programming switched to paid religion and a thrice weekly show that was live and hosted by the Station's Community Service Director and Sales Manager Imogene Kuhn. Local politicians, and civic leaders like the local farm agent were the usual guests, unfortunately about half the time the guests would be a no show, and we had 15 minutes of Imogene filling time with what she called Potpourri, which consisted of what ever she found interesting in that days newspaper. Religion then continued to 2 pm when another announcer took over to play rock and roll music on the Pied Piper Show targeted to the students leaving school. Bright had called it the Pied Piper Show so that there would be no announcer identified with the daypart in case he had to replace him for playing a song to wild for Harry's conservative taste or should the announcer leave for a career change that might pay him more than the minimum wage. It was also not a coincidence that Harry had had a record store in town called the Pied Piper where he mostly sold promotional records that had been sent to the station and clearly marked on the label "Not for Sale"
Stay tuned...