590 MIGHTY MEMORY #455

PHOTO INDEX: ME IN THE WARM STUDIO IN JUNE OF 1995. EXCEPT THAT IT WAS WKQV FM AND AM. (FORMERLY WARD AM).

THE SHADOWS OF GREATNESS

I never got to broadcast from the WARM Studios in the old WARM building in Avoca when WARM was king. I did an audition tape in a production room for Joey Shaver when I was entering Career Academy of Broadcasting. I remember the playback as the reel wound round and round and the look of unmitigated pride on my father’s face.
That summer of ’72 I wound up in Washington, D.C. and lived on Wisconsin Avenue in the Northeast end of the city. I stayed at a place called McLean Gardens which was then on its way to being a bonafide dump. I had one room with a bed, sink, and closet. There was a shared bathroom down the hall with the other tenants.
When I came back from D.C. I did become a radio guy making stops along the way. I interned at WARM in 1976 working in the News Department with Jerry Heller, Kevin Jordan and Kitch Loftus. I also did a week in the sales department riding with Joey Shaver, the late Tim Durkin, Phil Condron and a really cool guy named Marty whose last name I cannot remember.
WARM became part of my professional career when I worked in public relations for Youth Inc., the United Way and Luzerne County. I always tried to find a WARM angle, always tried to use the power of WARM.
When the station moved to 600 Baltimore Drive in 1995, I did get to work in the WARM Building for WARD/WKQVFM. The FM studio was the old WARM control room. The AM station, WARD was where I worked being a board man for Nascar Races as well as the Sunday Morning Polka Show filling in for Bruce Kreiger. I was on the air in June of 1996 when WARD’s signal was transferred to Susquehanna Broadcasting.
The night before the station was going to be switched over, I had my wife take pictures of me in the WARM control room. I just wanted one seat behind the board that the WARM Sensational Seven worked. The controls that Harry West and Len Woloson used. My wife laughed as she took the picture. I asked her what the deal was and she said, “You’ll see when you get them back from Phar Mor. (A drug store we got our photos developed back then). When I got the photo, I knew what she meant. I had this saintly look on my face. I was a pretender to the throne of greatness. I was sitting in the shadows of greatness. But I didn’t care because I was loving it. I never got to broadcast from WARM when it was the Mighty 590, but the night before as the station simulcast a long gone sports network, I was riding those slide pods. It would have been near perfect if only I had supersonic sound.