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1380 WTOB & Dick Bennick Introduced rock and roll to the Piedmont

It was so funny when Spooner left WTOB and John Woods to do mornings on WAIR and tried to give away his stock in Woods Communictions on the air! That was great radio!
 
;D I also did the "Beloved WTOB" from 1972-1975. Did engineering (no remote control at that time) Weekends on the air and swing shifts. Transmitters and antenna array were off Polo Road and of course the studios were still in Town Steak House. It was also the National Headquarters for Southern Broadcasting which owned Channel 8, KOY WSGN, WKIX, A station in Tampa St. Pete, whose calls escape me and several other stations. Southern had their corporate offices in the left side of the upstairs steakhouse and the studios. were on the right. Mike Ludgate was GM.

Best I can remember at the time Bill Cox did mornings, Bob Lackey (Bob Dale) middays, Tommy Walker 1-4, Good Buddy Bob Langdon, Afternoon Drive Scott Shannon, nights and overnights escapes me.

The station was sold to John Woods who drove it immediately into the ground. This guy was so hung up on saving a nickle, he had us take some of the run lights out of the cart machines.

Walker was PD and had it in his head he wanted to bring Russ Spooner (74) back from Nashville. Woods wanted no part of it because it cost more money. They finally struck a deal with Woods agreeing after Walker gave up the Weather Wire to pay .Spooner, Spooner cut a deal with the late Dick Chappel of Colony Dodge to let him drive a new Red Charger. Well, a morning didn't go by that the Winston Salem Police didn't chase Spooner into the parking lot.

I used to love to be the one to take the school children on tours through the building and tell the story of the building being built as the Reynolds family's Summer Home back in the 50's. There also was a large pipe organ in the attic of the building that was still there when I left. It had been built into the attic and couldn't be removed.

That's just a few of the fond recollections I have from working at one of the Triads foremost radio stations and I 'm proud to say that I was one of the "WTOB GOOD GUYS" ::) ;D
 
;D You know I still have a lot of that stock, Woods issued to all ou employees for $1.00 a share. I should have known better, but Walker and Ludgate got stung worse than me.

I neglected to mention Wayne Ashworth was News Director, left to go to WXII and Bill McQuage stepped in..Smith Patterson did afternoons! Great memories!
 
Wow! So the Big Ape has quite a past! :D I'm getting nostalgic reading this thread and I don't even know most of these people. I can only imagine how many great memories you guys must have.
 
BIG APE said:
;I used to love to be the one to take the school children on tours through the building and tell the story of the building being built as the Reynolds family's Summer Home back in the 50's. There also was a large pipe organ in the attic of the building that was still there when I left. It had been built into the attic and couldn't be removed.

That's just a few of the fond recollections I have from working at one of the Triads foremost radio stations and I 'm proud to say that I was one of the "WTOB GOOD GUYS" ::) ;D

Don't forget that there was a television studio in there, too (in the 60s)...because there used to be WTOB-TV, a UHF station. And when WGHP signed on in the early 60's, they did a B&W newscast from the Towne Steakhouse building!
 
Leave it to Stu Epperson to leave all that class and history behind, and move WTOB into some office park with half a dozen other stations.

Later....
Matt Smith
WGSR-TV
 
These great memories motivated me to start a website (certainly not the first), called "Top 40 Radio Retrospective." You can find it at http://www.squidoo.com/musicradio/. I hope you get a chance to visit and tell me what you think...and what I should add to it.

BarneyPip, aka Bruce Cole aka Bruce Summers, now Bruce Carson at WRIT and WQBW Milwaukee (I change names like underwear -- about once every 12 years ;)).
 
I was planning to convert an old aircheck of WTOB from the 60's to digital, but never did and now that aircheck is gone. Fortunately I did convert part of an old WKZL aircheck made almost 24 years ago.

I looked on the aircheck board to see what they use to host files and found these. I would love to hear some of those great memories. WTOB-TV 26 is still around as WUNL-TV 26 PBS.

http://www.4shared.com/
http://www.box.net
 
Just thinking about some of the other folks who were at WTOB back in it's glory days. People like Steve Roddy (Ken Lowe), Mitch Russell, Gene Taylor (Gene Oklerland of WWE fame), Buddy Latham, Randy Wolf and Keith Young in news, Richard Watts, Smitty Marshal, and engineers Ray Vogler and Frank Brewer. How many of you remember "Willie and the Goodwill Box"? Anyone who calls Winston-Salem home will remember that every year at this time there would be hundreds of Christmas Lights on that old WTOB TV tower at Thruway, as much a part of the season as the green and red lights on The Reynolds Building!
 
:p What's the History of what became of John and Kaye Woods. I returned to Florida after 1974 and I never heard what happened to TOB after that? Did Woods sell, go broke or did Kaye Kill Him. He laso at that time owned WSSB in Durham and WRUN-AM and FM in Uterus ah! Utica NY..Anyone know the story, I'd love to hear it. Rekon, I can get some of my money back??
 
It is great to hear WTOB am 1380 back playing the old original jingles and many great oldies. I found their new website at www.wtob1380.com streaming live.
 
Bigdaddybringiton said:
It is great to hear WTOB am 1380 back playing the old original jingles and many great oldies. I found their new website at www.wtob1380.com streaming live.

Little self-promotion? No problem..I'd promote Too! ;D ;D ;D
 
I worked at WTOB when John Woods owned it; it was during the period
when they were doing Music of Your Life, and talk about a tough sell to
advertisers! I remember reading in Broadcasting magazine that he bought
the station for $1.25 million and sold it for $250,000 (that might be a typo,
but that's what it said). He also once told me he changed the format of his
station in Durham because "[he] didn't like soul music."

Don't know if he's still alive; he'd be well into his 80s now.

As for WTOB-TV, that was the first ABC affiliate in the Triad, but its reach
was apparently pretty weak because WFMY carried some of the same ABC
shows ("Mickey Mouse Club," Lawrence Welk, "Ozzie And Harriet"); I think
WTOB/26 signed off around 1958, about the time WNAO in Raleigh (CBS) did.
The Triad didn't get another fulltime ABC affiliate until WGHP in 1963, and,
ironically, all three stations (WTOB-AM, WTOB-TV, and WGHP) had the same
ownership.
 
That's about right for Woods and no he is not alive.
Southern Broadcasting wanted Channel 12 and couldn't get it so they got Channel 8 instead.

Back on John Woods, he was a friendly guy, but knew nothing about radio.. He also Ran and "Run" (pun intended) WRUN-AM-FM in Utica, NY in the ground!
 
It is WDUR....known then as WSSB or "Wisbee" to the locals. I worked there shortly after Woods sold it, and it looked like a wreck. It's the first station I've ever seen where one whole wall of the studio/control room was actually the transmitter...you couldn't get it quiet in there beyond a moderate roar if you tried. The folks that bought it from Woods were little better than him...they automated the place and went TM Soft Rock (on an AM nonetheless) for about two years before turning it urban and knocking the socks off of WSRC (now WRJD and hispanic religious).

Anyone know what WDUR is doing now? Last I heard they were off the air after failing at some hispanic format.

Later . . . .
 
WDUR is still silent. Has been for months since that sale from the Zarzour family to Prieto defaulted, before which they were simulcasting WETC 540 Wendell-Zebulon.

I worked at WRJD in its last year as black gospel (2011), and though I'd remembered hearing about a Woods involved with that station in its early WSRC days.
 
Bigdaddybringiton said:
It is great to hear WTOB am 1380 back playing the old original jingles and many great oldies. I found their new website at www.wtob1380.com streaming live.

Imagine you would say this, since you are the operator of the station.. Gee Whiz, you found it on the internet.. Guess so! ::) ;D
 
No sir, I am not the operator of the station, Jerry Holt is. I am another "Big Daddy"-LOL!
 
My recollection of Dick Bennick was that he was sometimes a little late in turning on his microphone and we used to call his program the "Ick Bennick Show"... My first job in radio was playing religious tapes Sunday mornings on WAIR. I hardly ever got to say anything unless the jock scheduled for noon showed up late - which they often did after a long Saturday night. Since I didn't offend Nick Patella too much I got to do a few Sunday afternoon shows and one day got a call on the hotline from Willie Edwards! He wanted me to come over to talk with Wayne Ashworth at WTOB and I got hired to do 20-20 News on weekends... in between newscasts I'd wander the Thruway Shopping Center with a cassette recorder and get people's answers to some question about current events. I'd edit their answers and cart that up for use on the following Monday. When I got through with that, I'd be dispatched in the WTOB news mobile to pick up Willie's lunch from Mr. Bar-B-Que on Corporation Parkway... ahh memories of my start in radio. It was a lot like the WKRP tv show. No turkeys dropped in the parking lot but they did bring the Flying Dutchman to town in a helicopter that landed in the Thruway parking lot... I wish I could find my photo of Glenn Scott with 45rpm records hanging on this ears. Glen said "He had an ear for music"...
 
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