I got my start in radio there in May 1979. I was hired, having no experience, but possessing a third-class radio telephone license with broadcast endorsement. I may have been one of the last to receive one of those. The shift I was hired for was Saturday Noon to sign-off !! For a format that played songs that averaged 3:00 or less in those days with no automation and all music on 45s, that was one long-ass shift. My shift started off with a 2-hour live over-the-phone show(yes dial-up) with Shorty and Dolly Long live from Ontelaunee Park. I remember Pat Garrett (WWSM) making appearances on the show. Ray Dotter was the station manager who hired me and soon after left to work for the state. Larry Flood was sign-on to noon, Ken Lightner was noon-5 and a real weird guy named Tom Edwards worked 5 to sign-off. When he was fired, I got the 5 to sign-off shift plus hours to clean the station and mow the lawn. When Larry Flood left, Ken moved to mornings and Brian Albert from WAHT was hired for noon-5. Here's my signature WVLV story: one Saturday afternoon, a "B" level country act, Freddie Weller ("Bar Wars") was in town for the Sheafferstown Carnival. They brought him into the station and I got to interview him, even though I knew absolutely nothing about him or country music general. Nice guy as I recall. After his entourage left, I had neglected to lock up. I walked out to the lobby during a song and standing there was a raggedly dressed, dirty, pregnant woman who smelled to high heaven! The thought of it still makes me gag. I asked her why she was here and a she spoke as if she looked right through me. She wanted to used our production to studio to record her songs so she could be a country star like Loretta Lynn. I was a nervous, young, inexperienced jock and had to constantly run to the studio to tend to those 3 minute songs and then return to the lobby to deal with this woman. I looked out the window and there was a rust bucket of a car in the lot. Throughout the conversation I pieced that she was in her mid 20s and her old man (in his 50s) had abused her, knocked her up and then left. From what I could make out, she saw I saw she had left and then I quickly locked up, still quite shaken. Boy, we seemed to have a lot of listeners like here who would call to hear "Teddy Bear" by Red Sovine, "Teddy Bear's last Ride", all the CB songs of the time like "The White Knight", "Convoy" and "CB Savage". Plus, my favorite tear-jerker called "Thanks For The Ride Home". I don't remember who recorded it, but here's the gist: An old man walks out in front of a car, gets hit and dies. Pinned to his jacket is a note that he writes how great his life was and how now it sucks. He wants to die and ends the song with a "Thanks For The Ride Home" for the guy who hit him. Awful!!! By the way when it was BMI logging time, all the "local artists" such Shorty & Dolly and Al Shade would play nothing but the songs they had written on their shows. Don't think that was supposed to happen. After Ray Dotter quit, we had no station manager, so Art Greiner would come from Shippensburg about once a week in his logo-ed AMC Pacer (party on, Garth). You knew when Art was in town, 'cause the Pace was parked in front of the adult bookstore on 422. Sometimes he would stand in the transmitter room behind the control room and fiddle with the BL40 Modulimiter, motion you to constantly turn your pot up, then down, then up again. I was working on July 4th that year and was surprised to find Art at the station with his family. Shortly after they left, he soon returned, running into the studio, wanting me to pot down the song on the air and break in with the news of a "fender-bender" he happened to witness. I Left in August after only three months for college and because during my stay at WVLV I got a job at a "real" FM Top 40 station, returning only once to board-op a football game. For such a sort tenure, I have a lot of memories.
