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Jocks who made it to major markets from WB/Scranton?

masterg said:
Jim Gannon? Man, does anyone know where Jim is? I've asked before, seemingly no on knows.
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Last I heard of Jim and this was back in 1999, he was working as the evening receptionist at the telemarketing place in the old Scranton Dry building. He tried the telemarketing for a while, but it got to him and he asked for a transfer to receptionist. Who can blame him? I don't know what happened to him after that closed.
 
Not that I'm counting or that it matters really, but there are like, eighty replies to this particular thread and about a dozen of them actually address "jocks who made it to major markets". with even the definition of "major" markets up for grabs. As Sammy Davis Junior used to say, "Peace and love and togetherness and I mean that" and all, but what do you say?
 
Nokmo True said:
"Peace and love and togetherness and I mean that" and all, but what do you say?
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I don't know about you but I sure could go for a slice of cold pizza right about now... ;)

EN
 
Hey! I'm one of those WB/Scranton originals who made it to the bigs, but I got something to add to this this discussion about 'BAX. (Nokmo, I hope you don't mind.)

Yonkstur jogged my memory good about Dick Booth and Dave Donlin. I got my professional start at 'BAX. Dave Kush, the news director, hired me to work part time 5 mornings a week - ostensibly to be the sports announcer, but in reality Kush wanted me to be his helper doing news. That was fine with me because news was really my main interest at the time. Truth be told I didn't know dada about sports, and when I got hired I got a few sports encyclopedias and started cramming like mad.

Mostly I was rippin' and readin' sports during the morning show, so my sports knowledge shortcomings weren't too obvious until one morning when I went into the studio missing my copy on the top story (I suffer from practically terminal disorganization). There wasn't any time to run out and get it, but I figured I could wing it -- I had been following the story a while. I was doing fine until I suddenly couldn't remember the names of the three baseball free-agents who the story was about (nobody big: Reggie Jackson, Rollie Fingers, and Andy Messersmith).

I hemmed and hawwed my way through the story. Dave Donlin, who was a sports nut, heard the whole gawd-awful thing and decided he wanted my head on a platter for that. Donlin wasn't GM at the time but made a pretty big stink about it. Kush ran interference for me, but about a month later when Donlin succeeded Booth as GM my fate was pretty much sealed.

Fortunately, I had also been working as weekend DJ, so when a new nighttime DJ was hired from WACM, I went there and took his spot.

When Donlin took over as GM, he proceeded to overturn the format and clean house. Just about everyone was gone in very short order. But you know what they say about paybacks - well, I got mine two years later. By then I was the top-rated morning jock at WOND in Atlantic City, where we had a GM vacancy. One day the owner was giving a tour of the station to none other than Dave Donlin. I acted like we were the best of friends, glad-handing him, bringing up names of people we knew - asking how they were, etc.

After Donlin left, Howard Green, the station owner, calls me down to his office to ask about Donlin. I didn't say anything that wasn't true - but I was none too complimentary.

I don't know if that cost him the job, but he wasn't hired - and I like to think it was on my say-so.

But Donlin was typical of the guys that paraded into and out of the general manager's office at BAX in those days -- wanting to turned everything upside down and reinvent the wheel. That - as much as BAX's poor nighttime signal - probably accounts for their poor showing in those days. (I loved the old SuperBAX bumper stickers. I'm not sure, but I may still have one!)

Oh, and a correction from an earlier post: Bob Wollensek went by the name "Brian" Wilensky, not "Bob."
 
AMMcKenna said:
Dave Donlin used to love to go across the street to Long John Silvers for his fish dinner. Seems he spend more time at Long John's than at BAX. His famous saying was "Lets' go get some fish." Another loser in the long line of BAX GMs.
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Warmland, you know a little bit about the 'BAX GMs from the mid-70's. I was there at the time -- were you?
 
I always wanted to hear more about WBAX. At one time, it had a strong air staff and news department, but it was overshadowed by bigger rivals WARM and WILK.
 
I am also a former WDLSer myself.I went by the name of Bob Martin.I was on weekends and eventually evenings .
 
NigelWick said:
I always wanted to hear more about WBAX. At one time, it had a strong air staff and news department, but it was overshadowed by bigger rivals WARM and WILK.
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Circa 1973, WBAX billed itself as The Big X. I don't think that(outside of me bringing it up)anyone here has ever mentioned the Big X days. My memory gets a little fuzzy here, but I recall Big X News, Big X jingles and sweepers, etc. I also recall them airing The Stoned Ranger, which was sort of a drug culture Chickenman. It was a hard-driving format fashioned after, IMO, the Boss push of that era. Was it any good? As I remember it, yeah, it was pretty darned good. So much so, in fact, that a bunch of us working in a factory in Scranton at the time kept Big X locked on our nifty AM radio all the time. And I have said before that WARM looked at WBAX as at least a potential threat for a time in the mid 70s, because they lured away two WBAX jocks. WARM wasn't big on romancing other stations talent, so if they came looking to talk to you, you could figure you must be doing them at least some damage. Some names from those days at WBAX ring a bell, others do not.
 
masterg said:
NigelWick said:
I always wanted to hear more about WBAX. At one time, it had a strong air staff and news department, but it was overshadowed by bigger rivals WARM and WILK.
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And I have said before that WARM looked at WBAX as at least a potential threat for a time in the mid 70s, because they lured away two WBAX jocks.
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Hi Masterg,
Who were the 2 jocks? Jim Gannon a/k/a Dale Denver was one. Can't remember the other.
Rick Walker was working at McDonalds after BAX before going to WARM for a short time as Don Delvecco (Spelling?). Chris Starr, later Chris O'Brien worked at BAX, but didn't arrive at WARM until the early 80s.
 
Circa 1973, WBAX billed itself as The Big X. I don't think that(outside of me bringing it up)anyone here has ever mentioned the Big X days.
The Big X started shortly after the flood in 1972. Oldies type format with heavy top 40 thrown in as I remember, , Big X news, and they had these BIG X survey sheets that looked like the old WFIL FAmous 56 sheetrs.

Here are some of the jocks I remember:

Johnny Margas mornings until he got killed in an auto accident in 1973,
Sam Laqouri mid days,
Scotty Young in the afternoons,
Bill Stewart, from, WSCR and WARM I believe either did drive time or mornings,
Ron Berry who started out in the day but then wound up doing overnights. He had a signature call with a seaman's whistle, "Call for Ron Beeeerrrryyyyyeee"!

Now this was late 72, 73 and possibly early 74. Lost track of them until I arrived there in Jan. of 76 on an internship. By that time, all of those jocks were gone (Sam went to WARD in 1975 with Jim Ward) and Scotty and Stewart moved back north I think. Dick Booth was the GM and a whole new crew was there. The only surviving member as I recall was a bookkeeper named Mabel.

That's all I got on WBAX.

Yonkstur
 
Sorry to continue the off topic discussion, but...

Scotty Young and Bill Stewart bought the 95.9 frequency in Benton and ran it as WKXP in the early 90s (93-97) until they just couldn't keep it afloat and sold the stick to Froggy 101. Bill was doing part-time production work around Scranton for a few years, but I think he's retired now. Scotty passed away a few years back, I believe in 2002.

I worked for them for almost the entire run of WKXP and they are/were great guys. Bill had a fantastic mind for production, as our liners and sweepers were way beyond what you would expect from a Benton station. And Scotty had one of "those voices" that just screamed radio (when he was on the air - off air he was pretty quiet and reserved).
 
Johnny Margas, I seem to recall, was related to Harry West by marriage. It's an odd bit of trivia, but one that just came to mind. I think Margas was maybe even Harry's brother-in-law at one time.

Scotty Young also owned Skateaway, the one on Taylor Hill. For the life of me, I cannot remember his given name.

Bill Stewart, however, was Bill Stutzman, and like several other jocks in this area, made the move from Williamsport to here. Both Young and Stewart were very closely idenitifed with WSCR for years. Paul Ciotta, I believe, worked awhile at WBRE as a weekend assignment editor.

Now, as to Rick Walker; it was always my impression that he made the move from WBAX to WARM, where he did indeed become Don Delvecchio. I never knew he worked at McDonalds in between. Doesn't that speak volumes about this business? Anyway, Ron Berry doesn't even ring a distant bell with me, but Jim Bryant does.

Whenever we get reminiscing, the one thing that jumps right out at me is the number of jobs that once existed in radio. All of those jobs are now gone forever.
 
Joe said:
Masterg, Scotty's real name was Fred Dieter.
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Thank you, sir! You've brought to mind that he was Fred Dieter Jr. His Dad was an officer of Penn Security Bank in Scranton, and whenever I dealt with him we'd talk about Scotty. His father was a really nice man, as was Scotty.
 
Scotty Young and Bill Stewart bought the 95.9 frequency in Benton and ran it as WKXP in the early 90s (93-97) until they just couldn't keep it afloat and sold the stick to Froggy 101.

Right, and didn't Harry do mornings there for a time before Froggy bought it?

Yonkstur
 
I think Margas was maybe even Harry's brother-in-law at one time.

Yes. Correct. Margas's wife and Harry's wife at the time, Audrey, were sisters.

Yonkstur
 
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