RIP John Anthony Piccirillo WALY

[clangham]

Altoona Mirror reports of his passing away on Monday;

http://altoonamirror.com/page/content.detail/id/548236/John-Anthony-Piccirillo.html?nav=743

 

[GMV]

John's first gig in the Altoona market was at WFBG. He was named Program Director when I was there after my return from Armed Forces Radio Vietnam in the late 60's.
Don Fox

 

[stevewillett]

I was doing mornings at WALY with Debbie Hoy when he bought the station. He had a million ideas for what he wanted to do with the station. When he eventually took over it was like a freight train that you couldn't get off. He was committed to doing radio that was fun to listen to and obviously make headlines. WALYLand! Our Soccor Mom March on Altoona City Hall! I remember one morning at the WALYLand studios I was doing a morning show feature called "The Morning Monster Oldie". Most of the time it was vinyl out of my collection. The floors upstairs were like a trampoline. Piccirrillo often came into the studio during the morning show. But this time he came in while I was doing that feature and I felt him marching in as the tone arm was now bouncing all over the record live on-the-air. I'm sure we blamed him for it on-the-air as he just loved the attention. Those were some fun times in radio. An era of the small town owner doing anything he wanted with his radio stations. But he was very generous. He paid his talent well for Altoona standards. I started my 20 year long morning radio career at WALY and I know Piccirillo had many sleepless nights wondering what I would do next on the morning show! A couple of times I had to abort some stunts midway through. Ah yes! To be young and stupid in radio at a station that gave you the freedom to at least try before you got yelled at! R.I.P. Yupo! You gave us some great memories.

 

[GMV]

I remember that John would often get "wrong number" calls at home--calls meant for someone else named Piccirillo, a man who ran a shoe repair shop in Hollidaysburg. After awhile he got tired of the interruptions, so rather than explaining over and over that he was not THAT Piccirillo, he simply took to telling the the callers that their shoes would be "ready a week from Thursday"!

 

[wiifm]

John scared the hell out of me, quite honestly. To a 19-year-old part-timer, he was an intimidating figure. But there was no question the man knew radio, and lived and died with that station.

 

[fryman]

You were scared?! I remember the time he got angry with Mike Culligan or Cullihan or whatever he was calling himself...Mike was a sales rep and John picked up a typewriter and threw it at him. Thank goodness that was in the days before computers/screen monitors.