WHUD's Gary Z Passes

[rickkelly]

Gary Zoehfeld passed away today, after a 2 1/2 battle with lung cancer.

Gary was best known for the work he did at the Albany and Hudson Valley markets following stations:

WKNY
WHUC
WSNY
WTRY
WOKO
WPTR
WFLY
WAQY
WSPR
WDRC
WHUD
and WDST.

He jocked under the following names:

Gary Mitchell
Jim O'Brian
Lee Hamilton
Gary Hamilton
Gary Z

There's probably others that I've forgotten.

He resided in West Hurley NY for much of his life, and grew up on Long Island as a youngster.

He was in fairly good health for much of the time during his battle with cancer. He worked,
participated in church and community activities, and maintained his legendary good appetite for much of his
illness.

Gary never married, but leaves many friends and family. A memorial service is tentatively planned for
Saturday January 19.

-Rick Kelly

 

[marshall miles]

I am so sorry to hear of Gary's passing. I first met Gary while working overnights at WKNY in Kingston, NY. I can tell you we spent MANY crazy, fun, insane hours after getting off the air. As a matter of fact, a couple of the sadventures that pop into my mind: when Gary had a "bluebox" to make "free" telephone calls..and his famous radio studio, with weather ballon rising from nowhere to broadcast!

A great set of pipes, a fantastic imagination, terriffic work ethic..he will be missed.

Rest in peace Gary..

Marshall Miles

 

[Roger]

That is so sad.

 

[4dude]

Very sad indeed...........

 

[froggiesmother]

I'm so saddened to hear Gary passed away...For anyone who had the pleasure to know him, work with him, listen to him, you would know what a genuinely sweet, good hearted person he was. Always smiling, good natured, not an evil bone in his body. He could talk for an hour about a tube in an old radio he picked up at a flea market, and have such passion about it that he could keep your undivided interest. I hope the good Lord gives you a morning drive shift up there Gary! Heaven's a better place today with you there.

 

[talkjim]

Gary was a gem of a human being, and I'm really going to miss him. There is so much of a positive nature that could be said about Gary, but I'll mention a couple of particular notables.

In an ego-ridden business, Gary was almost entirely ego-less, in a positive way. He was always focused on the particular project he was working on, rather than on any benefit that he might gain. Gary also had the capacity to truly enjoy the success of others--he would get very enthusiastic about a promotion or a career move for someone with whom he worked or knew.

Gary also had a kind of beautiful innocence about him--he really couldn't understand the negativity and petty rivalries that often corrupt the business--he didn't engage in that stuff and I don't think he could ever grasp why anyone else would.

I'll never forget a certain night in Albany in 1979--we were employed by different stations in the market but they weren't really rivals and Gary and I had started to become pretty good friends. My car crapped out one night, as we were running around town, and I remember that in order to fix it, a rather rare, hard-to-find part would be required. I suggested that I just park the car on the side of a street, lock it up, and deal with it the next day, but Gary, for reasons unknown to all but God, was determined to fix my car--I think part of it was that he knew I was working morning drive and he didn't want to see me without a car early in the morning. He personally ran down the part at a junkyard, engaged in a rather lengthy late-evening repair process in the dark, but when all was said and done--you can already guess the rest--he fixed my car.

May God bless Gary and bless us all.

 

[jfc]

i to was sad to hear of gary's passing after valent battle w/cancer.i first worked w/gary at whvw when marshall miles brought him on board in 1985.the guy could do it all,on air ,great production and engineering.
the only guy i knew who had librance music to play when he past on.
he would spend all weekend at hv doing sat/sunday mornings then tinkering w/everything at the station.one time he went down to the hv dog house to get the tower light to blink in the middle of the winter.at the time pdh became the home of rock-n-roll he named hv the home of benny goodman(hv was big band/standards then).spliced jingles together and did the voice work over them.i was 25 and doing mornings and he taught me so much about radio and always w/that smile.and he loved food and coffee too!
years later we would meet up at dst and our radio friendship would pickup again,comming in on weekends and sitting w/me and talking what else radio.
i last saw gary this past summer at dst just a couple of months after lossing my older sister to cancer.i could tell the out look was not good but it wasn't getting him down he was putting up a fight.
like gary i could go on all night talking about him.the hv radio community has lost a good man.god speed my friend and rest in peace.

 

[Time Traveler]

I remember listening to "Gary Mitchell" on "The Big 92" WFLY back in 1971. He was the evening jock there.

 

[dmargalotti]

Wow...I'm shocked and saddened to learn of Gary's passing. My first job in radio was at WHVW beginning in August of 1986. Gary was the mid-day host and production director. I had the pleasure of working w/ him until he left to take a job at WHUD (they were still beautiful music at the time, Music from the Terrace). I remember being totally amazed at the smoothness of Gary's delivery on air, his brilliance and creativity in production...but most importantly, his gentle and kind demeanor. I learned a lot from Gary and I'm grateful for having had the chance to work with him. Perhaps my favorite memory of Gary was how he would always hum along with the bulk eraser when erasing carts...and in perfect harmony!

Rest in peace Gary and may the Lord be with you, your family, and friends.

 

[rickkelly]

I remember listening to "Gary Mitchell" on "The Big 92" WFLY back in 1971. He was the evening jock there.

Different Gary Mitchell. The WFLY Gary Mitchell is now with broadcasting transmitter company Nautel.

-Rick Kelly

 

[George Evans]

Hi all...

Just joined the board after a colleague told me about Gary's passing.

I worked with him briefly while doing some fill work at WHUD back in the early 90's.

Some things I remember about Gary will be the stories he told, his great laugh, his presentation on the air and, please excuse me if this sounds odd, the way he'd cup his hand over his coffee and breathe in the warm steam. Sounds strange to write it but it's just something that stands out in my mind.

Rest In Peace Gary.

George Evans
Director of Technical Operations/Fill-in Host
WFUV, NYC

 

[lilj]

i to was sad to hear of gary's passing after valent battle w/cancer.i first worked w/gary at whvw when marshall miles brought him on board in 1985.the guy could do it all,on air ,great production and engineering.
the only guy i knew who had librance music to play when he past on.
he would spend all weekend at hv doing sat/sunday mornings then tinkering w/everything at the station.one time he went down to the hv dog house to get the tower light to blink in the middle of the winter.at the time pdh became the home of rock-n-roll he named hv the home of benny goodman(hv was big band/standards then).spliced jingles together and did the voice work over them.i was 25 and doing mornings and he taught me so much about radio and always w/that smile.and he loved food and coffee too!
years later we would meet up at dst and our radio friendship would pickup again,comming in on weekends and sitting w/me and talking what else radio.
i last saw gary this past summer at dst just a couple of months after lossing my older sister to cancer.i could tell the out look was not good but it wasn't getting him down he was putting up a fight.
like gary i could go on all night talking about him.the hv radio community has lost a good man.god speed my friend and rest in peace.

 

[lilj]

i to was sad to hear of gary's passing after valent battle w/cancer.i first worked w/gary at whvw when marshall miles brought him on board in 1985.the guy could do it all,on air ,great production and engineering.
the only guy i knew who had librance music to play when he past on.
he would spend all weekend at hv doing sat/sunday mornings then tinkering w/everything at the station.one time he went down to the hv dog house to get the tower light to blink in the middle of the winter.at the time pdh became the home of rock-n-roll he named hv the home of benny goodman(hv was big band/standards then).spliced jingles together and did the voice work over them.i was 25 and doing mornings and he taught me so much about radio and always w/that smile.and he loved food and coffee too!
years later we would meet up at dst and our radio friendship would pickup again,comming in on weekends and sitting w/me and talking what else radio.
i last saw gary this past summer at dst just a couple of months after lossing my older sister to cancer.i could tell the out look was not good but it wasn't getting him down he was putting up a fight.
like gary i could go on all night talking about him.the hv radio community has lost a good man.god speed my friend and rest in peace.

like jfc i also worked with Gary Z at WHVW back in the day i also was sad to hear of his passing .

my best memory of Gary was that he would love to get a hold of all this old radio equipment , restore and use it on the audio chain there . one thing he had in particular was an old RCA tube audio compression unit that he picked up somewhere, he fixed it up and wired it into our production room, and because of that we probably had the ballsiest sounding production to come out of any of of the Am'ers in the Hudson valley at the time,, i also remember his love of Bing Crosby music, somewhere in my collection is an old reel to reel tape of all the original Decca 78 RPM's that he had of "der Bingle"" God rest your soul Z" man you will be missed *** THE KNOME ***

 

[Ken Barlow]

Gary was a true radio geek...and I mean that in the best way possible. I met him through Rick Kelly and he was just one of those guys who'd almost live at the radio station. He followed me for awhile on WPTR from 12M-6am. I loved the way he pronounced his air-name...Lee Hamilton" because he kinda curled his tongue around it. I would always intro him by saying..."coming up next Lee Hamilton will ...say his name"! He's always look at me funny then say to Rick kelly later on..."what does he mean by that"?

A true radio guy.

 

[Cary Pall]

It's been a week since Gary's memorial service and I am just now able to write about things.

Gary was one of my first radio friends. When I was going to college, I was in classes with Rick Kelly, and, through him I met Gary, who was known then as Gary Mitchell. He worked at WHUC at the time. Gary let me come up to the HUC studio after their 10pm signoff so that I could record a demo tape through their audio processing, which at the time was very compressed and had reverb on it (a Fisher Space Expander installed by, you guessed it, Gary). WHUC sounded bigger than anything on the dial except maybe WABC. And it was all being done with fairly ancient gear, even for 1973. But Gary had the ears and the ability to take whatever was lying around and make it work really well. And he was a GREAT jock. Rick has proof of that on his website.

That demo tape Gary presided over landed me a job in Schenectady at WSNY, and, soon after, I had convinced the GM that Gary ought to be working with us, and Gary came up to do PM drive when John Gabriel left to go to WABY. We shared an apartment on Union Street with another SNY jock, Darrell Douglas. I remember the "see-through" aluminum pans that were made that way from brewing spaghetti sauce that was a bit, shall we say, acidic. We spent hours remixing and cobbling up new versions of the WSNY jingles and trying to fix the various problems with the cart machines in the WSNY facility. One of the decks had to be turned upside down so that the capstan would actually reach the drive shaft. I also remember somethng about a dead squirrel knocking the station off the air, and Gary went out to remove the thing from the transmitter shack.

We crossed paths many times over the next few years. I bought a car from Gary's dad when no one else would give me a loan to buy one. The day I went to Kingston from Utica to meet Gary and pick it up is still known as the "38 hour day". Later, we all worked together at WHUC again in the spring of 1975. I was unemployed, so Gary and Rick let me stay at their apartment in Hudson. The three of us and hundreds of boxes of Gary's "stuff".

Gary was interested in everything. We went to Price Chopper one night to pick up some food. After about 20 minutes of walking around with Rick, we noticed Gary was not around. We found him at the last place we had remembered seeing him...in the can aisle, reading the ingredient list on the label. "Did you know that they put something called sodium benzoate in these peas? What the hell is sodium BENZOATE?" He was totally engrossed.

He was that way about everything and everyone he knew.

Gary never ran the world. The world is run by evil people for the most part. Gary is wearing that badge with honor in Heaven.

 

[T-Rags]

Wow, I was so sad when I leard of Gary's passing. :'(

I had the pleasure of working with him for more than a decade at WHUD. I learned alot from Z, mostly about editing audio. When I won the 2001 NYS Air award for best commercial in NY radio, I told him that part of it should go to him. He was real, genuine and never a bad word for anybody. Even when he was sick, he never complained or felt sorry for himself. Hell, I remember the last time I saw him, just before I left WHUD in Jan 2007, I was all bummed out about his health, and he comforted me!

Z, you will be missed.

~Rags