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WJDQ Wikipedia Page

J

jo-nathan

Hi all!

This morning I started a page on Wikipedia about WJDQ/Meridian, MS. I invite all former staffers to add to the entry, specifically on the history of the station and where former staffers have gone. Here's the link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WJDQ

Thanks in advance and enjoy!

Jonathan
Nights WJDQ (Q951)/Meridian, MS
 
Larry,

You left out Mike Partridge. Former Owners' son. Went on to manage "The Rustler" restaurant.

Talked to Lisa Landau probably 10 years ago. Husband was somehow connected to a newspaper in New Albany.

Q101 was one of my favorite all time jobs....

TB
 
WOW Larry ! You sure bring back some memories . I was listening to WDAL-FM the day it became WJDQ ( Q101 ) . Thought it was the best thing to hit radio in Mississippi in quite some time .......and it was , for many years. Wish I could say the same thing now :(
 
Wow, I really did forget to list Mike. He was my morning show partner during the "Mike & O'Neal" days. Maybe I was trying to block that out of my mind ;-) I also left out Mark Mosely, afternoons in the mid 80s. He went on to do mornings for years in Miami, WPOW I think. Now a voice-talent in Hollywood. He did some character voices for some of the Shrek movies. He also does standup comedy.

Although WDAL-FM was easy-listening, it did a 5am-7am gospel show weekdays, hosted by Carl Fitzgerald. There was no advance notice of the format flip. Carl himself didn't find out about it until Sunday afternoon. The station didn't come on at 5am that Monday morning, so the phone was already ringing when I got there. When we signed on at 6, I played "Ain't No Stoppin' Us Now" by McFadden & Whitehead. One of the first calls I took after that was from a little old lady who told me that we were all going to hell. We had a 44-share in the first book, up from something like a 6. And the rest is history.

"The Real" O'Neal
 
I just had a spurt of memory and added a bunch more. If anyone can fill in the details on some, that would be great. I even added some who were not on-air staff (so sue me). That was one incredible radio station back then, in spite of all the things wrong with it.

LF
 
Wow! Larry, you're bringing back a bunch of memories for me as well. Tom Kelly... wow, that's a name I haven't heard in a while. By the way, we still have the old carts in the 101 studio (now the Miss 101 studio) including some of the old jingles and some sweepers. I may try to convert them to MP3 one of these days when I have a free moment (and who in this biz does). And, yes, we still have a cart machine in the prod room!

By the way, Joyce Franklin is still hanging around the building as traffic director. She certainly is a joy to have around there. Also, Bill Brock was PD from late 2004/early 2005 (somewhere around there, I know it was a little while after I left for Fort Wayne) until sometime early 2006. I do know it was just before Q101 moved to 95.1. Wasn't he on Q back in the early days as well? I'm almost certain that someone told me that.

Thanks for all of the information, I'm certainly getting a kick out of it! If anyone else wants to contribute please feel free.

Jonathan
 
No offense to my friend Wild Bill Brock (Balleiett)- but he was not on Q101 back in the 80s... in fact, he didn't make the cut for the high standards staff at Q106 in Newton-our home town. We did let him bring by a few pizzas from the Pizza Inn in the Northside Plaza where he worked.

I was listening when Q101 went on the air that morning... it was a big production... with sweepers like "5 minutes to the new Q"... and then the countdown.... I was 14 Larry. I remember it like yesterday.
 
Some additions and corrections....

Saw Tommy Lee at the Alabama Broadcasters Assn meeting last month. Think he owns a small station somewhere in Alabama.

Tracey? is Tracey Jones. She later became the GM at WTOK-TV and is not a regional VP for a TV Group.... in Penn?

TB
 
Many props to Jonathan for taking the iniative to launch a Q101 wiki page!

Special thanks to Larry Fuss for adding so many names of folks who played a hand in bringing Q101 to the airwaves and through its formative years.

For me I will always remember Q during its latter days as an Apex entitiy, as this was the time frame I listened to it the most. I do remember Q101 using the Skywave jingles in the late 90s and the blast I got everytime the weather bed played, what an awesome cut!

Sometime in the early 2000s Q101 updated the jingle package and brought in a really good top of the hour bed. It was the same package used by FM100 in Memphis, and to this day, I still have to find the name of the package or which jingle studio produced it.

To Larry, Jonathan and anyone else who may remember the stellar lineup the Q had, do you recall a weekend guy who went by the name of 'Mingo'? He was on during the late 90s. In the early mid-ninties I seem to recall a female on at night, she was VT and sometime after Mingo was no longer heard, a girl that was on Sunday afternoons. If any one else recalls these folks with greater detail about their respective time(s) at Q, please edit the wiki page.

That's all for now folks!
 
Wow, thinking back on all this, the launch of "The New Q" was 27 years ago! I must have only been 12 then, since I'm 39 now.

I don't recall anybody named Mingo.

Dean Pearce used to buy jingles from Jam (the late Fred Hardy), so if was during his tenure, it was probably Jam. Doc may know.

LF
 
QID: the Mingo you speak of is Mingo Tingle but I don't know what happened to him. I think a girl named Natalie was doing the Saturday night show at that time too but I also don't know what happened to her. Lots of names I haven't heard of in years!
 
It's hard to believe how many people I've worked with over the years, some I still talk to often and a couple I still work with.

I believe we bought the new Q Jingle package in 1999 it was KISS (Dallas) from ReelWorld and one cut from KUBE. The TOH was an awesome cut and so was the one cut from KUBE - sounded alot like Real McCoy's "Run Away." I still have a copy of that disc somewhere.

How about the old cut that Doc had done "Q101 - We Love It" used on the air and in tv commercials. It aired during the mid and late 90s.

Also - remember when Herb from WTOK was on the morning show w/ Doc & Ken or how about "Harry" Gary Harris - I think he was on w/ Murph. I think Herb is doing weather in Jacksonville and Gary is in T-town.
 
lfuss said:
Wow, thinking back on all this, the launch of "The New Q" was 27 years ago! I must have only been 12 then, since I'm 39 now.

I don't recall anybody named Mingo.

Dean Pearce used to buy jingles from Jam (the late Fred Hardy), so if was during his tenure, it was probably Jam. Doc may know.

LF
Click to expand...
BTApex said:
It's hard to believe how many people I've worked with over the years, some I still talk to often and a couple I still work with.

I believe we bought the new Q Jingle package in 1999 it was KISS (Dallas) from ReelWorld and one cut from KUBE. The TOH was an awesome cut and so was the one cut from KUBE - sounded alot like Real McCoy's "Run Away." I still have a copy of that disc somewhere.

How about the old cut that Doc had done "Q101 - We Love It" used on the air and in tv commercials. It aired during the mid and late 90s.

Also - remember when Herb from WTOK was on the morning show w/ Doc & Ken or how about "Harry" Gary Harris - I think he was on w/ Murph. I think Herb is doing weather in Jacksonville and Gary is in T-town.
Click to expand...
theairdownthere said:
QID: the Mingo you speak of is Mingo Tingle but I don't know what happened to him. I think a girl named Natalie was doing the Saturday night show at that time too but I also don't know what happened to her. Lots of names I haven't heard of in years!
Click to expand...

Thanks guys for the information!
 
theairdownthere said:
QID: the Mingo you speak of is Mingo Tingle but I don't know what happened to him. I think a girl named Natalie was doing the Saturday night show at that time too but I also don't know what happened to her. Lots of names I haven't heard of in years!
Click to expand...

Yep, I remember listening to Mingo. I don't know what happened to him either, though. Natalie returned a little while after I started on Q101 (end of 2000) as a sales assistant. I talked to her a while back and at that time she was out of radio and living in the Seattle area.

After the Kiss Dallas jingles, we changed to a package N2Effect did for KDWB. When the change was moved to 95.1, I'm not sure what they were using at that time but earlier this year we changed to Kissville.

I think we still have a cart with the "we love it" sing that BT mentioned. I'll try to look for it sometime this week and post it somewhere as a MP3.
 
Wow!! The names that keep popping up here...Mingo Tingle (his real name)...there's a name I havent heard in years. He was a very nice young guy, pretty good pipes, and was a student at East Central Community College....not sure what happened to him.
Since you're going through carts Jonathan, see if you possibly can find the Charlie Van Dyke top hour ....it may possibly be around there on a 7 inch reel in a box.
The song that BT referred to done locally by Al Harris, then of the Whodaddys.....a take off of the song "I love LA".....still have the spot on a VHS somewhere. It's amazing to read about the different staffs that worked at Q-101...alot of talent passed through those doors, both on highway 45 south and 39 north. Enjoyed catching up with Larry Fuss last week about all these people that we could remember whereabouts for....just remembered another....Dennis Warren, he's now in Biloxi working for the American Cancer Society. And how about Lester...the original Q-Rilla? Hope everyone is well....thanks for the stroll down memory lane.

Doc
 
Lester!!! I had forgotten about Lester. Chicks were really turned on by a guy in a gorilla costume. Until they discovered that Lester was pretty much the same, in or out of costume ;-)

My mother made the original Q-Rilla costume for the station. We later bought a "real" one from a costume place.

LF
 
Another tidbit I remember, also crica early mid ninties... the Saturday night line up of Rick Dees followed by Back Trax USA. This was the time frame when Q had the following TOH IDs "Broadcasting from studio 1-B, This is WJDQ-FM Meridian...Q101"
another TOH ID I remember from this time frame went along the lines of "Broadcasting everywhere...WJDQ-FM Meridian...Q101". As a point of reference this was the time frame when Q101 had the Weather bed from the Skywave package, Greg Thomas held down Mid-days, David Day in afternoons and Doc and the Kenman during morning drive and "40 minute music marathons" each hour, outside of the morning show.

I aslo recall hearing a female host the Saturday night show. This was well before Marc B's time. This particular edition I recall ran from 6p to 1a. The first four hours where remixes of current songs and the last three hours where devoted to 80s remixes. The host was probably the Natile mentioned above by Jonathan.

With all these great Q memories it is a shame nothing exist beyond this board to pay homeage to this legendary Top-40 powerhouse. Has anyone ever considered putting toghther a Q tribute site or perhaps collecting various pictures and stories and publishing a book about Q101?
 
The THours you're referring to read verbatim....Broadcasting Live from studio 1-B, this is WJDQ-FM Meridian, Q-101.....and ..... On The Air... Everywhere, This is WJDQ-FM Meridian...Q-101. And probably the most used for several years was the top hour that I believe Charlie Van Dyke did.....From the Heart of The New South, Q-101 IS W-J-D-Q FM, Meridian.....such a deep authoritative voice that would rattle your windows. Wish someone would do a tribute site.
 
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