Radio Broadcasting History, Radio People, Favorite Radio Stories (Ls)

Radio Broadcasting History
440 International

Radio People
Favorite Radio Stories (Ls)

Dick Liberatore

In early 1961 I was stationed at an Air Force base in Alamogordo, New Mexico. Anxious to get my first radio job - I approached the PD at a local daytime station and he offered me a board position on Sunday mornings and all I had to do was sign-on the station and play religious tapes until noon. He proceeded to give me a very quick lesson on what switches to throw to get the station up and running.

Sign-on was 6 a.m. and I got to the station at 5:30 and cued up the first reel-to-reel religious tape. The studio was street level with a large window so people walking by can look in and watch the daytime air personalities do their thing. My car was parked directly in front of the window.

At 5:58:30 I put in a cart (remember carts) and played the Star-Spangled Banner which ran about 90 seconds. Just to be sure that the station was on the air I grabbed my car keys and ran out to my car and tuned to the station's frequency - and sure enough, there was the Star-Spangled Banner. With about 30 seconds remaining, I went to open the glass door into the radio station and it was locked!!!!! Stupid me . . . I accidentally left the door key in the studio.

Since I only knew the PD by his first name I had no way of calling him or any station employee to open up the door. So I just sat in my car until 7:15 a.m. when the PD pulled up beside me and raced into the studio to get a show on the air. It seems the people who paid for the 6 a.m. religious show called him at home. Needless to say I was fired on the spot!

Dick Liberatore (aka Mark Richards)
E-mail: www.marklasvegas@aol.com

Rush Limbaugh

"Jeff Christy" at 14/KQV in 1970 to 1972 was...Rush Limbaugh.

Remember the name..."Jeff Christy." Note: It was at KQV where Christy/Limbaugh was heard to say, "With Excellence in Broadcasting." Today, he runs EIB...to 20,000,000 listeners a week. The "Excellence in Broadcasting Network."

(Rusty is what his Mom calls him even today.)

Joe Benson
E-mail: jbenson@tcsn.net

Rush Limbaugh

Before he left us for New York and national fame, Rush was the same bombastic idealist he is now, the same great human being you know today. Except, he was a lot bigger, physically, in those days (1982). We all worked for KFBK, Sacramento: Rush (9-Noon), my partner, Bob Nathan and me (5-9AM) and we were pretty good pals. Bob and I often went rafting on the American River, which flows through Sacramento as a very, very mild ride, and one day we convinced Rush to go with us even though he was, and as far as I know still is, TERRIFIED of natural water. As we approached a bend in the river we were all musing about how much money we hoped to make someday; seeing the gentle rapids ahead, Bob gave Rush an oar and told him to absorb the blow of the canyon wall to give us a little spring back into the current. This was no rapids, friends. Well, Rush panicked, stuck the oar out, his arms stiff as a board, and upon impact he fell overboard. With 300-pounds of ballast suddenly missing from one side of the raft, Bob and I went out the other side and the raft flipped over, dumping an ice chest full of beer, several shirts, sunglasses, a pack of cigarettes and I think a radio.

Rush was in an absolute panic for his life as the three of us floated gently down a series of ripples at no more than six to ten miles per hour. Bob and I were laughing hysterically but poor Rush couldn't breathe. We told him just to relax and float...go with the flow...but the more he flailed and gasped, the more evident it became that we would have to do something or we might lose him. Being the natural leader of the group, I made a decision, "Bob," I shouted, "you get Rush, I'll get the raft!" And with that I cut some powerful strokes against the current while looking over my shoulder to see 300 pounds of Rush climbing the frail and skinny frame of my partner reaching for air!

We got Rush back in the raft and the next day he spent the entire three hours of his show talking about his horrendous whitewater grapple with the grim reaper. It was an exaggeration, of course, but he believed it...and from that a legendary radio style was born.

Now that I think of it...his views on "Whitewater" might have a lot to do with that summer day in 1982.

Dave Williams, KFBK
kfbkdave@prodigy.com

PS...This is an absolutely true story with no exaggeration.

George "Hound Dog" Lorenz

My favorite of the personality jocks of my teen years, along with his cohorts, the Hound Dog, George Lorenz who put guys like Little Richard on the "white" airwaves in that area, and Tom Shannon, who had his theme song recorded by the (Rockin') Rebels and released as the instrumental, "Wild Weekend." Sold big around Buffalo. I was happily surprised when I heard that hit the national charts as I jocked my first air job with KMTH on Midway Island with AFRTS in '63.

Marty Prater (Previously with Caughill-Palitz, Inc, Honolulu).
E-mail: MSPrater@aol.com

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