Spook

Spook Beckman in his famous WCOL AM "Bumper Room".









What can you say about Spook Beckman? He was at the top. He was at the bottom. His fans loved him no matter what. His detractors had no love for him.

Spook came to Columbus, Ohio from Florida. He was born Frederick Beckman, but earned the moniker Spook because of his then shock of whitish blond hair. He spent time in the 50's at WLW-C television, hamming it up on local shows. He later became the afternoon host of WTVN radio, worked briefly at WVKO and soon back at WTVN.

He returned to WLW-C with a mid morning variety show called Spook Beckman's Coffee Club in January 1965. When the show ended in 1968, he returned to radio. His new radio home was WRFD where he hosted afternoons briefly and then worked in radio sales.

That began a bottom period. When Spook left WRFD, he worked the dinner theater circuit at the Columbus-Springfield Dinner Theater, sold cars for a Westerville Ford dealer and then began a radio come back. Slowly.

Spook was brought into WBNS radio briefly to host a Saturday afternoon show. Later, when radio station WRFD, searching for a format to return to it's former greatness, brought Spook in to WRFD to host a Sunday afternoon show featuring Big Band music. When Spook was brought on full time, I replaced him long term on the Sunday shift when my WTVN gig ended.

Spook's return to WRFD was in a word great. He brought a ready made audience. He also brought something even more important. A pocket full of ready and willing advertisers. While the WRFD program log often looked like a blanket of snow page after page, during Spook's show the page was full of advertisements to be aired. Often with Spook ad libbing the entire commercial from memory and with his personal touch. Spook's show was the corner stone of the radio's format, then known as the Unrock Station. Unrock was for the standards by Frank, Bing and Tony that were played hour after hour with Glenn, Benny and Artie and their big bands sprinkled in between. Spook was back to the glory years.

As a station promotion, a picnic was held on the spacious studio grounds. It was packed with Beckman fans. He created a fan club called the Years, Tears and Beers club. Something about the years for the memories, tears for the tough times and the beers for the good times.

Sadly for WRFD, Spook's return lasted only a few years. He was called away by WCOL radio who itself was going through a metamorphosis. When Spook left, the stations program log once again returned to looking like a blizzard had hit page after page.

WCOL offered him a showcase studio on East Broad Street that became known as the Bumper Room. Spook often refereed to his afternoon drive radio show as bumper to bumper time, capitalizing on bumper to bumper traffic in the afternoon.

When first arriving at WCOL, Spook's show consisted of playing contemporary music. What we often called chicken rock. Enough of today’s music to be current, but with the rockier, edgier songs absent from the play list. Spook fit that format,,,,,,well let's put it this way. Johnny Cochran couldn't have defended Spook and the music being played as a good fit.

That format however was on its way out, and Spook once again was in his element as the station moved the Music of Your Life Format. Where WRFD had tried with its Unrock version of the format, WCOL went with the Music of Your Life product. It was more complete in scope and depth, wasn't being played from scratchy records but rather recordings of the once famous and great songs and had a complete package to make it a viable format during those times.

To further its image in the market, WCOL employed some of Columbus once great radio personalities to anchor the disc jockey lineup. Coming from WTVN and later WRFD John Fraim anchored mornings from high atop the Leveque Tower, Joe Cunningham held forth in mid-days much as he did at WBNS. Beckman was in the Bumper Room with his unique flavor of entertainment and folksy charm and former WCOL morning man when the station was in its Top Forty heyday, Wes Hopkins, rounded out the line up in the evenings. While it lasted, it was the true stars of music coming to play on a station anchored by once heavy weight radio personalities.

I was never quite sure why the station moved from the format. Although never huge in audience, it was still quite widely accepted and had its fair share of the radio advertising pie. Maybe it simply cost too much to maintain, but the station pulled the plug and moved to a mostly syndicated talk format in the mid-80.

Beckman moved to country formatted WMNI. That move never felt like a good fit. Beckman seemed to be at his finest element at WRFD playing the Unrock and at WCOL with the Music of Your Life. Country music just wasn’t' Spook. But being the always professional broadcaster, Spook and his loyal fans re-emerged together at 920 on the dial where Spook remained until illness and death took him from us in November of 1986.

Looking back, it seems almost unimaginable that Spook's voice hasn't graced Columbus microphones in over 20 years. It seems just like yesterday hearing the microphone open and a commercial begins with the familiar "Hi folks, this is Spook for.......Know them for a lifetime".

Spooks generosity as well as creativity was also evidenced by his heavy involvement in local charities. Spook began the Secret Santa project in the 1950's to provide toys for children often left off Santa's list. He also was an avid paper seller for Charitie Newsies manning a post at James and Livingston for years.

Spook was always larger than life. His booming baritone voice, his fun personality, his ability to literally have listeners and advertisers eat out of the palm of his hand was a talent most radio hosts could only dream of.

Hamburger Inn

It may be called a greasy spoon. It may be called a hole in the wall. To me, it's small town diner heaven. And it's long overdue for it's place on this blog.

The Hamburger Inn has been a Delaware Institution since the 1930's. Located on the main drag (Sandusky Street) in downtown Delaware, this is a great place to nail some great chow at a great price.

The hamburger buns are baked fresh on the premisis. Same for the carmel icing covered cinnamon rolls. French fries are fresh cut and fried as is the same for the home fries. And breakfast is great.

The Hamburger Inn is also a great place to meet some of Delaware's notables and quoteables. Everyone from OWU students, local politicos and even some of the towns more colorful figures can be found at the counter seating only Hamburger Inn.

















The famous back entrance is a neat way to see the whole place.






















Interior shots.

Jib Jab

To most people, when they hear the words Jib Jab, they think of the political comedy spoofs streaming periodically on the internet. And while I am very aware of and enjoy their work, to me Jib Jab means a great place to get a hot dog.

While heading to Niles to see the McKinley museum, we took a detour to Girrard, Ohio to Jib Jab Hot Dogs. Having been there late last spring, we looked forward to the return visit.

I've already chronicled another great hot dog place here. And while Jib Jab doesn't have the ambieance that Hillbilly Hotdogs has, it does have hot dogs with great taste. And a neat feature is the hot sauces made available (see last photo) to spice up your dogs.

If you're up Youngstown way, make Jib Jab a stop.

Best Steak

Diana and I stopped at a place on the Illinois/Indiana border Labor Day weekend for dinner. The funny thing is, Diana literally went into the place kicking and screaming not to. It has become a favorite.

This past weekend, we traveled to Indianapolis to visit Diana's daughter Heather and decided to treat her to this great place.

It's called the Beef House and it's located in Covington, Indiana at exit 3.

It's modestly priced for the food you get and in a word it's great. If you're in the area, be sure to try it.

One Fall Sunday In Columbus

Random photos from a Sunday afternoon in Columbus. Including the Jeffrey Mansion, the parkland that surrounds it, the first Wendy's in the US being gutted to become a part of Catholic Charities, the gavel near the Ohio Supreme Court or the Columbus version of the Empire State Building, the Leveque Tower.

Are Our Holidays Becoming Too Blended

I was in an area K-Mart this morning and came across this combination.

Totally Ghoul Christmas Trees?

Green Acres AKA WRFD

Green Acres conjures up thoughts of the 1960’s television show about a New York City lawyer who pursues his dream of owning a farm. The only problem is his dream isn’t well researched and he ends up with a dump and non productive farm land known as the Haney place.

Such was not the case with Green Meadows, which was anchored by among other things WRFD radio. The link between Green Acres and Green Meadows was agriculture. And there’s where it ended.

Green Meadows at its prime was a combination restaurant, upscale motel, summer playhouse, a series of agricultural test plots, a picnic park and all that was anchored by radio station WRFD.

Green Meadows became a destination point in the 50's and early 60's. The accommodations were for the time upscale, the restaurant among central Ohio's best and the radio station was known for quality programming. They were showplaces as much as destination points.

As mentioned the centerpiece was WRFD. It was a unique radio station. Started by the Ohio Farm Bureau to broadcast agricultural news and entertainment of interest to rural families, the station became one of the most profitable daytime only stations in the nation. Advertisers were drawn to the stations statewide signal that covered 66 of Ohio’s 88 counties with a quality signal along with the listeners it attracted. Those listeners were seen as traditional families with solid nuclear family values. On the downside, the station was limited to operate from sunrise to sunset since it was located on a clear channel frequency (880 AM) that is and was dominated by WCBS in New York City.

The WRFD broadcast house was at one time a palace. A large colonial brick structure built at the intersection of Powell Road and US Route 23 in what was then the virtual end of the civilized world as far as Columbus was concerned. The exterior of the station was similar to what you’d find at any Virginia plantation. The interior at the time it was built contained large modern studios designed for live performances.

I remember listening to the station with my father growing up. When the station signed off at sunset, it would advise listeners that additional programming was available on co-owned WRFD-FM, now contemporary powerhouse WNCI.

I was hired by WRFD in 1973, not quite yet out of high school to a multifaceted job requiring many skills. I was to run the church programs, mow the giant lawn and clean the interior office. In exchange I was paid a little over $2.00 per hour and given a 15 minute show from 6-6:15 on Sunday morning. I had made Columbus radio……until sign on advanced to 6:30 in September.

My interview at WRFD happened sometime in April or early May and the interview was done with general manager at the time Dick Via and program director at the time Len Anthony. Via’s office was large and at one end of the building. I had never seen such a large office at the time. It had a fireplace and a sofa. Although beginning to show some wear, to a still 17 year old, it was quite impressive.

I don’t remember how I was hired, but I started the first weekend of June and reported to new program director Michael O’Malley as Anthony had left to return to country formatted radio and move to do so in Denver. O’Malley would later gain greater fame as the popular morning host at WNCI and later 92X in Columbus. He along with his wife now are involved in real estate in the Grandview area.

Besides O’Malley and Anthony, many other radio greats passed by the microphones of WRFD. Jeffrey P. Morgan was the morning host when I was there. Jeff was a young radio prodigy at the time. Morgan was christened Jeff Detrow and was raised in Wooster, Ohio where he began working in radio at a very young age. He was hired just out of high school to host the morning program at WRFD. It was a plum assignment. Jeff was gifted with a wonderful baritone voice and a playful personality. He created the humorous Return to Pataskala Place as one of his ongoing radio spoofs. Jeff has had a long and successful radio career and until recently was co-host of one of San Diego’s venerable morning shows.

O’Malley meanwhile handled mid mornings. Early afternoons was hosted by Lancaster native Chris King (real last name Joos) who later left for WVBF in Boston at the invitation of Bill Smith who was written about in this blog earlier. Rounding out line up roster was evening man Howard Hewes. “Handsome Howard” lived the WKRP theme song living town to town and up and down the dial. He had worked for WFLA in Tampa before coming to WRFD and returned to Tampa and WFLA when he left a few years later. Hewes was hip, fun and dangerous.

Rounding out the music host airstaff were weekend hosts Dan Donovan (Green) and Bruce Edwards. Donovan had to be the inspiration for Dr. Johnny Fever on WKRP. There couldn’t have been anyone else.

News people were Gregg Campbell who now hosts middays on WVNO in Mansfield, Mary Marshall who left for WBNS radio and now is lost to me as is then evening news anchor Carl Dickens.

I also noted other hosts who graced the microphones. Among those were 1960’s morning man Johnny Martin, mid 70’s morning host Bob James (now Dr. Bob Pondello), Farm Broadcasters Ed Johnson (who we’ll write about later), Bob Zieglar (known as Ziggy’s Piggys on WLW in the 80’s) as well as long time Columbus Radio and Television personality Spook Beckman who too will later be profiled.

I left WRFD in February of 1975 to join WBBY and Wild Bill. I returned after I was dismissed from WTVN in April 1978.

The station had changed quite a bit by that time, having dropped its oldies format for adult standards using the handle The Unrock a them and variation of 7-UP’s popular at the time advertising campaign using the word uncola.

I was hired to host a big band based program on Sunday afternoons that I remained with until 1980. Other notable hosts were Bill Stewart, Damon Sheridan (who also doubled as program directors) Corey Dietz who now hosts a morning program and writes about radio for web page About.com, Pam Fultz (now known on air as Pam Spencer who later worked for WBNS, WCOL, WSNY and later as a traffic reporter for the Columbus Clear Channel Cluster)and of course Columbus mainstays Spook Beckman and John Fraim.

As AM radio fell out of favor and daytime AM stations were hit even harder, WRFD finally succumbed to the market forces and could no longer exist as a non niche formatted radio station. It was sold to religious broadcaster Salem Media who converted the station to a teaching and preaching station. The station had for lack of a better term, an altar call and accepted God's programming as it's financial savior.

Back to Green Meadows. The farm test plots now have been developed into home, shopping, office space and retail/warehouse combos. The radio station broadcast house now is home to another company and a now abandoned bank building was built on the former spacious front lawn. And the hotel and restaurant is now home to Nationwide Insurance's training facility.