Whatever Became Of?

As I reminiscence through my old radio logs (memory), I realize there are so many people I haven't taken the time to write about.

Now there are several reasons for that.

One is I try to back up my memory with factual information. In most cases I'm going back 30 or 40 years trying to piece together the whens, whos and whats. They say the second thing to go is the memory, and I've forgotten the first.

I've found the newspaper archives at the library and on line searches to be helpful with that. There is nothing more fun than to watch the microfilm go by on the reader at the library. I think at the end of the day my optometrist will probably chastise me for watching the combination of light, film and images whiz by as I go looking for the sections of the paper I know contain the morsels of information I'm looking to find. Sometimes I remember approximate months or dates. Other times, it's like throwing a dart at the dart board. Thankfully the Citizen Journal had a radio-tv column (the Dispatch early on did not) that did a fairly good job of keeping track of the comings and goings of local media folks. I remember David Drake of course, but my new friend is his predecessor Jo Bradley Reed. She has columns going back to the early 60's (that's as far as I've looked). Her columns have more than once sparked another memory to track down.

Second is I try to maintain the positive side of things. Sure, I've written about someone being fired or a pairing of personalities that has gone south. You can't write about WBBY without including Wild Bill and some of the things that took place during those times or Bob Conners and the Perfect Partner that wasn't so perfect. So my objective is to share these memories and not cause harm to someone.

Finally, it's time. Time is an evil foe. There's only so much time to devote to this. Inspiration also comes into play. I feel for those writers who have to mass produce on a deadline. I simply couldn't do it. This is a labor of love and fun to do.

Finally, I just can't piece together all the people to write about. There are about a half a dozen works that are in various stages of how to present them. People like Bill Corley of WBNS, Dave Logan of WTVN, Phil Whitelaw of WTVN, Fred Anderle of WTVN and WOSU, Gene Warman and John Potter of WTVN. There are some additional people from WRFD that are in the early stages of jotting down memories. Uncle Tom George, Handsome Howard Hewes, Jeffrey P Morgan and Jack Bartley among them. Or WLW's Music Professor, Bob Beasley, Jockey Joe Kelly and JFPO.

And there are so many people I've not been able to find a lot of information on. Marcy Rodgers of WBBY, Dianne Townsley of WBBY, Rick Seiler of WBBY and WWWJ. John L of WNCI. John Canterbury of WNCI or Sean McKay. Whatever became of some of these and other folks? Anyone who can help?

And then there are the WCOL folks. They have been pretty well covered in Rick Minerd's books and Mike Adams WCOL history site.

Bill Corley and That Good Double BNS Music

More to Come.

Whitelaw and Friends

More to come

Your Midday Friend

More to come.

New Morning Host Would Become #1 and Unseat Earlyworm

On December 6th, 1965 a familiar voice changed microphones. It wasn't a move across the street or uptown. But rather from one studio to another.

John Fraim had been named the morning host of WTVN radio. Citizen Journal reporter Jo Reed reported in that mornings paper that the 38 year old former news director for the station would now be "a platter spinner and disc jockey conversationalist".

Fraim replaced interim morning host Dave Logan who had in turn replaced a handful of hosts since 1960 that included Maurice Jackson, Dave Hull and Johnnie Dollar.

Fraim had an interesting background. Besides being a news reporter/director for such stations as Cincinatti's WSAI, he was interested in exploring underground caves, even needing to be rescued Eureka cave in Kentucky when he and others in his group became disoriented. The rescue was even reported in a 1959 edition of Newsweek Magazine.

From that December 6th morning in 1965 until sometime late in 1979, Fraim would begin a reign to be the top rated morning host in the Columbus market, and during that time unseated longtime morning kingpin, Irwin Johnson. Johnson, known to his fans as the Earlyworm, had hosted mornings on across the dial WBNS for many years. Johnson had been a WBNS host since the 1940's and had developed a loyal following.

Fraim would later join WRFD for a short time after leaving WTVN and soon after be wooed by WCOL to host mornings on that station.

WCOL gave Fraim a birdseye view of the city when he broadcast from the former observation deck of the Leveque Tower downtown. After a few years there, he was news director for WBBY until that station was closed by the FCC as an indirect outgrowth of the Wild Bill incident and the character issues of the owner as seen by the FCC.

Fraim now resides near Laurelville, OH.

The Perfect Partner and I'm Outta Here

I teased this story several months ago when writing about WTVN radio host Bill Smith.

Long before e-Harmony.com and Match.com, there was a much more "exotic" way to find the Perfect Partner.

One radio station in Columbus decided to do it the old fashioned way in 1976 because that was the only way to do it back then.

A little history.

Popular Columbus radio personality Bob Conners had left WTVN in early 1973 to take a coveted morning gig at cross the dial rival WBNS-AM in Columbus. At first, his ratings actually improved over the previous hosts ratings. But as time went on, they had began to wane back to previous levels.

To many, the move from WTVN where Conners had held forth in the afternoon drive slot when he arrived in Columbus in 1965 to the morning slot at WBNS seemed to constrain him. At WTVN, he had developed characters in his show. Two remembered by me were Sammy from Sammy's Bar & Grill and the Mailman. There was also a third character. The ever silent Jesse. The speaking characters visited daily. All were left behind when Conners jumped to BNS. Conners also had an opening and closing theme song for his show. That too was abandoned with the move to WBNS.

I remember listening to Bob's first show on WBNS. It was anything but easy. First, the WBNS signal was a voice in the static at my house about 10 miles north and west of Dublin. Even though I grew up on the other side of Dublin, the BNS signal was so weak that until the day signal kicked in, Bob and BNS was a voice among many voices.

WBNS also aired their news at 25 and 55 billing it as news 5 minutes sooner. As the newscast ended, WBNS played a closing sounder and a top or bottom of the hour legal ID. The music started cold. Bob's first song was a song I never really enjoyed. Roger Miller's "Engine, Engine #9". No theme song, no Sammy, Mailman or Jesse. Just Bob and Roger Miller and a jingle after back announcing the song but before the commercial. Backwards from the way it was normally done.

When listening to Bob at WTVN, you knew he had seen the latest movie, had gone to the latest live performance, had visited the hottest spots in Columbus, had an in depth knowledge of sports and seemed to have read all the major daily newspapers of record. Bob always sounded like the go to guy for all things regarding the cool and current events.

At WBNS that all seemed to be gone. The show seemed more constrained and too tightly formatted. Bob never quite seemed to be what he used to be over at WTVN. Cool and hip while on an adult music based radio program.

Just shy of three years at being at WBNS, all was about to change.

A new general manager had ridden into town in October of 75 to take over the reins of the radio enterprise. The radio stations were overseen by the head of the co-owned but not co-located television station, Gene DeAngelo. Many in the industry thought the new hire was a final admission that DeAngelo had been spreading himself too thin and the radio stations needed someone on site and more involved.

Enter from Denver, Colorado a gentleman by the name of Mike Jorgensen.

Jorgenson apparently also believed there was something missing from the morning show and he decided to fix it with.....a contest.

A contest to in 30 days find Bob Conners a perfect partner to livin up the show. Someone from the everyday world could interact with Conners about music, community events and leisure interests of the target audience. To the left is a scan of a post card that was mailed to the people who responded to the on air promotion. Sort of a picture yourself next to Bob as his perfect partner. It was reported that more than 3000 people from every walk of life applied for the position. As encouraged by the promotion, people needed to respond before this opportunity was Gone With The Wind.

Over 1000 were interviewed in blocks of 6 in 15 minute increments. People were quickly weeded out, but a Central Ohio homemaker survived and had a 15 minute meeting with Conners.

According to area homemaker Dee Barrows, she thought the interview would never go any further. She told Columbus Monthly magazine a few months later that she was "sure he hated me." But she survived that round and eventually made a tape with Conners. And then another taping on January 29, 1976. An hour later, she got a call from Jorgensen announcing she had the job and debuted two mornings later on a Saturday morning dry run.

The following Monday, the show made its official debut. It seemed on the air to be rocky from the start.

Apparently behind the scenes the rockiness was also an issue. Barrows commented in reports that Conners would be sympathetic to her and helpful or withdrawn from her depending on the day. .


The morning duo show concept lasted all of three weeks.

By Saturday the end of the third week, Conners, no longer smiling as in the picture, decided that he had had enough. Tired of daily debriefings after each show, Conners walking into manager Jorgensen's office with resignation papers in hand.

He then headed off to Aspen for a two week respite and skiing trip.

Clearly Bob wasted little time during his discomfort with the the addition of a morning coffee mate and submission of his walking papers. Within a few days of the announcement of his departure, David Drake's Citizen Journal media column headlined that Bob was headed back to WTVN where his personality and characters would once again be used.

And with that, the concept of the Perfect Partner was indeed.........gone with the wind.

As a footnote to non Columbus readers, Bob remains at WTVN and is fondly called the Morning Monarch. He returned to his old afternoon slot for just a few years and by 1979 was appointed host of the morning drive show with the departure of John Fraim. He has held that slot since that time and often maintains the status of Columbus's most listened to radio host.

Growing up, Bob Conners was one of the radio hosts who made an impression on a young man growing up in Central Ohio.

Things I've Learned with this Blog

I often look to see the posts that are visited and the location of the visitors of this blog.

The two most popular pages are the one where I write about former WTVN Columbus radio host Bill Smith who is now working in the Boston market and the post about the Bluegrass Story Teller, bluegrass artist James King. Usually the web search for King centers on the lyrics from his recording Echo Mountain.

Not so far behind those two articles is the one I wrote about long ago WBNS radio host Irwin Johnson, also known as the Early Worm.

Johnson hasn't been heard on Columbus radio since 1969, yet this blog has received over 25 hits with people reading about the Early Worm.

It's also funny that some of the stories I posted have received few if any visits. I thought for sure the article on The Perfect Partner and Bob Conners would be remembered and a often hit page. It isn't.

I sometimes wonder why visitors seldom leave a message. I would love to know why they visited and what they thought.