Why I Do This

This morning while eating breakfast, I found a back copy of the "Reynoldburg News". I don't live in Reynoldsburg, but I enjoy reading about what's happening in the suburbs that surround my area. I'm also for lack of a better term, a dumpster diver. I found the paper in the recycle bin where I ate.

Now what does eating breakfast, reading a discarded newspaper and this blog have in common? A simple column of commentary.

Columnist Chris Miles wrote about how he began a life long love of baseball. And broadcaster/play by play announcer Ernie Harwell was a huge part of it.

He went on to share that he was able to go to a Harwell speaking engagement and took his young daughter with him. There is nothing neater to me than sharing with your child something that was near and dear to you as a child growing up.

What Chris wrote in that column is exactly what I've tried to capture here as I have written about those who I listened to as a child, teen and adult on the radio. Chris captured the magic of what radio is all about. Communication of the event being covered and connection with the listener. And that's what I've tried to capure as I've written about Irwin Johnson, John Fraim, Dave Logan (who I've yet to write about), Bob Conners, Bill Smith and others were people who I listened to through the years and gave me a life long love of broadcasting.

I really enjoyed Chris's column. And he put into words so much better than I could ever do something that touched his life and then memorializing it in words.

Date Night

We really need to do this more often.

Diana and I met for a date tonight. We toured the Columbus Museum of Art. And the price was right too. During July and August, the gallery is free to the public.

I saw my first Monet, Matise, Renoir and actual Norman Rockwell works.

In addition, the museum had exhibits by George Tooker and Kojo a local photographer who has had numerous photos published.

These two exhibits were my favorites. Kojo's work featured photos in both color and black and white and focused mostly on Columbus scenes. Many depicted as aspect of African American life in the city. Man of the scenes were of Columbus in days gone by.


Tooker had a collection of several works from the various "periods" of efforts. Tookers work focused on a subliminal aspect of the human condition. The link to The Waiting Room is a good example. Tooker painted using egg yolk thickened slightly with water and then adding powdered pigment, a medium that was quick drying. The quick drying medium was not always easy to work with and the results were usually permanent.

One of the most interesting and shall I say almost real looking was Evan Perry's "Back of Kelly" Kelly looks almost real.

We capped the evening with dinner at the always great Top Steakhouse.

More spots to visit

As this blog often points out, we love to travel. As a matter of fact, I've got tons of writing to do about our travels to post on the blog. Beside our usual Ohio and neighboring states adventures (last weekend I was standing in three states at one time) a trip to Florida, Michigan, Washington DC and many other places have been visited over the past year.

Over Labor Day weekend we'll be traveling to the origins of the Mississippi River. I first became fascinated with this point some years ago when I read a newspaper article about it. At that time, I had never seen the river. Since that time, I've crossed and viewed the river at St. Louis, Memphis and in Minneapolis.

Another goal of mine is to have visited all 50 states before I die. With Alaska and Hawaii out of the way, that really shouldn't be all that hard to do. And with the way we're routing this trip, I'll knock of Nebraska, Kansas and North Dakota on the origins trip.

I Know Jack

Anyone who has followed this blog knows of my interest in broadcast radio. When I first got my drivers license, I began to become more active in my interest. By active, I'm speaking of going and meeting local radio people at the stations that broadcast their programs.

One of those I met was John Phillips. John (Jack as he would later become known) was employed by WDLR, a Delaware, Ohio based radio station. But John was located in my home county seat at a remote studio located in Marysville.

Now compared to my dream station of WTVN, WDLR was something of, well shall we say a dump. As my son Brian would note in the late 1980's, it was the junky radio station. But by far, the Delaware main studio was the Taj Mahal compared to the remote Marysville location.

The Marysville studio was located in the former Isaly ice cream shop. Phillips worked there gathering news by calling the local police and fire departments, he read the weather and he would play music on a program called the Marysville Matinee. Every weekday afternoon, Phillips was spending the afternoon with the wives of Marysville according to a want ad placed daily in the local newspaper as the station sought to promote itself and build a listening audience.

The program today would not survive long, as Phillips only had one turntable and fed the Marysville feed back to Delaware where the transmitter was located via a regular telephone line. Literally, Phillips would unscrew the microphone portion of the telephone handset and alligator clip the the feed from the mixer to the phone. It sounded like music being played over a telephone. High fidelity? Old 78 RPM recordings of the Big Bands played over a Victrola often had better fidelity.

I met Phillips sometime in 1972 at the Marysville studio. Prior to the Isaly Shop the station had been located at several addresses. The former Isaly shop location was opened in January, 1971 with Gene Kirby at the helm. That location ended sometime in in late 1972 or early 1973 when Phillips was moved to Delaware to broadcast his show. Other than remotes at the Union County Fair or at an advertiser's location, WDLR no longer would maintain a remote studio in Maryvsille after Phillips was relocated to Delaware.

I began working at the station in May of 1973 and worked with Phillips until he left after the station was sold to another owner. Subsequently, he worked for WNCI, WBBY and WRFD using the name Jack Phillips. The last two stations were jobs that I was able to assist in getting him on the air as they were looking for help and he was available. At WBBY he even became the morning host for a period of time.

He left the business to pursue a career as a respiratory therapist.

Back to our time at WBBY we even shared an apartment. He was working the morning shift at the radio station while I was working evenings while holding a real job at Capital City Products and then spending my evenings at the WBBY studios in Sunbury.

For a period of time he dated Marcie Rogers the program director of the station. That relationship didn't last forever and Jack moved on to another relationship. He subsequently married the new person and moved to Florida. My last contact was a few years ago when he was living in Pennsylvania.

Yes for a period of time, I could indeed say I know Jack.

I'm Roy Harvey------WCOL News

I think my first experience of really listening to the radio was probably 1966. During that summer I was making the transition from 10 to the grand old age of 11.

It was a golden time.

It was the summer of that year and we had a annual pass to the Plain City swimming pool (known as Pastime Pool). Over the loud speaker system, they played the sounds of the New WCOL 1230 am radio. It was the top 40 station in our neck of the woods and frequently at the top of the ratings heap. Lou Henry, Mike Adams and others kept us entertained with the latest music and recurrents on Golden Weekends.

But it was newman Roy Harvey who informed us with the news. I'm not sure if WCOL had switched to the 20/20 news format by that time. I simply can't remember. But I do remember they still punctuated every story with dateline beeps. Three beeps with every story change. It gave each story the sound of urgency.

Roy Harvey had a Ted Baxter type voice. Deep and baritone. Only unlike Baxter, Harvey's voice had authority. No bumbling Ted Baxter was Roy Harvey.

And of course he closed every newscast with "I'm Roy Harvey...........WCOL news!"

As a footnote and as I was writing this, another memeory resurfaced. During this same time there was young lady from Plain City who was for me a tweens dream. Pretty, outgoing, friendly and just enough tomboy to be cool.

Her name was Connie Converse. Connie lived on all streets, Converse Drive in Plain City.

Afer that summer, I never saw Connie again. I did caddy for her father a few times a few years later and he would say she was doing fine.

I read a few years later that she had died. In 1974 I believe in a car accident. For serveral years after her passing, her father would run an in memorium obit in the newspaper. I remember reading of her fathers passing not so many years later.

Connie was never what you would call a girlfriend. At that age a girl who was a friend was just someone neat. And she was that type of friend. And for that she will forever be memorable.

Like Roy Harvey and those WCOL jocks heard over the loud speaker at the swimming pool, Connie will forever be one of those great memories that will never be forgotten.

Remembering Dr. Bop

Local blogger/writer had an interesting piece on Dr. Bop a few weeks ago. For some reason, Minerd chose to archive his blog and it's no longer available for public consumption. His blog inspired me to search out Bop's final resting place and rehonor a great radio talent from radios past.

In the mid 50's through the early 60's Columbus was abuzz with the music and dj talents of Hoyt R. Locke, known to his WCOL (and for a short period of time WMNI) listeners as Dr. Bop.

The good Dr. set up shop in Milwaukee after leaving Columbus and remained there until his death. He is buried in Columbus at Greenlawn Cemetary.

The Friendly Giant Was Anchored By A Fraim

For over a decade, John Fraim was the morning host for WTVN radio in Columbus.

Since Columbus radio was my broadcast reference point, and WTVN was the strongest of signals in my neck of the woods, I cut my teeth on Fraim's morning show. I first became aware of Fraim probably about 1968. My understanding was Fraim came to Columbus in the early 60's, maybe around 1961 from Indiana via WSAI in Cincinnati. His first job was in the news department and prior to becoming a music host he was news director and Taft Broadcasting's Washington Correspondent. He took over morning duties at WTVN in December, 1965.  For years, I believed that Fraim replaced Maurice Jackson, but further research found that a handful of hosts handled the morning position between Jackson and Fraim.  (Edited update: Jackson left the morning show in August of 1960 and a number of people filled the slot between Jackson's departure and Fraim's taking over in the morning. Among morning hosts after Jackson were Bob Ancel, Dave Hull, Tom George, Johnny Dollar and Dave Logan)  Someone with more information or a better memory may have additional hosts I've over looked.  

I would often brag on Fraim's popularity in Columbus, but was often told that JP McCarthy of WJR and Wally Phillips on WGN were far better personalities. You can have your favorites; Fraim at the time was mine.

I always enjoyed the Special Reports (short piece usually written by Fraim discussing a news item or other information pieces) and his The Way They Were segements featuring a song by a Big Band artist complete with background information about the piece or the artist. Fraim also bantered with news director Bill Patterson after the 6:30 news segment, usually ending the segment with a joke or pun that segued into a jingle and back to music.

In 1976 I had the honor to be hired by WTVN hosting the overnight weekend shifts. I handled Friday night from midnight until 6 am Saturday morning, Saturday night from midnight to 9 am Sunday morning and Sunday night from midnight until 5:30 Monday morning. I would be the first person to welcome Fraim to the studio on Saturday and Monday mornings. (I've often wondered if he felt welcomed by this young radio rube!)

Fraim had the reputation among the air staff of being difficult. Many of those before and after me in the overnight slots would often find negative ways to portray him. Personally, either I was a fool and never noticed it or because I went out of my way to be decent to him, he returned the favor.

I also worked with him at the time his wife was dying from cancer. On more than one occasion, he would phone from his White Oak farm stating he would be late because his wife had been ill or needed his attention. What a thrill it was to do a half hour or so of his show with his numerous listeners. Yet I knew his heart was aching as he watched his wife lose her life.

In 1978, I was let go by WTVN and migrated to WRFD to host a big band show. A year or so later Fraim too left WTVN over a reported tiff with management over working Saturday mornings. At that time, many major market hosts were beginning to only work 5 day work weeks instead of the previous normal six day load. Fraim too landed at WRFD as morning host and general manager. While I was only a weekend staffer, Fraim would pop into the station to catch up on paperwork. He would stop by the studio, express some pleasantries and then be off to his work.

Fraim's tenure at WRFD wasn't long as he left to join WCOL as morning host, broadcasting from the former observation deck of the Lincoln Leveque tower that had been converted into an apartment for him. After a few years, he joined WBBY as news director and even later owned a radio station between Logan and Athens, Ohio.

The last I heard of Fraim was that he was living in the rural Laurelville area and doing some free lance writing.

During his many years at WTVN, he was our morning friend.  Below is John Fraim today.