This issue:   And The Nominees Are...    -    Retro Studio in Bristol  -   Remembering Les Acree  -  Successful Meet 'n' Greets! 

September 2014


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ENTER THE TENNESSEE RADIO HALL OF FAME WEBSITE
 
  And now, a word from "Gair"
 OFF MIC         
    There's good news, and there's..well, other news!  Good News: after two successful road trips, to Jackson, TN, and Kingsport, TN during August, we improved our membership base in two critical areas of the state: East and West Tennessee. These new members were eager and enthusiastic about joining the Tennessee Radio Hall of Fame and our mission to honor the legacy and history of Tennessee radio. Their participation in both the nomination and voting processes will be telling as we elect our new class of inductees in November for the next Banquet and Induction Ceremony, May 2, 2015 in Murfreesboro. What's puzzling? There are still a number of previous members who have yet to "re-up" for this year. Even though the nomination period has passed, I hope many of these folks will decide to re-join us before our election this November. They can still play a vital role in determining who will join our previous honorees. Please join us in person at our next open member/board meeting in Nashville, on Saturday Sept. 13 at the "TAB building" conference room in Nashville, starting @ 10 am. Look for a reminder email soon with conference call information if you can't attend in person. One more thing: very happy to note that our Facebook page just reached at total of 1000 followers!  Remember out motto:
"Keep Calm & Segue..."
                             
 Successful Meet 'n' Greets
 JACKSON AND KINGSPORT
August 2nd: Jackson, TN
August 9th, Kingsport
 Gary Begin, Jack Parnell,
John "Johnny Dark" Dougherty
President Gary Beaty with
 two new East Tennessee members.

 
Vince Tapler and Rich Schoedel

 
 Bristol, Virginia:
Birthplace Of Country Music Museum
Ron Worrell (Far Left) Gives us a tour.

 
Remembering 2013 Career Inductee
 LES ACREE
  When you talk to people who knew, worked with or competed against Les Acree, you find two recurring themes: 1) Les was a great radio man, and 2) Les was a great man, period. Words like “friend,” “mentor,” “brother” and “fun” are heard again and again.
     Les died surrounded by close family August 26 at Vanderbilt Hospital in Nashville at the age of 72 after suffering the latest of a series of strokes that began in 2007.
     His professional accomplishments were many, beginning in 1961 with his first radio job at KDKD, Clinton. Mo. Over the next 4 decades Les played significant roles in the growth and development of the Country format. He served on the Board of Directors of Country Radio Broadcasters, Inc., and on the Agenda Committee of the influential Country Radio Seminar. He was a 3-time Billboard Magazine Country Disc Jockey of the year, a 3-time Billboard Country Program Director of the Year and won that same honor from the Gavin Report. In addition to the Tennessee Radio Hall of Fame, Les was a 2007 inductee of the Country Radio Hall of Fame.
     The list of call letters and markets where Les created great radio, mentored great talent and touched countless lives as a Disc Jockey, Music Director or PD includes WKRM, Columbia, TN; WTUP, Tupelo, MS; WRBC, Jackson, MS; WUBE, Cincinnati; WMC, Memphis; WKDA, Nashville; WGKX KIX 106, Memphis; WTQR, Greensboro-Winston Salem; WIVK, Knoxville; WNOE , New Orleans and KRMD, Shreveport. In 1998, he partnered with Keith Hill to form Hill-Acree Consulting. Les was instrumental in the careers of Kenny Chesney and many other Country artists and coached and mentored winners of the CMA Personality of the Year Award, including Wilhite and Wall, Carl P. Mayfield and Dr. Bruce Nelson.
     Professionally, Les was perhaps most proud of his key role in the marriage of Country radio with St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis. While Program Director at WMQM in Memphis in the early 70s, he put together the first large market Country radio fundraiser for St Jude. To date, more than 200 Country radio stations have followed his lead, raising hundreds of millions of dollars for St Jude in one of the most successful ongoing fundraising efforts in radio history.
     Les Acree is survived by his sons Paul and Ryan, his sisters Geri and Terry, his brother Larry, three beloved grandchildren and countless friends, coworkers and listeners. His funeral service was held August 30 in Memphis.
     Dave Nichols ~ Historian
(Photo: Les was featured in the 1998 book "Volmania" all decked out in Tennessee Volunteer orange.)
                           

Tri-Cities Veteran Broadcaster / Ham Radio Fest Organizer,  10-7
CHARLIE STUCHELL

                                         
Compiled from David McGee at Bristol Herald-Courier, and Tony Casey at Johnson City Press
                                     
      Tri-Cities radio listeners lost a familiar voice in early August with the death of longtime radio newsman Charlie Stuchell, who died at 64 after a long battle with cancer. The wisecracking radio newsman was most widely known for his traffic reports and most recently served as news assignment editor for WXBQ radio in Bristol , Va.
      “On the news side, Charlie Stuchell was one of the best friends Bristol Motor Speedway and dragway ever had,” BMS spokesman Kevin Triplett said Sunday. “If we had a press conference it was unusual for him not to be there ready and willing to help us – for decades.”         Triplett said vintage photos show Stuchell interviewing drivers at the speedway back in the 1970s.
      Born in Morgantown , W.Va. , Stuchell moved to the region after graduating from Fairmont State College and began working for WXBQ-FM. He left for a time to work for other stations but returned in 1990 and remained there ever since.
       WJHL-TV's Doug Counts said Stuchell always seemed to be in a good mood.  “He was always smiling and cutting up,” Counts said. “Charlie meant a lot to a lot of us. He will surely be missed.”
      As a true radio aficionado, he was chairman and one of the organizers of Hamfest in Gray, a three-decade-old event which draws over 1000 amateur radio operators from over 8 states.
       Hamfest Vice-Chairman Danny Herman, of Mountain City, met Stuchell through their mutual passion for ham radio more than 10 years ago. He said months ago they had all planned to meet at Stuchell’s house to discuss plans for next year’s Hamfest. After learning of Stuchell’s death, they collectively decided to cancel the next Hamfest and continue it, in Stuchell’s name, the following year.
       Erwin’s Jim Buchanan, who worked with Stuchell for 22 years, said, “Charlie had a wall full of scanners,” and was always available to get to the bottom of any story. He said Stuchell kept his contacts happy by supplying them with fruitcakes each year during the holidays.
       Stuchell was appreciated and respected by his peers. Wayne Winkler, director of local public radio station WETS-FM, spoke of Stuchell’s impact on the region.   “There were only a few radio newsmen in the area,” Winkler said. “And Charlie filled an important role for the Tri-Cities for many years.”
 Cathy Martindale crashes a
VOL REMOTE WITH WIVK
Advisory Board member Cathy Martindale recently stopped by a remote broadcast to find Board of Director member Cindy Arnold hard at work promoting University of Tennessee football...selling "Gator Hater" shirts with part of the proceeds to benefit the Ronald McDonald House. Last year, the legendary station sold over 8,400 shirts for the cause! They also created a parody song to go along with the t-shirt and promotion, which can be heard on their wivk.com website. Pictured left to right: Cathy Martindale, 'IVK morning show co-host Alison (Andy and Alison), and Cindy Arnold.
  Donate it and Deduct it!
 DON'T FORGET:  WE'RE A 501(c)3 
                                                                       
REMINDER: All donations to the Tennessee Radio Hall Of Fame are tax-deductible. If you have some items you want to donate to keep your memory of Tennessee radio alive, contact Skip Woolwine or Nick Archer.  Vintage broadcast gear is welcome, regardless of age or functionality.                                                                                 
  In case you didn't hear us the first time:
 NEW MAILING ADDRESS
Our Post Office Box has moved.  If you need to send anything to us, our new mailing address is:
Tennessee Radio Hall of Fame
P.O. Box 158921
Nashville, TN 37215
                                                        
 INDUCTION BANQUET PHOTOS
                                 
A reminder once again, that professional photos from the 2014 TRHOF awards banquet may be purchased (at a very low price!) from our own Leslie Pardue, owner of Flashmasters. Take a peek at the banquet photos at                                  
                                                                                  
Follow me to Tennessee... Radio Hall Of Fame, that is!
LIVE FROM THE TWITTER-VERSE! 
The Tennessee Radio Hall of Fame has a Twitter account!  What do we have to tweet about?   FOLLOW US!  Our Twitter handle is @TENNRHOF
                                                                               
 NEXT MEETING  
Our  next meeting is Saturday, October 11th for the Board of Directors and the Advisory Council at the TAB headquarters in Nashville. Check "Events" on our website.                    
                           

 WHAT'S NEWS?

--- Please send any news, promotions, stories, trivia…maybe you have an old radio story you’d like to share with us….anything that may be of interest to our membership.  Please email it any of the newsletter staff listed below.  Our newsletter is published the first of every month and back issues may be viewed on our official website at tennradiohalloffame.org   Please keep your email address current so you don’t miss an issue!                            
           
--- A committee has been formed to collect and purchase Tennessee radio memorabilia, including old microphones, on-air signage, transmitter parts, and anything related to TN radio stations. If you have items you'd like to donate (or purchase on Ebay, Craigslist, etc.) please contact Nick Archer.  Nick also oversees the TRHOF Facebook page which now boasts over 1000 members, and also our YouTube Page with over 150 airchecks (over 27,000 views!) and other audio/video memories
                               
--- Looking for a gig in Radio, or do you have a spot to fill at your station?  Post it HERE next month!                                                                                                                                            
Contact email: TennRHOF@gmail.com
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  It's a wrap for Nominations... but only for a moment 
 LET THE VETTING BEGIN!

        Vet, (verb) a) to subject to usually expert appraisal or correction; b) to evaluate for possible approval or acceptance”.
                             
       The nominating period for the 2015 Class of the Tennessee Radio Hall of Fame ended at the stroke of Midnight August 31, with more than a dozen proposed nominations received for the Legacy Category and more than two dozen for the Career Category.
        During September, members of the Election Committee will vet each candidate to be sure that each meets all requirements for induction in their respective category and that all necessary information, including photos and biographical information have been received.
       The Career candidates, who made substantial contributions to the radio industry and the communities their station(s) or networks served, and who are living at the time of their election, will be voted on and elected by the Tennessee Radio Hall of Fame members who are in good standing. That election will be held online and through paper ballots, beginning at 12:01 AM CST on November 1st and ending at 12:00 Midnight CST on November 30th.
        Remember, only Lifetime Members and Full Members whose dues are paid for the membership year that began July 1 will be eligible to vote.
        Legacy candidates, radio professionals who made substantial contributions to the radio industry and their communities and who are deceased at the time of their selection, will be chosen by the Board of Directors and the Advisory Council at a joint meeting in November. Again, only Lifetime Members and members whose dues are paid for the membership year that began July 1 will be eligible to participate in that meeting.
       Candidates who are found to qualified and properly nominated in both the Career and Legacy categories will be announced in the October 1 edition of this newsletter and online.
      Thanks to all who have participated in the nominating process so far.
As Paul Harvey would say, “Stand by for news!”         
          Dave Nichols ~ Election Coordinator                    
  WARNING: This is a Geeks-Only Zone
  REWORK OF A CLASSIC     by Jim Gilmore
     When I was approached by the Birthplace of Country Music Museum in Bristol almost two years about transforming a vintage radio console for use in a period radio studio within the museum I thought it would be a fun and interesting project. It was fun and interesting but much more time consuming than I anticipated.
     Almost a year after our initial meeting, the museum personnel discovered an old Raytheon RC-10 console which had been in service at WCYB in Bristol. The console was in deplorable shape, missing many components, dirty and neglected. Even if it could have been internally restored, there were other requirements which precluded this.

     I picked up the console and drove it to Nashville in October last year and began disassembling it totally, carefully documenting the process and cataloging all the small parts. I contacted a reputable auto body shop about restoring and painting the cabinet and front panel.
     After several meetings with the museum staff back in Bristol, we drew up the requirements for the refurbished console:
• The look shall be as authentic as possible, consistent with the original layout and paint scheme.
• The console shall be converted to stereo in both audition and program channels.
• The console shall have a mono sum output of program stereo.
• The console shall have five microphone preamplifiers, switchable between the studio and the control room, and the preamps shall be assignable to either left, center or right in the stereo field.
• The preamps shall have gain options of 40 and 60 dB to allow for low level ribbon microphones, and have switchable phantom power.
• The console shall have a clean feed (mix-minus) of the five microphones.
• The five microphone preamplifiers shall have separate +4 dB balanced isolated outputs for tracking in ProTools.
• The console shall have 3 switchable VU Meters for monitoring Program, Audition, Clean Feed and Mono outputs.
• All outputs shall be balanced at +4 dB reference, all line level inputs shall be +4dB balanced and all microphone preamplifiers shall be balanced with up to 60 dB Gain.
• All mixing pots shall be Penny & Giles conductive plastic rotary.
• The console shall be solid state with all active components on sockets and easily replaceable.
• The power supply shall be separate and rack mounted.
• All amplifier construction shall be modular and easily removable for servicing.
• Program monitoring shall be switchable among Program, Audition, and Mix-Minus and external.
• Cue monitoring shall be switchable among Cue, Mix-Minus and external.

   
 
 Garry Mac at The Birthplace of Country Music retro radio studio.  
Note: That's a 16-inch turntable platter!
     Parts were a challenge in some areas….particularly finding lever switches, as most of the ones I removed from the console were not useable; additionally, since the program and audition channels were to be converted to stereo, I had to find switches with more contacts. The one VU meter on the console was broken, so it was not an option; luckily I had three new Simpson 4” VU meters which I had purchased about a year earlier. The No. 47 lamps in the meters have been replaced with LEDs, keeping the maintenance requirements lower.
     Circuitry is a combination of OPAMP labs modules and custom designed circuit boards. Output transformers are UTC A-20’s. All internal wiring is Mogami W2944; there is about 500 feet of wire inside the frame. All input and output connections are made to Tascam DB-25 standards.
There were lots of challenges along the way; the internal frame structure and module sleds had to be designed and fabricated, and all the internal modules required much metal work including layout, punching, drilling and milling. Making all the electronics fit into the cabinet was quite a challenge, as was the wiring itself.
     It goes without saying that there were many hours involved. There are always moments in a project like this when one asks oneself, “What was I thinking when I agreed to this?”, but in the end it was a very fun and rewarding undertaking.
     When the time came for installation in July, 2014 I coaxed Mike Flood, ex. Gates, SMC and ITC out of retirement to help with the control room wiring. It took the two of us a full week to install the console and peripheral equipment including a Bob Mayben refurbished Gates CB 100 16” turntable and Gray Research tone arm and vintage on air lights.
     The control room is fully functional as a tracking, recording, production and on the air studio for use by museum staff in producing programming, disc archival and restoration and as a museum attraction to give visitors a glimpse of what a radio control room looked like at a time in our lives when broadcasting was an important part of our culture.
      What is really stands out is that an organization still cares about doing something right and preserving pieces of our past which might otherwise have gone to a scrap yard. When we can pass legacies like this on to future generations we have made a difference.
                                http://www.birthplaceofcountrymusic.org/
  Who is it?
 TRIVIA TIME!
Let's Play TRIVIA!
(A.)  Which one of your fellow members did the following? (answers at the end)
Played in Super Bowl III (1969)...well, he was in a high school marching band that performed pre-game and half-time... AND he was also an extra in “Coal Miner’s Daughter” in a scene walking next to Tommy Lee Jones- not even knowing who he was!
                           
(B.) "Being primarily in radio sales most of my career one of my first home runs was selling Wink Martindale's "The Elvis Presley Story" a thirteen hour production. I think the program rights were $750 which was a fairly large expenditure for WHUB a three thousand watt FM station in Cookeville in the 70's.  Armed with Wink's promos and my mighty cassette player I sold the entire program out in two days for three grand. "Pretty good" I thought.  Program ran in its entirety one Saturday 8am to 9pm. The program was such a hit that the station broke it down in one hour segments and sold it again. After the death of Elvis, Wink updated the program and the station purchased the updated version and the station hit another home run. A great way to get a sales rep fired up and prove to his clients that radio really does work. Good local, state, and national programming along with excellent management kept WHUB AM/FM number one in their market for over 50 years.                                 
Scroll to the bottom for the answers!
                 
  Did YOU....  re-NEW?
 WELCOME NEW MEMBERS 
   This might be a record month for new members!  33 new members joined our ranks in August!  If you haven't done so yet, RENEW YOUR MEMBERSHIP online by logging in, and clicking Member Profile.  If you're not a bona-fide member, JOIN US NOW, and become eligible to VOTE (November) for the next class of Inductees into the Tennessee Radio Hall of Fame on May 2nd, 2015!  Our membership year is July 1, 2014 through June 30, 2015. This enables you to receive our monthly email newsletter, with Full Members eligible to nominate and vote on inductees and on our annual Board of Directors. Click the "JOIN" tab under our logo on the Home Page.
We welcome these New Members in August: 

James E. "Super" Wolfe
Rich Schoedel
Larry Melton
John Bastin
Gary Pickens
Bill Hagy
Scott Gray
Jessica Turner
Jeri George
David Widener
Jeff Hall
Steve Mann
Elva Marie Woodward
Tom F. King
Melanie Montgomery
Don Raines
Jim Buchanan

Duane Nelson
Kenneth Forte
Gina Kerra Logue
JIm Gilmore
Donna R. Davis
Jared Stehney
John Bouwhuis
Kyle Croft
Elinor "Lin" Folk
Alex Ward
Jerry Wilson
Melissa Wagner
Robert Boyer
Scott Walker
Henry Fennell
Paul Hankins

                              

  Face it.  It's inevitable.
 HAPPY BIRTHDAY!


 

SEPTEMBER
Don Aaron
Mike Bohan
Robert Boyer
Dave Brown
Tom Bryant
Moody Castleman
Mike Dyer
Charles A. Edwards Sr.
Tommy Grider
James Hammond
Michael Hammond
Spider Harrison
Tyler Hawks
Demetria Kalodimos
Mike Keith
Cathy Martindale
Susan Collins Palladino
Gary Pickens
Richard Robinson
Loretta Stapp
Paul Tinkle
Elva Marie Woodward
Sid Young

                                     

                           
TRIVIA ANSWERS

 
Trivia Answer (A): Brian Mason

 
Trivia Answer (B): Mike Medley

  
If you have a trivia fact you wouldn't mind sharing with our members, please email it to one of the newsletter staff!
Newsletter staff:
Editor:Cathy Martindale cathymartindale@comcast.net
Buddy Sadler sbuddy@bellsouth.net
Melissa McDonald starmagic@comcast.net
Skip Woolwine  woolwine@comcast.net
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