Wednesday, April 2, 2008

WMAL - The Way It Was


The picture you see here has special significance to me - This was the exact air staff in place when I arrived at WMAL in 1982. I rescued this photo from the trash can, along with several of WMAL's hard-earned Peabody awards, during an office swap about 10 years ago. I managed to get the Peabodys (Peabodies? nah.) to their rightful owners, but I saved the photograph, which was framed in a 1970's vintage burnt orange picture frame, for myself, and it spent several years hanging in my office. When I left WMAL, I deeded the photo to the station's de facto historian, Chief Engineer David Sproul, and he was kind enough to scan a copy and forward it to me. The people you see before you made WMAL the top station in Washington for most of the 60's, all of the 70's and about the first third of the 80's. I was lucky to be a part of the team back at a time when people would have KILLED to work at WMAL. In columns, from left to right, top to bottom, Bill Mayhugh, Felix Grant, Ken Beatrice, Frank Harden, Jackson Weaver, Tom Gauger, John Lyon, Chris Core, Ed Walker and Bill Trumbull.

2 comments:

Julie Matthews said...

1982... brrrriiinngg... brrrriiinngg...

John: Hello, WMAL Q107

Caller: I wanna hear Gloria! Gloria! By Laura Branigan!

John: Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

Kevin Kaas said...

About 30 some years ago I found a box of reel to reel tapes and one of them was labelled WMAL. On it is Bill Trumbull doing his radio program, playing popular music on Aug. 25, 1967. The tape was made for the guys in Vietnam as are many of the tapes in the box. It is nice to finally put a face to the voice. Anyone interested in obtaining a copy of it can contact me at (727)394-6131
Sincerely,
Kevin Kaas, CE, ITVS
St. Petersburg College