Interview with Jack Fox, April 10, 2013

Heather Fox: It's April 10th, 2013. This is Heather Fox and I'm interviewing Jack Fox for the WHAS oral history project. We're in the extra library, on the second floor. And hello, Jack.

Jack Fox: Hello. This will be different.

HF: I know. So-

JF: I'm usually on the other side of the-

HF: Right. So let's just start with when and where were you born?

JF: I was born in Evansville, Indiana. And I've tell the year, 1942. November 16th, 1942.

HF: Okay. And how did you get into radio?

JF: I was at a senior in high school, in a little town in Harvard, Illinois, Northwest of Chicago, up on the Wisconsin line. My dad was a minister of a Baptist Church in that little town, and it was Thanksgiving of 1959. And we 1:00usually would go to visit relatives on Thanksgiving, down at Evansville, Indiana, about 300 miles away, because my dad had some community service obligations on Thanksgiving, we didn't go. And I don't know, I was feeling sorry for myself and didn't get to go visit my cousins. And I said, "What am I going to do?" And there was a little radio station of 500 watt, daytime radio station. I don't know why, but I thought, "I'll go out and visit there." And I did.

A little lady named Esther Blodgett owned the place, she lived there. It was an old house, she lived upstairs and she had given her one employee the day off. It was a radio station signed on in the morning and signed off at night. So she was there all day. And I guess she liked the company and we just talked a while. And then I started going out and hanging around after school and on weekends. And finally, she said, "If you're going to hang around, I'm going to put you to work." So I started working while I was still in high school. And I graduated from high school. I graduated from Harvard in 1960, high school.

HF: Can I interrupt you for a moment? What was the name of the radio station?

JF: WMCW Radio in Harvard, Illinois.

HF: Okay.

JF: Lady named Esther Blodgett, put on the air. So when I graduated from high school, I was going to go to Evansville to go to college, where my family had moved since. And she said, "Well, you don't have a job. Why don't you stay here and work with me for the summer?" And I said, "It's fine." So I roomed with a buddy of mine and worked there for the summer, and then went down to Evansville, Indiana to go to college. And my older brother, Richard, was in a radio in Evansville, a station called WEOA. And he was just graduating and leaving, so I took his job and was off and running to the races.

HF: So what kind of work did you do for Esther when you started?

JF: Everything. It was a 500 watt daytime country radio station. We were about 60 miles north of Chicago. If you wanted entertainment, you listen to Chicago, if you wanted local news, you listen to our station. And I called and got the grain reports for the farmers, I called the funeral homes and got obituaries for the local news and read those. I mowed the grass, I came through the trash. I 3:00also, I would, if I was in the morning, I would do a country and western program. And then in the morning we'd do a Polka Party. We had a lot of German and Polish people who lived in Wisconsin, so I did a Polka Party in the morning. And then in the afternoon, I would do a teen program. We play the top records for the kids and then we'd sign off at four o'clock or six o'clock or whenever daylight was. So I did a little bit of everything. Did news, read the news.

HF: And technically speaking, did Esther train you on how to run the board and do the turntables and things like that or-

JF: It was pretty simple to pick up. I'm sure she gave me a little introductory course, very simple board. Here's your microphone, here your turntables, put this switch, the turntables start. We had turntables then. We had commercials, most of them were live. If they were recorded, we had a little, three inch reel to reel tapes that we recorded and put on there. So the records were records of course.

HF: And what were the ... So when you say the commercials were live-

JF: We read them.

HF: Did you just read them on the card or something like that?

JF: Yeah. They were written out on a piece of paper or we'd had to live them. If you know the place, you knew what they wanted. We'd just talk about it. But generally, they were written out. And for me anyway, they were written out. I would just read them.

HF: So how did you get to ... Well, what was your next radio job after college?

JF: Let's see. While I was in college, I dropped out for a year and went to Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and worked at WAIR Radio for just a year and then I thought, "I'd better go back to school." I went back to school, back to Evansville. Met my wife, Mary Lou. This is in 1960. From '62 to '63, I went to Winston-Salem. Then I came back to Evansville in '63 and worked at WIKY Radio. It was a very good operation. A man named John Engelbrecht had put another 5:00daytime 250 watt radio station on the air, but he had also expanded into FM which was not a big thing then, and had a stereo music and the automated, which was really a big deal for them. Nobody else was doing that, but we had a program on called [serenaded even tide 00:05:16]. I would do those intros and they played beautiful music, that sort of thing.

But I worked at WIKY, and then in 1967, the fellow who I'd worked for in Winston-Salem, had been while gone to Kansas City, Missouri. And he called me and asked me to come up there to work for him and I went there. And KMBZ in Kansas City, which was a big step, to go from Evansville to Kansas City. It was much bigger market and all that. But I enjoyed that. And then while I was in Kansas City, some people from Denver General Electric had bought KOA Radio. Was a 50,000 watt radio station in Denver, and had bought that and we're trying to upgrade it. And they had heard me on the KMBZ in Kansas City and asked me to 6:00come up and do their mornings for them. So, went out there.

Was there from '69 to '72. During that time, we had taken a couple of tours of Europe with our listeners, go to Europe. I was Jack Frost on the radio out there. Go to Europe with Jack Frost and his wife. And we took people to Europe for a couple of years. I got to tell you one quick, funny story by being Jack Frost in Denver, because you were already born. You were born in Kansas City. Your sister Jill was born in Denver. And I'd been talking about it on the radio. And one morning this lady called me and said, "You have to talk to my son." She had a little four-year-old and that morning there was frost on the window pane. And she said, "What is that?" The boy said, "What is that?"

She said, "Well, this little man named Jack Frost comes around at night and paints all the things." He says, "Wait a minute, I just heard him on the radio. Was he up all night?" He said, "Well, he had a new baby. He had a new mouth to 7:00feed too. He had to take a second job." But while we were in Europe, we enjoyed that. We love to travel. And after we came home the second time, Lou, my wife said, "We didn't spend nearly enough time in Italy. We didn't get the Florence where all the art treasures are. Wouldn't it be nice if we could go back there and stay as long as we wanted and come home and move on." I said, "That'd be great." She said, "Let's do it." And I said, "You're crazy."

She signed up, but let's do it anyway. So we got excited about that. And this was in December, we started making plans. We sold our house, put our furniture in storage and bought round trip boat tickets and took two little girls and went to Italy. And we left in June and found a spot over on. We traveled around Switzerland for a month and bought a little car there. And we picked out a spot down in Tuscany on the coast, a little town called San Vincenzo, where we wanted 8:00to be on the beach, but near Florence, and rented a villa there. And you have memories of that place, I'm sure.

HF: I do.

JF: And so we were there until November. The money ran out and I said, "Let's go back home." So we came home Thanksgiving of 1972. But this is leading to a place. Before we had left, we spent a little time, Lou's parents were in Evansville, Indiana, and my folks were in that same area, but I had a brother who was down in Pikeville, Kentucky, and we'd gone to visit him before we left. And I came through Louisville. I was listening to radio stations. As you always remember, I would listen to the announcers and you guys want to hear the music, but I was listening and I heard this radio station, WHAS. I thought, "boy I like what they do. I think I'll --" I knew I had to get a job when I came back and I'd go down and talk with him.

And when I came back, I was again making that trip from Evansville to Pikeville to visit my brother and stopped in and wrapped the tape off. Audition tape. And I didn't meet the manager, fellow named Hugh Barr. His secretary said he's busy. 9:00And so I just took the tape, didn't expect to hear anything. And a week later, she called and said, "Hey, come and talk to us. You had a job opening." I went to work there in March of 1973, WHAS. Just in time for the Kentucky Derby. The Secretariat Derby, which was a big one. So that was my first Kentucky Derby. And of course, WHAS, at that time really got into the Derby. We were there for weeks, preparing for it. And then while we were getting ready to move here, you and your sister and your mother were staying in Evansville with family. And I was here while our house was being built.

And during that Derby week, I was at everything, the Balloon Race, the Steamboat Race, that many ... all that sort of thing. And I was calling every day, "Boy, it was exciting, it was exciting." And then when the Derby came, I was-- Secretariat and set a new record and all that. I called your mother and I said, "Did you see that?" There was this long pause and she said, "You went through 10:00all of that for two minutes of a horse race?" Well, you had to be here. Since that time, she's gotten into it too. But that was the first Kentucky Derby. I went to work at WHAS. At that time I was doing from noon to 3:00, I believe it was. Wayne Perkey was on the morning, Jerry David Malloy was on from 9:00 to noon. I was on from noon to 3:00 and a fellow named Jeff Douglas was on from 3:00 till 6:00 or 7:00, I think. Then at that time, I think Milton Metz was coming on from 7:00 to midnight. We may have had a sports talk program in there. I can't remember.

HF: Do you remember your first day on the job?

JF: Not really. I do remember. While we were in Europe, I had grown a beard, which was unusual for me, but I had it and I liked it. And when I came back, I thought, well, if I have to shave it off to take a job, because in those days were a lot more formal. Guys were wearing coats and ties still to work and 11:00everything. And I thought, "If I have to shave it off, I will." So I walked into WHAS with my beard and I went in to see Hugh Barr. And he said, "Welcome." And he stood up, had this huge gray beard. I thought, "Okay, I'm in. I don't have to shave it off." So it was good.

Hugh, by the way, was a real architect of what became the modern WHAS radio. He was there when they made a transition from the big band era and the live radio programs and transitioned it to more modern at that time. Disc jockeys and community involvement. Got the station involved, had their own news department, hired a helicopter reporter for traffic, weather people, did all that sort of thing. Very influential. And he's the guy that got hired me. He was good.

HF: So I wanted to go back a little bit to KOA, and I just wanted to ask you about the programming style that they had there, and ultimately asking you just to compare programming at KOA and WHAS when you started.

JF: Okay. KOA was, when I went in there, again, they had had live programming and we were replacing a fellow named Pete Smythe. Pete was a great guy, but he'd been doing mornings at KOA for years. And KOA was the voice of Rocky Mountain West, 50,000 watts went all over the Rocky mountains in the area there. And Pete had a program called Pete Smythe General Store, and he sat around a player piano or piano, and he would tell stories and had characters, and I thought it was great. But everybody coming from the east out to Denver at that time, didn't listen. And they were used to music and disc jockeys, and I was hired to do that, to replace Pete, which was not a real easy transition. Pete was very popular. But then eventually, it worked out.

Funny story about that. I was not popular to replacing Pete, but gained some popularity. And I came in and played records and talk between them and introduced, we had traffic and sports and news, and I was the disc jockey that 13:00wove all that together. My voice is at many airports around the country telling people to stand to the right on the moving sidewalk. Back about six months ago, I decided to Google Pete Smythe and see what ... I knew he had passed away. But one of the things Pete did when he retired, he was the voice of the Denver International Airport and I replaced it... So someday when Pete and I are that big round up in the sky, we're going to have a talk, I'm sure. I hope I'm more popular there. That was when I first went in.

But interestingly enough, we did news, weather, sports, and I played music in between, but as the other elements, the traffic and the weather and the sports and the news all became longer and longer, we eventually eliminated music and I became a news jockey. I sat at a conference table like this and would coordinate 14:00all of the news guy would come in and the sports guy we'd talk back and forth very much like we did at WHAS. That was the thing that attracted me at WHAS. They were involved in the community, they had all of the elements that a listener would want. It wasn't just playing music and introducing the song and that sort of thing. So it was very similar. That's what attracted to me in the first place.

HF: But you did play music at WHAS. Any news?

JF: I did, yeah. We played music, but it was also a style that if we needed to stop and talk about something, we could. If something happened, if a community event, for example, if the Louisville Cardinals won the National Basketball Championship, as they did a few nights ago, we would stop and talk about it. We had a hotline, we take calls from listeners. It was great where some of my best lines and jokes and things came from listeners, but they were a great source for information. If there was a traffic accident, they would call us and we will put it on the air.

I remember one time, this must have been in the '80s. I'm sorry. In the '90s sometime, I was on the air and our hotline rang and said, "Do you guys know 15:00anything about a National Guard plane crashing at Evansville?" And I said, "I don't know, we'll find out." And I called our news department and they checked, a National Guard plane from Louisville had crashed in Evansville. And that was the first anybody heard about it here, but it was that kind of connection with listeners that I really enjoyed. We had regular people who called and they always had some comment to make. And we talk about our family, we talk about you all. You all very popular, because they call and ask about you and how you doing and that kind of thing. That was good.

HF: Seriously. Pre-internet.

JF: Yeah, it was. It really was, yeah.

HF: [crosstalk].

JF: But that was the thing. Today, talk radio, that's the genre today. I hear guys who are my age or older, say, "Oh boy, it's not like it used to be." It's not, but we weren't like the Pete Smythes and the Randy Atcher's either. We 16:00replaced them. And I'm sure there were people thinking, "Oh boy, they've ruined that radio station." Like that. So, that's the way it is. It moves on. But our philosophy was, if we had something to say, we stopped and said it, if we didn't, we played music. But we had the flexibility to stop. The station was very, very involved in the community. That was Hugh Barr's. That was the direction of radio at that time and that's where he led us.

We went to the state fair every year and broadcast from out there, where we met our listeners. As I said, if there was a basketball game or a football game, the station was there. We did all kinds of things like ... Had to be involved in the community. We emceed a lot of events, a rotary club. You'd go speak at the rotary club or if there was a county fair contest, Miss Henry County, we were out there emceeing that kind of thing. I enjoyed that. It was very involved in the community and got to know people.

HF: So you were here during the tornado?

JF: Yes. I just been here a year.

HF: Talk about-

JF: And I was not familiar with tornadoes. Although we lived in Kansas, I was familiar with them, but we hadn't been as intimately involved. We've been here just right at a year. In 1974, April 3rd, I was on the air that day. And I went on at noon and this thing started coming through about noon. Brandenburg, Kentucky was hit real hard, and about every minute, our alarm was going off and we were giving more alerts and it really wiped out Brandenburg, Kentucky. And then at 3:30, I went off the air and Jeff Douglas came on in about 3:40. We had a fellow named Dick Gilbert, who was a helicopter pilot. And how he managed to stay up, I don't know because they grounded everybody else, but he was a very savvy pilot. And he had gotten behind the thing some way.

And I remember hearing them say, Dick say, "Well, they say there's a tornado, but I don't ... Wait, wait, there it is. I see it forming right now." He was over ... I get goosebumps talking about it. He was right over Freedom Hall. It 18:00was over Freedom Hall. That's when it started like that. He followed it all through town, alive on the air, like a play by play description. And I'm forgetting him saying, "Folks, Cherokee Park, as we know is no more." I thought, "Dick, don't be so dramatic. You're going to scare people." He was right. The next day I went by. Now the next day was sunny, it was beautiful and you wouldn't know anything happened until you went by the path of the tornado.

I went by the fairgrounds, the roof was gone and the signboards on ice 65, the billboards, those huge metal girdles, the girders were twisted. They were like they've been tied in and not. And it was just amazing. Over behind-- Crescent Hill, behind Southern Seminary and Cherokee Park, all it was just a pile of rubble. But while it was going on, we didn't have cell phones and all that. And I was worried about you guys. You were living out by McNeely Lake and Okolona, 19:00and I tried to call and the phone lines were busy, I couldn't get through. And I was frightened for a while because I didn't know if it would come to our place or what. But during that time, the station became a center point for everybody. And I'm sure other radio stations did too. But because we got out into this tape, people were calling, the governor was calling and asking for information. He was honed with Milton Metz.

I remember that night, Milton was on the air. They had somebody to answer the phone, but didn't have computer screens then and so he didn't know who it was. And I said, "Let's take our next caller." "Hi Milton, this is Wendell. It was Wendell Ford, the governor. Just checking on y'all up there." It was crazy. But that was an interesting time. And since that time, then the station became a focal point for all the weather alerts and everyone. Now, it's on your smartphone, it's everywhere, and the television stations are on all the time and everything, but it was very, if something was happening, you tuned in WHAS to 20:00see what it was. So, what it was.

HF: So you had a pretty close relationship with the weather guys and the news guys and all that?

JF: Yeah, the news guys, let's see. When I first went there, a fellow named Byron Crawford, who was, he made his mark during that tornado, he was like a rock. He and a fellow named Chuck Paddock. Glen Bastin was the news director, and they did a great job covering everything. Byron was on from, I think, noon till through the night, I think he was on. Chuck Paddock was there. Let's see. Then later on, I was hitting WHAS from 1973 to '76 and then I left for a while to do freelance, but I would come back in and fill in for people. And then in 1984, I came back to do just Saturday mornings. I wanted to stay in touch with things. I was doing Saturday morning from 6:00 to 10:00.

And then in January of 1985, a fellow named Denny Nugent was the program director. And he asked me, he said, "Our afternoon guy, Bill Cody, is leaving. And if I needed you to fill in afternoons for a while, could you do that?" 21:00Because I was filling in for some people. And I said, "Yeah, I could arrange my schedule to do that." So in January of '85, I went back to work there and doing afternoons. And they hired Terry Meiners, but Terry had a six month non-compete clause, so he couldn't come on the air till December of that year. So all that year I was doing afternoons. And we had some memorable times then, in April, again, I think it was in April, I was on the air and Ken Schulz was the weather guy. And Ken would just come in to do the four o'clock weather cast and we went off the air. Something had happened to our transmitter.

So while we're waiting to see if we get restored, usually it would kick right back on, a listener called and said, "Did you know that your transmitting tower is on the ground?" Now we have this huge tower out across from the Long Run Park and the wind did knocked it over. And now that I know, I didn't know that. And so that was a moment of this thing. The engineers went out and ran literally a wire from the engineering building and hung it out the window. And we had like 22:001500 Watts of power and we were back on the air by 11 o'clock that night. But it was interesting. Had a funny story. During that time, we also ... Well, after we got our power back, we lost the University of Kentucky basketball and football contract, to announce it. Well, that was not popular with UK fans because the station, again, got out to all these states.

And I had a call from a fellow who said, "You don't understand how important you guys are." My dad is a retired from Kentucky. He's living in Florida, a diehard, UK basketball fan. He said, one night he was listening, he wanted to hear this basketball game and he couldn't get it at home. So he's in his car and he's sitting in the middle of this exclusive subdivision with his lights out on and his engine running, and listening to the radio station. And a policeman came up, tapped him on the window and said, "Sir, do you mind telling me what you're 23:00doing here?" He said, "Well, I know officer, this sounds crazy, but you're not going to believe me, but there's this radio station in Louisville, Kentucky, University of Kentucky basketball." He said, "I believe you. You're the third one I found tonight." So the guy with the hill.

So it had that kind of impact. So let's talk about some of the other people. Wayne Perkey was still there when I came back. I worked there from 1984 and then when Meiners came back, I would just fill in, but I was filling in regularly. Perkey would be gone or Meiners would be gone, or Liz Curtis would be gone, and I would fill in. And then in 1987, Liz Curtis left to have a baby. She was on from 9:00 to noon, and I would, I was filling in for her and she decided not to come back. And they asked me to, I think Gary Bruce was the program director then. And he asked me if I would take the job and I did. And I was there from '87 till '94. Then that's when I left.

HF: Can we scoot back a little bit too? Did you notice any difference in the gap between when you left in '76 and when you came back in '84?

JF: Not too much. No, it was pretty much the same thing. Very involved in the community, personnel had changed. As I said, when I came back, Denny Nugent was the program director. Oh, one big step had happened back before I left in 1976. We had a fellow named Jeff Douglas who was on, and Jeff had some problems and actually committed suicide. I was on the air, he was to replace me. And if I can talk about this, he was going to replace me and he didn't show up at 3:30. And so at four o'clock, he still wasn't there. So Hugh Barr said, "Could you hang on?" I said, "Sure." So at 4:30, he brought Jim Ferguson who was the production director to come in and do it.

But then about 5:00, Jim said I've really got to get back to work. So I came back and I'm doing. At about 5:30, Hugh came in and said, "Hmm," and gave me the news, but they had to hire somebody, so they took a big step. Now WHAS, up until 25:00Hugh Barr began to change, it had been a little stodgy, old fashioned. It was okay, but it needed to be changed. And so we had the images of the sleeping giant over there and he wanted to get us into the community more and we became the cuddly giant. And we had shifted, we became more, we weren't wearing coats and ties to work anymore. We were wearing open collared shirts and a couple of guys who've had beads around and beards and things like that.

Well, they hired this guy named Gary Burbank. Now Gary was a rock chalk at wacky here in town. Very popular about a wild guy, and then he'd gone out. He was actually in Toronto. I know Ontario, Canada, at this point in Detroit. And that was a big move to bring a guy like that in here, because he was wild guy characters and things like that. And I'll never forget the day they brought him in for the interview because he just knew us as the old WHAS. And he came from upstairs in an interview down to our lounge, our office, our disc jockeys lounge, which was right off the lobby, to meet us. He was going to meet us for 26:00the first time.

HF: The DJs.

JF: The DJs, yeah. Now we're all there in our open collared shirts, our flowered shirts and our bell bottom pants, and our love beads on. Gary gets off with his long hair and in this three piece suit with a tie. He walked in and said, "There's something wrong with this picture." And he was right. But that was a great stroke to bring him in there. He was very popular and did ... A lot of people still talk about his snow sharks. He had all kinds of characters.

HF: So what Hugh was just trying to appeal to, he's just trying to shake it up or?

JF: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Bring it in and bring it into a modern era-

HF: Modern era.

JF: Because nobody was listening. Everybody was listening to disc jockeys. WAVE radio was very popular. They were doing WAVE radio on wacky. Wacky was the young audience. They played top 40 things, they had some great disc jockeys who went 27:00on to big things. And WAVE was the community adult station. They played adult music, supposedly, and middle of the road music, big band singers, and things like that, in pop singers with no rock. And he was trying to carve that out. And when he started, HAS was probably rated 10 or 12 in the market. But by the middle '70s, we were up to number one. Number one. Wayne Perkey was very popular in the morning and did a good job.

When I came back in '84, same thing, personnel had changed. Wayne Perkey was still there. Jerry David Malloy had been on 9:00 to noon when I was there before, he had gone. And Liz Curtis was on from 9:00 to noon. And let's see. Well, actually when I came back, I replaced her. Liz was on from 9:00 to noon, a fellow named Doug McKelvin was on from noon to 3:00, and then Meiners was still there from 3:00 to 7:00, but they were still doing the same things. If the thing happened, during that time, this was 1994, I think, a fellow named Skip Essick 28:00had become program director by that time. People have talked about this on some of our other interviews, huge snowstorm, city was locked down. Couldn't go anywhere.

And one of our people, one of our news people, Mary Jeffries, I think, Mary Jeffries had a call from a lady who said her daughter had to have a liver transplant or something, and she was scheduled and she had to be, I don't know, Minneapolis or someplace by that afternoon. And of course, no commercial airline flights and nothing was happening. And there were other things that happened, but they put that on the air. A helicopter service said, "We'll come and get her." Listeners showed up. 100 or so people shoveled the parking lot. It's Southeast Christian Church on Hikes Lane, got that little girl, but that was a 29:00listener. Listener thing. So I get emotional about that. That was great.

HF: Understandable.

JF: But that was the kind of thing that they did.

HF: Right.

JF: Skip Essick, I said was the programmer, a very good programmer. He had done tours of Ireland in his other radio stations as a promotion and got listeners involved, much like we had done in KOA in Europe. And he asked Lou and me to lead the first trip to Ireland. And we did that and had a great time and wound up doing six of those. So we went to Ireland for Saint Patrick's Day, for six years in a row and marched in the parade in Dublin and on Saint Patrick's Day up O'Connell Street. We would broadcast from there. I still get people talking about that. On Saint Patrick's Day, we'd broadcast my Saturday program. We would do 6:00 to 10:00 from there, although there was much later over there. And we'd be up on O'Connell Street watching the parade and broadcast. We'd bring in local 30:00Irish people. It was great.

I'll never forget. The first time we had a fellow named Danny O'Connell and he's saying, we signed off by saying, "When I resigned as they're smiling." It was great. What a way to go? That's good. We did six of those and had a good time. It seems like ... Oh, I will tell you one quick story about that too. We had this guy, Jack Cary, I think was his name. Hope you'll forgive me for this. But he lived in Somerset, Kentucky, I think. But Irish background, always wanted to go to Ireland, had never gone, and he went on our first trip and he was in heaven. But he liked the Guinness stout.

I mean, we got off the plane and he had always wanted a Guinness, so he had a Guinness. Every time the bus would stop, we'd stop, he'd go get a Guinness. What about the ninth day? We're in Dublin and we're going to March in the Saint Patrick's Day parade. We're going up O'Connell Street with these thousands of people. And he grabs mama says, "Look," pointed to a billboard that said, "You're not Irish until you've had a Guinness." He said, "Hell, I could vote in 31:00this country." And he was right. He was thoroughly Irish. We were a lot of good memories like that. That answer your question, I hope.

HF: Yeah.

JF: Let's see. Who else was there?

HF: Well, I want to go back a little bit and talk about you. So since you came back in '84, so you were there during the breakup.

JF: I was there in the '90. This right. 1985, we started hearing talk that the Binghams we're going to sell the station. We weren't sure how that was going to happen and we talked for some time. Started probably in '84, something like that.

HF: And this is TV and radio?

JF: TV and radio and newspaper. At that time, I don't understand all the complications of it, but they knew that there was some huge tax liabilities. If the elder Bingham's passed away and how they're going to do with the kids and what was going to happen. So they were going to sell it. And it was not a real 32:00popular decision, I think. Well, one of the kids, a couple of the kids wanted to, I think. But they talked about it and talked about it, and one day in 1985, I was going into work, coming down Broadway, ready to turn on the Armory Place, the stations were at Sixth and Chestnut and Armory Place was right there beside it. And there was a parking lot for us.

And I saw Barry Bingham Sr. walking down Broadway, just really deep in thought and pensive looking. And I said, "Well, I wonder whatever happened to the sale of the radio station. I haven't heard anything about that." That was the day they announced that they were selling it and they had buyers for everything. So I went through that. We weren't sure what was going to happen.

HF: Did you ever talk to him?

JF: I never did talk to him. I talked to Barry Jr. My first meeting with him was right after I'd come to the station, 1973. I didn't know him. I knew of the Bingham family, but I didn't know him. And one afternoon, late, I was at the 33:00station, 5:30, six o'clock, for some reason. Everybody else had gone, and I'm walking by the production studio and I hear these jungle sounds, come birds, chirping and things. I said, "What's going on?" And I walked, the door was open and this gentleman turned around, tall, thin fellow with this huge handlebar mustache. He said, "Hello, I'm Barry Bingham Jr." And, "Yes, I think I know who you are." He had been on a safari and he was on a hunting safari. He had his camera and he had recorded all these sounds and he was transferring them to some tape for his personal library. So that was my first meeting with him. Where was I going with that? What did you ask about that?

HF: I asked about-

JF: The sell.

HF: Your experience with the sell.

JF: The sell, yeah. The sell. And we were quite concerned. A company called Clear Channel was bidding to buy WHAS. I was not as involved with this as others were, but they had some concerns about Clear Channel for some reason. They were not a huge outfit at that time. They were based in San Antonio, Texas. The Mays family, Lowry Mays and his son were the head of it. And they were not 34:00particularly broadcast people, although they own WOAI in San Antonio, which was a 50,000 watt radio station, too much like WHAS. But I think they only had about 9 or 10 other radio stations. They were not big. They had an FM station in New Orleans, I think, but people had heard not good things about them. And they'd even, several of them had even petitioned Barry Bingham not to sell to them.

And Lowry Mays, I understand left a vacation somewhere and came to visit with them and reassured them. And it turned out at that time to be a very good move for the radio station. Television went through some upheavals with several owners, but at that time, Clear Channel was a very good thing for ... They just left it in the hands of the local people. Bob Scheer was the station manager and had a good strong sales department and good strong programming. And they left it in their hands, and it was provided a lot of money for Clear Channel.

But then as I understand, it began to take some of that money and acquire other 35:00properties, and then became a huge conglomerate and merged with a company called Jacor. And the Clear Channel people at WHAS, as basically thought, they would have a big influence in that, but they didn't. Jacor was part of the deal, that Jacor began to run the operations. And it began to change quite a bit. At that time, everything was managed locally with Jacor. They were from the top down. And-

HF: So when was that, do you think?

JF: I was gone by that time. That came later.

HF: So you would say after [crosstalk].

JF: Yeah, that came later. I would say in the late '90s, middle to late '90s, sometime. I think I was gone by that time, but it became-

HF: But you still had friends there and [crosstalk].

JF: Oh, yeah, yeah. Terry Meiners and Wayne Perkey was still there. And after I left, I filled in for just a little while. From probably through '95, '96, I would go back and fill in some of then after that. For one reason, the format changed a lot. While I was there in 1994, we came home from Ireland and Skip 36:00Essick caught me at a, we were at JFK Airport. And he said, "We're going to get back home and you're going to hear some things, but it's not going to affect you at all." I said, "What's that?" He said, "Well, we've been negotiating to get Rush Limbaugh." And Rush Limbaugh was just starting to make his mark and he was on another radio station here in town. It was getting a big audience. Skip was the program director, he had to go where the audience was. And he said, "Well, it won't affect you at all."

Well, they took Rush and replaced Doug McKelvin. Milton Metz retired and McKelvin took that spot, but that began to have a huge influence then. So then they were starting to do more talk from 9:00 to noon. And they talked to me about that, but I envisioned it as talking about traveling to Ireland, things like that. They wanted more controversial or just more timely stuff. And that wasn't my bag. So we parted companies and it was mutual, and they hired Jane 37:00Norris. Jane Norris came in and since that time, it's a straight talk format now.

And it's just a different style for me. I like to talk, but not necessarily about that. Our philosophy was if we had something to say, say it, if we didn't, play music. So it changed. That started probably, well, '94 is when that basically started. Then became ... Even Terry Meiners at that time was playing some music. But then after that ... Actually, Bob Hill, I was the last one to play music continually from 9:00 to noon. Everybody else was doing talk.

HF: You were the last one at WHAS to play music continually?

JF: Yeah. And Bob Hill did column called the Day the Music Died. He just meant that that was the last one that we played music.

HF: So you were the last cool jock?

JF: Yeah, I think so. Yeah, yeah. Because by that time, Perkey was not playing 38:00any music. He was doing all and he didn't mean to. He had plenty of information going on. They were interview guests and then Rush Limbaugh was on and Meiners was not doing talk, but he was doing all kinds of bits. And so he wasn't playing much music at all. And he had sports program and then the talk program at night. And so I was the last, I guess, I was the last live jock to play music there. I thought about that, do you say that.

HF: So-

JF: I'll have to dig that column out, let you read it. Bob Hill did a great job.

HF: So when did ... You did make a transition from all turntable to carts.

JF: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

HF: Can you talk about that?

JF: Yeah. When I left in '76, they were still playing, I believe we might've been doing cartridges by then. I can't remember, but we had turntables. We probably were doing big cartridges by then, similar to an eight track, but they were all just, everything was on a cartridge. And when you would go in to do your program, you would just pull your music carts, you'd get them all stacked up. And then you would also look ahead on the commercial log for the hour and 39:00decide, you knew what commercials had to play, so you put those all in order. So you had some kind of continuity people think that you just played music and you sat back and relaxed, but you were busy all the time. You were in the studio, you know that.

HF: Of course, one of those carts.

JF: You did this, right. You were getting your carts ready or putting them away, or you were answering the phone or getting ready for a news cast or getting your ad libs ready. Hopefully, we were a little prepared, everything wasn't completely spontaneous. This fellow that I talked about in Winston-Salem, who hired me in Kansas City, taught me, one time he said, "Jack, the best ad lib is a well-rehearsed ad-lib." What he meant was, at least be prepared for something so you're not just always running off at the mouth.

And so I would always prepare. I would look to see what was happening in the community view, I was playing for a championship, if the weather was going to be bad. And I would try to have some kind of usually a joke or a line or something, 40:00but I thought it was very clever, and have it ready. And many times you didn't use it all, but it was there if you needed it. And sometimes you wouldn't use it for a week, but then the moment came, it was right there. You're ready to go. So I did a lot of preparation for that.

HF: So you'd have a little joke in your pocket?

JF: Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cheat sheet there and I have things that I wanted to talk about. And sometimes you'd go to, and sometimes you didn't, but if there was a lag, you had something to fill in with. It wasn't just off the top of your head.

HF: So then you had, I mean, for the music programming, there was somebody that would select the tunes that you could play and then within that, you would play them in whichever way.

JF: Yeah, that's right. We had a music director supply and then the program director decide the kind of music we were going to play, and they would select the artists and all that, but we could select and say ... And some of them had a formula. You wanted one pop song, one big band song or something that you would mix in there at some way. Every different program directors had different 41:00formulas with that. That was opposed to the top 40 radio stations. But at 40 songs, you know that there were the top hits and they played those over and over and over again, which was, people wanted to hear that, they want to hear those songs. And they didn't have to put up with something they didn't want to hear. But adult contemporary, when middle of the road had a lot, what we did had a lot of titles, adult contemporary, middle of the road, that kind of thing. But we had a leeway and that we would get to pick the songs, particular songs that we wanted to play within a certain category. That makes sense?

HF: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

JF: You pull some of those carts. But we we went from turntables to cartridges pretty much while I was there. After that, I think they went more to CD and everything's on the computer. Everything's on computers.

HF: So could you actually have two turntables and you know how to feed one?

JF: Oh, yeah. You bet, yeah.

HF: To the other one?

JF: Funny story. In 1984, when I came back, of course, they had gone to 42:00cartridges and all that. We still had turntables because a fellow named Joe Donovan did an old east show and he used those turntables, but they were covered up. You hardly ever used them except for Joe. And one Saturday morning, I'm on the air. And Danny Nugent, the program director, was a young guy, was 30-years-old. He came in and he knew I was older than him, but he didn't know what I'd done or anything like that.

And he brought this album and he said, "We have this group coming called the Grassroots Revival. They're coming to be on the Belvedere this weekend. And we'd like to play some of their music, but it's on this record." And he goes on this turntable here, "Do you know how to do that?" I said, "I think I can do it. Let's see." And we queued it up. He said, "Wow, you knew that?" I said, "Yeah, I've done that once or twice before." So that's, Danny did a lot of good programming there. And he went on to Cleveland and I think he's at Moody Bible Radio in Chicago now. He's the national program director for all the Moody Radio stations, but good guy.

HF: So, I still want to talk about your experience in the booth.

JF: I don't want to talk about that. Well, speaking of the booth, by the way, when I first went to WHAS, the announcers still did some television stuff and we had an FM radio station which was classical music at that time. And in addition to our on air stuff and our production duties, we would have to go in and do commercials too. We would go into the FM station and prerecord. That was Opus 5 from the Brahms concerto and that sort of thing. We had no idea what we were talking about, but we did it and they put it in. And then we would also go up in the TV booth. They had a TV booth and some live announcements. I actually, we were recording them at that time, but we would record the station breaks that they would run through the evening or whatever.

HF: So you do that before or after your shift?

JF: Yeah. Yeah. Usually mine was after. I was on from noon to 3:00 at that time. So usually from 3:00 till 5:00 or 5:30, I was in the production studio, 44:00recording commercials. We had a production director. I would just go in and voice it, and he would put the music and all the sound effects together. Or we do the FM or the TV station, which were all prerecorded. Well, we can say about the booth.

HF: Oh, it was just, I wanted you to walk through, getting to work and [inaudible].

JF: Yeah. I was at the station. The station was with radio and television together at Sixth and Chestnut, a very nice building. Interestingly enough, in 1965, I was in Evansville, Indiana working at WIKY Radio, and the FCC had just issued a new rule that if you took transmitter readings, and we did that at WIKY, or turn the transmitter off and on, which I signed on at six o'clock in the morning, you had to have a third class license, which was like a driver's license, but I had to come to Louisville to take it. And Lou and I drove to Louisville. I remember driving along Chestnut Street, seeing this big hole in the ground with a fence around it. It said, "Future home of WHAS Radio and 45:00Television." They were over in the Courier Journal building at that time, not knowing that this is 1965, and eight years later, I'd be working at that place.

But I would come in and check to see what I need to do if I needed to go in. And usually, if I was on the air from 9:00 to noon, I would get there about 8:15 or so, and be prepared for getting on the air at 9:00. And usually Wayne Perkey and I, at that time, would do a little bit about 20 to 9:00, about what I had coming up and a crossover to have his listeners to want to hang around and listen to my program. A lot of us did that. Whoever was following me would come in and talk about what they were going to do. Here's the story about that. In 19, gosh, I can't remember the year now, but one morning I'm walking into work, I parked on Fifth Street at a parking lot, crossed over to Armory Place and came in the back 46:00door of WHAS.

And this was about 8:15, and about 20 to 9:00, I was going through our lobby and our receptionist, Blanche Rodriguez said, "What's going on at the Courier Journal or at Standard Gravure? All kinds of police cars." And I said, "I don't know, I'll go see. A fellow named Wesbecker had walked in about the same time I had walked in, or he was at the Standard Gravure building. And had went on a shooting spree and that was it. That was a rough one, that day. But I would usually prepare and get ready for my 9:00. I'd go in early and pull my music, as they said, get my carts ready and all that sort of thing.

While I was there, I would be on the air, there'd be a news cast at nine o'clock. And usually, you'd have some chitchat with the newsman or Ken Schulz was the weatherman. You always had something going on with Ken. He was always a funny guy. And then you'd play some music and then you're off and running. Talk about what's going on through the day. And we have, usually a news cast on the 47:00half-hour also. And at 20 minutes after the hour and 20 minutes before the hour, 10 minutes before the hour, would usually have a news person or a weather person coming in also to say, "Here at 9:30, we can talk about this or at 10 o'clock, we're going to talk about this."

HF: And you had special guests on your show sometimes?

JF: Yeah. That was nice. We would have the Broadway Series, we would have people in, or if there was some artists appearing somewhere, we would talk about ... The more community events. We'd have community events. Derby time was a very busy time, people coming to talk about Derby things. We would help community organizations promote, they had a bake sale or some run coming up. They would come in and talk to us. It was very involved in the community. And that happened from when I was there in '73, all the way up through '94, they were very active in that.

HF: Oh, so they didn't actually change until [inaudible].

JF: Nothing much. It just intensified really. Yeah, until. Yeah. And they still do some of that. I think Terry Meiners talks with some people, Mandy Connell was on down and she talks with people like that too. They're still involved in the community just in a different way.

HF: Are there any particular guests that you would like to talk about that you had on your show?

JF: Yeah. Somebody I can't remember all of them to stand out. One was Michael Crawford, the singer. He was delightful. Wonderful guest. One of the things I liked to do was not just do a standard interview about, "What are you doing here at the center for the arts?" I would try to dig into their past a little bit and find some story about them and surprise them with that and get them talking about themselves. And that was always nice. And Michael Crawford was just delightful. And I had two young ladies from our church who were singers and they loved Michael Crawford. And they came down that day and they hung out in the studio and he was so sweet to have signed autographs for them, took them down to the canteen and bought a cup of coffee for them and all that sort of thing.

But fellow named Tevye, who played Fiddler on the Roof. Not Tevye. What was his name? [inaudible 00:49:05], I think. Anyway, he played Tevye on Fiddler on the Roof. And was a very good actor, but he came in and obviously didn't want to be 49:00there. And I tried to talk to him about something, "What do you know talking about that for? We're here to talk about this, let's get on with it." And he's on the air. He was standing like this. And he was not, I hope I just had him on a bad day. I don't know, but I remember that one. Gosh, we had a lot of people. One time, years ago in Kansas City, interviewed Bob Hope. That was nice. Bob Hope came in and had a nice chat with him. Can you remember anybody? I can't remember-

HF: Stacy Keach. I remember-

JF: Stacy Keach, yeah.

HF: Being excited about meeting Stacy Keach.

JF: Yeah, he was there. Yeah, sure. You girls came down with me on Saturday mornings a lot. And when you were off of school, you'd come down to visit some, and your sister, Jill, I remember one, I think between her junior and senior year of high school, I was doing, this was 1985 and I was doing that afternoon 50:00show. It was very busy and Jill needed a job. So I hired her to come in and answer the phone for me and pull my carts. And it turned out very well. One day we did, I put her on the air, we called it the Jack and Jill Show. And I still have people talk to me about that. And from that, it wasn't immediate, but Jill eventually went into radio, of course. She's on the NPR station hear at WFPL.

HF: That's right.

JF: Does a lot of voiceover work and everything.

HF: That's right.

JF: And we had a combination. I read the Printing House for the Blind and Jill reads there too. But you were my monitor for once or twice. You were a monitor there.

HF: I was. Yes, I was.

JF: Just for one time, I think. I had to use some language.

HF: Right. That was a little hair-raising.

JF: Yeah, it was.

HF: Well, I guess we could probably wrap up.

JF: Yeah. It's a good time. I enjoyed working there. Good people. I think I mentioned most of the people that I worked with. Milton Metz was there, Van Vance was a great guy, sports guy. Doug McKelvin, I mentioned who went on, he's 51:00in St. Louis now. on St. Louis and doing well. But a lot of good people. News guys were Brian Rubin, was there for a long time. We had an excellent news department. People like Dan Burgess and Mike Edgerly and, gosh, who else? Mary Jeffries. A lot of people, they did an amazing thing. They won, I think, five Peabody Awards, which is unbelievable for a radio station, and especially in Louisville, Kentucky, but their broadcast excellence was just wonderful.

HF: Yeah.

JF: It was a good time.

HF: We didn't talk about the Crusade for Children at all, which is a pretty big part of it.

JF: Wonderful thing. Yeah. I did that for years.

HF: What kinds of things did you do for crusade?

JF: I did a lot, a radio would broadcast. We simulcast it, but sometimes things didn't come across on radio as they would on television. You had to have some 52:00description, like a golf match or something. So we would sit up in a booth. They were in the television studio, downstairs and upstairs was an announce booth and we would sit in there and describe the accident and things like that. And then I would be on the air. We would all have a on Sunday, sometime welcoming the fire people in. And then we'd circulate around the building. Downstairs, they had an area where the waiting, they called it the green room, the fire companies would come in and they would have food for them. We would just visit with them and get to know the people over the years. And then we would also go out to various events, we'd MC things for them. It was a great, great experience. Just a wonderful time.

HF: Was Vic Sholis working there when you were there or-

JF: When I first came, Vic, he was still there. I think Ed Shadburne had just replaced him, but Vic Sholis was still there.

HF: And he was, the crusade was his brainchild?

JF: Yeah.

HF: Right.

JF: Yeah. He was there and he was very involved in the crusade. When I came in '73, I think Ed Shadburne had come in "70 and replaced Vic, but Mr. Sholis was head of the crusade at that time. Jim Walton was the MC of it. He'd been on radio for years. Then Jim Walton was replaced by Phyllis Knight. And then I think, I guess, is Wayne Perkey after that. But the crusade was a great event. Still is. Is a remarkable thing. And it's hard to describe. And it's not particularly good programming. I mean, as far as you know, but people tune in and they give, and it's a great thing. Have all these fire departments coming in, especially in the afternoon and just repeating the same thing and many gave such and section. The kids over the fifth grade and the elementary school had a bake sale and raised $5, but it's grassroots and it's wonderful. It's very good. Did you participate in the crusades? Were you down someone we ... I couldn't 54:00remember if you did any of that.

HF: I think I was in there.

JF: You guys, one of things we enjoyed was the Derby time. I broadcast the Derby. The first Derby was the Secretariat Derby and we broadcast. And then the latter years, when I was there the second time, I did Saturday mornings, Derby morning from the backside, from 6:00 to 10:00, which was great. We're on the backside with all the trainers and jockeys and owners and horse people. And then I would, at 10 o'clock, we'd go off and broadcast the rest of the day from the other side, anchored by Wayne Perkey or whoever was, or Cawood Ledford was doing at first. But then I would have a microphone and roam around and do interviews in the infield or the paddock or the grandstand, and that was a great time. Had roam with, the way that we could roam the Churchill Downs freely. We could go everywhere, but a press pass. It was great.

HF: Including the infield?

JF: Oh yeah, I went to the infield. I remember one morning, on Saturday morning, 55:00trainer named Nick Zito, I think this was the year that Strike the Gold won their Thunder Gold. Anyway, Nick Zito, and I was interviewing his wife. I always try to get something a little different. You did the regular, but I had, "Well, let's talk to your wife." And she's, "I'm excited to be here and we're going to have a winner." And I said, "Have you picked out your Derby dress?" She said, "I picked it out three weeks ago. Nick told me we're going to win."

HF: Wow.

JF: Yeah. So, that was great.

HF: Well, was there anything else you want to add?

JF: I think that's it. Just I worked with some great people. The Derby reminded me a fellow named John Asher. John was a newsman at HAS, but he loved the Derby and loved the horses. He was an expert and he saved my rear many times on Saturday mornings from the backside because he would bring trainers by and talk about things. He was great. John could come in and add live on news cast. I mean, he was just that good. He's at Churchill Downs now. I was with him for 56:00some time.

But I guess that's it. I'm sure we'll think of other things later, but it was a good time. People ask me if I miss it. I enjoy doing what we're doing, but I'm fine. I don't miss having to go there every day. I guess I retired in 1994, but I still do voiceover work and retired from active stuff. I wasn't old enough to retire, but still do voiceover work and read the Printing House for the Blind and keep in touch with friends from WHAS. Have lunch with Perkey pretty regularly and some other guys like Jerry David Melloy and talk with Van Vance all the time. That's good.

HF: Good. Well, thank you for doing this interview.

JF: Thank you. It's worked out pretty good, I think.

HF: I'd say it has.

JF: An interview by my daughter. That's it. Thanks.

HF: Okay.