Hi Rick, 

Great web site !

I met a man here in San Diego today who introduced himself as “Frank George” (not a former WKAZ DJ) and a whole deluge of teenage memories flooded my head. It made it real difficult to focus on the business lunch we were having.

So this evening I did a Google search and found your site.  Wow, where do I start … 

In 1977 and 1978, I was 16 and/or 17 and managed to get a ‘dream’ job working the board at WKAZ’s sister station, WQBE. The music was “pre announced” country, so all we had to do was keep the cart machines stuffed, run commercial and promos. AM was still king but FM was slowly growing in popularity and the handwriting was clearly on the wall. I worked overnights and on the weekends so I got to meet and mingle with a lot of the AM jocks during that time. The studios were side by side at the top of the Heart ‘O Town motel.  Frequently we would joke and tell stories in an effort to keep each other awake at 4:30 in the morning. You really get to know people when you work together until the wee hours of the morning. 

One person I remember in particular was Lovell Webb. I was truly saddened to read about his passing. He was a very good person and acted as a mentor while I was at ‘QBE. Another co-worker at ‘QBE and I became the butt of many of Lovell’s “Engineer Chuck” and “Engineer Dave” on-air jokes. We weren’t really engineers (not yet, that came later), but Lovell always treated us with respect and dignity regardless. He served as an excellent professional role model and was an intelligent and fascinating individual that seemed a bit out of place at WKAZ. I can remember times where he would have trouble reading something (he had very bad eyes) and I would come over and help him out. Lovell is one of several people that got me interested in electronics as a teenager. After four years of college (at WV Tech) that interest became a career. I’ve always wanted to look Lovell up and let him know what a positive influence he was in my life. Unfortunately, I waited too long. 

Lovell and Frank George used to ‘pick’ at each other a lot. Frank was on until midnight when Lovell took over. Frank was always in a big rush to get to the clubs when his shift ended. He used to primp in that very tiny bathroom for at least an hour before he would leave. The whole floor would reek of aftershave. Frank smoked like a chimney, so Lovell would have to ‘air out’ the studio at the start of his shift.  Frank was the classic ‘tall, dark and handsome’ and the girls loved him. Every time he did a remote he was overrun with hordes of hopeful teenage girls. 

I remember Charlie Cooper as well. I was glad to hear he’s still playing music and still has the ponytail. When I was leaving ‘QBE, his studio & DJ business was really taking off. He was the envy of all the other jocks there and several of them decided to try their hand at DJ-ing school dances, etc. Charlie was pretty much at the top of his game when I was there. I got to help Charlie with a couple of dances doing equipment setup and tear down. He always seemed to have a knack for working the crowd and was an all around great guy. 

I remember Debby Gibson although I didn’t get to know her too well. Short and feisty as I recall. She didn’t take a joke nearly as well as Frank, but she did a great job keeping up with the news. I recall that we used to have pictures taped to the studio door with a sheet of paper below it for anyone to make comments. Someone took a ‘Little Debbie” oatmeal pie box, cut out the picture of ‘Little Debbie’, gave her a black eye, took out a tooth or two, stuck a fake joint in her mouth and left the picture up for comments. You can only imagine the comments that followed.  She got real bent out of shape about that one. 

I was working the board at WQBE the morning the EBS system went off for what later became known as “Rockefeller’s Blizzard”. Lovell was over in the AM studio and we both freaked out completely. I was told that if the system ever goes off, something really, really bad was going to happen so I was in a total panic. Lovell had been there for years and years and it had never gone off but he remained calm and knew exactly what to do. Within an hour, the place was crawling with people I didn’t even know worked there. 

I got this great job because my father knew a morning DJ that worked at WKAZ. There’s a bit of mystery surrounding what exactly happened to him but he used the air name of ‘Big Ron O’Brien’. I didn’t see his name listed on your site. He was there in '78, I believe. I think he was fired because he was pretty irreverent and walked a fine line with the FCC. They didn’t really tell us board ops much so I have no idea what ever happened to the guy. I’d really like to thank him for the great job and a lot of great memories. 

I returned to radio for a short period of time after college (and a first class FCC license, which I still have) as station engineer for WCHS/WVAF when WCHS was 50KW (1985 or so). After about eight months of watching tons of people getting hired and fired, I got an opportunity to transition into computer and software development so I took it. I’ve been doing that ever since. 

I moved to San Diego in 1994 but my father, now 75, still lives in Charleston and may very well have some memorabilia of that era. I’ll ask him to take a look and see if he still has any of the pictures from the WQBE days. If so, I’ll scan them and forward them to you for your site. 

Keep up the good work on the site and if there’s anything I can do to help preserve that history, just let me know.  Those were great times indeed.

Chuck Hedrick

President/Principal Engineer

Blue Jean Software, Inc.

chedrick@bluejeansoftware.com