WUOK-Cumberland

For whatever reason...my mind flashed back to WUOK. Anybody remember them?

A few questions....

The owner was Jim Reese who was said to be a minister from Virginia, Clifton Forge, I think. Was that true? It was also said his son worked at CKLW using the name Grant Hudson and there was a big falling out between them. Any truth to that?

Another question...the manager, Bob Gornall quit and was replaced by a guy from West Virginia. Is this the same Bob Gornall who owns the beer distributorship and an award winning collection of beer coasters??

DXDXDX said:

For whatever reason...my mind flashed back to WUOK. Anybody remember them?

A few questions....

The owner was Jim Reese who was said to be a minister from Virginia, Clifton Forge, I think. Was that true? It was also said his son worked at CKLW using the name Grant Hudson and there was a big falling out between them. Any truth to that?

Another question...the manager, Bob Gornall quit and was replaced by a guy from West Virginia. Is this the same Bob Gornall who owns the beer distributorship and an award winning collection of beer coasters??

Click to expand...

Yeah, I remember WUOK. IIRC, it was originally WKYR, Keyser--and got moved to the Big City of Cumberland in the sixties. They took a turn (with WTBO and later WCUM) as the AM Top 40 gun in the market, and during the early seventies sounded damn good. This is what is now 1270/WCBC.

The Grant Hudson story may be true. I do recall hearing a jock or news guy on the air at UOK around 1970-72 with a certifiable Major League Voice--and wondered what the hell he was doing there... and also whatever happened to him. That could be the answer... almost 40 years later!

The guy with the major league voice, was probably Jim Titus. I remember him telling me that he was at WKYR when they made to move from Keyser to Cumberland.

After leaving Cumberland Jim moved to Frederick and became a mainstay at WFMD/WFRE in the Jim Gibbons ownership years, until he and most of the rest of the staff got the Clear Channel boot. He is still on the air at WJEJ in Hagerstown.

At about 6'9" Jim matches his voice, and is an absolutely top notch guy.

amfmxm said:

DXDXDX said:

For whatever reason...my mind flashed back to WUOK. Anybody remember them?

A few questions....

The owner was Jim Reese who was said to be a minister from Virginia, Clifton Forge, I think. Was that true? It was also said his son worked at CKLW using the name Grant Hudson and there was a big falling out between them. Any truth to that?

Another question...the manager, Bob Gornall quit and was replaced by a guy from West Virginia. Is this the same Bob Gornall who owns the beer distributorship and an award winning collection of beer coasters??

Click to expand...

Yeah, I remember WUOK. IIRC, it was originally WKYR, Keyser--and got moved to the Big City of Cumberland in the sixties. They took a turn (with WTBO and later WCUM) as the AM Top 40 gun in the market, and during the early seventies sounded damn good. This is what is now 1270/WCBC.

The Grant Hudson story may be true. I do recall hearing a jock or news guy on the air at UOK around 1970-72 with a certifiable Major League Voice--and wondered what the hell he was doing there... and also whatever happened to him. That could be the answer... almost 40 years later!

Click to expand...

The Grant story is true. Gornall worked with AP and got the job when Reams Communications bought the station in order to get the Charleston, WV stations. I think they were based in Detroit.

I believe it was Grant Hudson's voice on the ID's not Jim Titus.

Could that "major league" voice have been Dick King? I don't remember any external voices being used, maybe with the exception of a legal ID. Dick King was certainly major market material and was the PD. When Reese put a Clarksburg FM on the air, King told everybody he was going there as the GM. In reality he was the PD. Dick used to drag out the last sylable of the last word of commercial copy so that it would sound tighter. When he left, Gary Kirtley became PD and used the name Gary Ferguson Nash. Kirtley's idea was to playlist songs which were not heard anywhere else. We're talking songs not even in BB's Hot 100. Anything which was recommended by Bill Gaven, Kirtley sucked it up. As such, the playlist was full of stuff you didn't recognize.

The studio was downtown then moved to the xmtr site complete with its own porta potty. One time Gornall called a meeting and said we should all "keep your chin up" because WUOK was going to be the flagship station of a major group Reese was building!

I think the line up was Gary F. Nash, Big Jim Anderson, Johnny Foster and Chuck Bloom till midnight.

Just like Andrea True Connection...

MORE, MORE, MORE!

Gary Ferguson Nash became a station broker and then got back into day-to-day operations at stations in Virginia I think as a GM and Sales Manager. I think he's still out there pounding the street.

The GREAT Dick King it is said died a few years ago in South Carolina. I saw that posted many moons ago on this website. He was from the Clarksburg area to begin with.

Big Jim Anderson played around some major markets for awhile doing jock and talk work and starting some type of networked program about car repair..."Jim's Car Care". He is now out of radio and is an independent investor playing in the stock market. I think he also had something to do with the old "Talknet" freom NBC.

Johnny Foster aka Johnny Michaels and in real life Henry Kastell is somewhere around Frostburg. I don't know if he has anything to do with radio.

Chuck Bloom was from Altoona, Pa. He got married and moved back to that area. I don't know if he's even still alive.

The porta-potty might still even be up there!

DXDXDX said:

Gary Ferguson Nash became a station broker and then got back into day-to-day operations at stations in Virginia I think as a GM and Sales Manager. I think he's still out there pounding the street.

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Gary Ferguson Nash ( Gary Kirtley ) back in late 1981 and early 1982, both him and his wife Linda (?) became very active in developing Winchester, VA's WUSQ-FM. Prior to April 1982, Winchester's 102.5 FM was WEFG a regilious station and even by the fall of 81, everyone knew that WEFG wasn't going to be around for much longer with the sale from Shenval to Holt and "rumors" of WINC-AM moving to their FM ( that happened ), WEFG had to change so 102.5 went country...but under the "Q102" brand. For years I have heard that was Gary & Linda's idea and it worked. Q102 has been with us for 27 years now and with the exception of two books ( and one of those was thrown out thanks to an agreement between all the stations in the market..long story there )...Q102 has been the number one station in the market.

Not sure how long Gary and Linda had stayed in Winchester, I think until 1984 but am not so sure but a little more/less than 10 years later ( 1992 ), the Kirtley's ended up at Staunton, VA's then WSKO-FM 105.5 with the help of well known Staunton jock Randy Smith to launch HOT AC "Magic 105". Within a little less than 2 maybe 3 years..all three were gone and I don't think WSKO stayed around for much longer.

Last I heard about Gary Kirtley, back in 2005 somebody told me that he was working doing sales for some Hagerstown-Chambersburg cluster, either VerStandig or then Chambersburg Bradocasting ( WIKZ, WCHA, WDLD and WQCM ), but I 'm not sure which one.

I remember hearing that Gary hated his air name... it was given to him by Todd Ravin <?> at WUOK.

He did receive quite a few gold records from labels for breaking records first. And isn't that what small town unrated radio was all about back then? Not just playing the same 40 records over and over?

The Wills Mountain building was still standing last I heard, and was the transmitter facility for what is now WCBC.

I don't think Gary is still in radio.

I think the original WUOK lineup was Tiger Dave Scott (Doug Kight); Chris Michaels (Bob Pitts formerly with Burkhart-Abrams); Jim Anderson and Todd Ravin.

I grew up listening to radio in Cumberland. Around 1972-73, I listened to Super K radio. No one here is talking about the jocks I listened to during this time. If I recall correctly, the line-up was: Gary Nash (mornings) Doug Shannon (mid-days, Charlie Thomas (afternoons) and I can't rmember the night jock...think it was Chris something. I read talk about Gary Nash and what he did later, but, nothing about the rest. These guys had great voices and the shows were tight.

grewuponradio said:

I grew up listening to radio in Cumberland. Around 1972-73, I listened to Super K radio. No one here is talking about the jocks I listened to during this time. If I recall correctly, the line-up was: Gary Nash (mornings) Doug Shannon (mid-days, Charlie Thomas (afternoons) and I can't rmember the night jock...think it was Chris something. I read talk about Gary Nash and what he did later, but, nothing about the rest. These guys had great voices and the shows were tight.

Click to expand...

Doug Shannon and Charlie Thomas never got back into radio. Doug was living in Garrett County and Charlie Thomas was with the Maryland State Police.. Chris Roberts worked nights and moved to DC and was in association promotions for awhile.

Yeah, I do remember Charlie Thomas left and later showed up afternoons at WKLP in Keyser, West Virginia (now Q94). After that I never heard him again. After Doug and Chris left SuperK...I never heard them again.

Just came across this post.
I was part of the original Super K staff. I joined in July, 69 when it was still country to aid in the transition. The Super K staff was Tom Rogers (news), Todd Raven (PD/mornings), Tiger Dave Scott (middays), Jim Reese (Chief Engineer/Afternoons) and me as Chris Roberts (MD/nights).

I actually lived in the 60 ft trailer adjacent to the Transmitter, and drove the OK jeep up and down the mountain.

The station was owned by Frazier Reams of Toledo, who owned WCWA/WIOT.

Great time, great staff.

Hey, Bob. Glad you stumbled on this. Those of us from around Cumberland have been telling our radio pals for the past 30+ years what a great station WUOK was back in its Top 40 heyday.

Your post prompted me to check the thread and I noted that in my post from last year that I was wondering out loud who the "major league voice" might have been from that late sixties-early seventies crew. At that time I was working a few hours to the east--down in the Maryland flatlands--and remember driving into Cumberland listening to 1270 and hearing this big, booming voice--and thinking "Wow, that guy should be in Baltimore!"

Any clue? Or were you all "that good!"

The Voice was Jim Reese. He left Super K for WVAM Altoona. I also worked there later with Jim. He got mad in Altoona cuz he couldn't change the thermostat one day and started calling big stations all over looking for a job (LS, KB etc.) Finally Alden Diehl at CKLW said he had no jock openings but he did have a News opening. Jim said, I'll take it, Alden said it would be nice to hear an aircheck first. He sent the aircheck (We had a similar news sound to CK at The Big V, 6 teletype machines very compressed behind the voiceover). They got the tape and hired him on the spot and he became Grant Hudson. He eventually replaced Bill Drake on the ID's.

He also did our ID's at the Big V, however, Tom Foolery (from Big V and KQV) did the Id's at Super K.
Jim is still in Detroit. A great friend and the best all around radio talent I've ever met, (Jock, News, Chief Engineer etc.)

I just stumbled across this. Only 18 months late! You know how there are stations where you've work that just generate stories to tell? WUOK was one orf them. If there is ever an Old Guys WUOK Reunion the stories will take three days just to tell.

Thanks for all the nice comments, guys. An old man loves to find out that he's remembered. I'm in Sarasota, FL now and lovin' it!

Jim Reese/Grant Hudson

Since this thread has gotten revived, I thought I'd mention a sad bit of news. Gary Kirtley died on January 10 of this year, just about 3 weeks after learning he had terminal cancer. He was a good friend when I was at WTBO and WCUM, as well as a colleague when WUOK became WCBC.

Link to Gary's obit:
http://times-news.com/obituaries/x2019120826/GARY-E-KIRTLEY-Roanoke-Va

That is sad news. And did you read where Linda died prior to him? At one time, when they were known as Super K, everybody had a name starting with "K".

Did you see the time frame in connection with this? Linda dies in early November. Gary is diagnosed with cancer in December and he dies in January. I've seen this sort of thing happen before where it seems cancer is triggered by some very traumatic event. I wonder if there's a connection? Also, do you know whatever Dick King was up to? I knew he died a few years ago but I also heard he served time in prison! Any truth in that?

I don't know about Dick King, but Linda actually died about a year before Gary did. Sad indeed.

If you went to WVAM, you knew you wouldn't last long! WVAM in the Bixler-Birdsall days was a well known revolving door.