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730 AM at Bowling Green WMGS

C

CaptBob92

Inactive
Inactive User
I got a chuckle reading about WMGS now WJYM at Lime City but I wonder if you know the crazy history of the station here it is:

The station went on the air as a two tower directional 250 watt daytimer operating from a site East of Bowling Green off route 6. The building still stands used now by the cable company and was very impressive with announce booth, participation studio, control room and office. The calls were WWBG and it was owned by Harry Ward. Only problem was Harry couldn't get a teletype line from Northern ohio Telephone out in the country. They fought back and forth and finally Harry embarrassed the phone company country wide by buying a used van and painting " WWBG Carrier Pigon News Service " on the side of it and making a big ceremoney of driving into town several times a day to supposedly return the pigions to an office where they were attached to news dispatches and then released to fly out to the studio. This made the national news services but Northern would not run the line.

Harry retaliated by going on the air and offering a $300 savings bond free to the 50th caller. Remember, in the fifties 300 was a lot of money and Northern with their manually operated phone system couldn't keep up with the demand and the Bowling Green phone system failed. Northern retaliated by getting an injunction from the PUCO but Harry was a part time lawyer and noted it was for local calls not regional so he went on the air and offered a savings bond for the fiftith caller outside of Bowling Green. Again, the system crashed and Northern gave in and gave him his line.

Harry decided he couldn't make enough money in Bowling Green and moved the studios to the Shawn Hotel in downtown Toledo changing the calls to WTLG ( we're Toledo's little Giant ). To publicise the move the hired a pilot to drop gift certificates over Toledo while he and his announcers discribed it from the hotel like it was the end of World War two. This earned harry all kind of citations for littering but he got good coverage in the papers.

Several years later a tornado hit Bowling Green and passed right down rt 6. The station employees hid under the desks ( I know my mother-in-law was cleaning there that day and hid right along with everybody) it missed the building but took down the towers. Harry went to Akron and got two Army barrage baloons and rigged an apparatus of pullies and ropes that held two wires in the air when the ballons were inflated with helium. This worked for about a week until a farmer nearby got upset with these in his back yard and shot them down.

Harry then decide to move the towers to Lime City and go 1,000 watts with four towers. He bought a railroad station to house the studios and put the station on the air under the calls WHRW ( Harry R Ward )The creditors were on his ass by this point and he sold the station to Max Good who changed the calls to WMGS ( Max Good's station ) and programed Country except from 9 to noon daily. Jocks such as Big Jim Bonnett, Dan Deal, Eric Allen, Dennis Rutherford and alot of guys who ended up in Toledo worked there with the little RCA board and turntables.

What a history!
 
Wow! Funny thing is, I live like less then 10 minutes away from there broadcast towers, theres a sign out front that says "WJYM 730am". I never really knew this station had such a history. So When did Swaggert buy the station?
 
Don't know the precise date but was roughly around 1978 or 79 when Swaggert bought the station. Was a daytimer for many years due to a Mexican station on that frequency. It now operates with reduced power after local sunset. Used to be locally originating but is now a sattellite feed from Swaggert's HQ (WJFM) in Baton Rouge.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WJYM
 
WMGS is where I got my start on the air in 1973-74, and I'm very nostalgic for that brief time, even tho' the station was operating under bankruptcy protection when they paid me $1.60 an hour. (Licensee Rev. Max Good had a bit of a scandal over using religious contributions to furnish and remodel his house in Phoenix, Arizona, from what I recall). Swaggart got quite a deal on it a year or two after I left for other low wage gigs in Pt Clinton, Holland OH and Archbold until my father scratched up the money to send me to Ohio Univ.

I would so want to hear some old airchecks of WMGS! In 1973 some of the Toledo guys (Ken R, I think was among them? plus Rod Douglas, and others whose names I forget now) turned it into a "Countrypolitan" format of C&W with some crossover pop/AC, not unlike what was programmed at the time on Nashville stations. And ol' Bob Daney, who worked for the city of Toledo, was the exception, playing the old honky-tonk 45s on weekends, with a long pause between each one, and a deadpan delivery. Commercials for the truck stop in Wapakoneta and a furniture warehouse in Berne, Indiana.

As a kid just out of high school, I knew Daney's style was "too different" from what the rest of us tried to present - real hillbilly music (even tho' he wasn't himself), but I'd give $$ to hear a recording of one of his weekend shifts again, for sure.

I was hired to turn on the transmitter at 6am before they closed up the studio on Main Street in downtown Bowling Green and moved everything out to the train depot. That's when they put me on the air, without any coaching or training, other than what I picked up as a high school kid hanging out around weekend host Ed Montgomery there on the weekends.

I'm sure I sounded pretty awful back then, but it was a good place to imbibe the scent of musty vinyl and bow a couple of times an hour to the rumbling old AP teletype (before it got pulled for nonpayment), and a chance to talk to people a hundred miles away on a directional signal pointed away from Toledo. Colleagues told me it was a rare opportunity to start out at such a good signal. (Doesn't seem like much of a break now, however, apart from having freedom to develop an on air style.) I even got to read the farm reports, since agri business and chemical firms were one of the only steady categories of commercial clients. Had little idea what I was actually reading. That, and running the tapes for the paid-for preachers between 9 and 1145 am, and taking the post-6pm shift 'til sundown.

I still get chills remembering the evening of the 1974 Xenia tornado, while trying to keep up the the severe weather warnings before the station signed off at sundown. The lightning was so fierce that it hit those tall 4 towers many times while I was on the air, and the static was hard to hear thru, even tho I was across the glass from the big ol' RCA transmitter. We all knew something was up, and the PD stayed at the station since it was kinda scary driving out of there.

A friend of mine, whom I got a weekend gig there, took the old WWBG wall clock as a souvenir when the station was going under to Swaggart, and the teary-eyed preacher's outfit tore down the train depot and put in a plain building right behind it a year or two later.

I don't know if I still have any bumper stickers or station playlists in a box in the attic, but I do have an old reel to reel tape of early WMGS jingles somewhere at home. Will be glad to send it to someone who has the facilities to slow bake it (in case it's still salvageable) for a digital dub before the all the magnetic tape rubs off on the heads of a playback machine.

There's nobody out there anymore under the 4 towers, 'cept the ghosts of radio DJs who tried and never got to make a good living at WMGS. I honestly don't know how they get to do it now as WJYM without any kind of office or even a public file on record somewhere for the public to peruse. But it was fun, "Farm" radio while it lasted. And a great place to get inaugurated in the art of being an air personality.

You're not forgotten, WMGS, the "Country King."
 
I take it Jimmy has a main studio waiver now and no staff whatsoever. Always interesting that when WJYM was live and local, it still sounded like one of Swaggart's southern stations, with programming like the "Dixie Gospel Caravan". They carried Bob Larson "now on line 3 it's Beezlebub", an absolute screamer from Lima who railed against "mixed bathing", Billy Janes Hargis and all kinds of entertainment. Several years ago it went "All Jimmy All the Time".

I stopped by WMGS in 1975 after I had heard about an opening at crosstown WAWR, which obviously I didn't get. WMGS needed first phones from what I was told when I dropped by there unnanounced.
 
You know what's funny, that must have been the second time the station got into financial trouble. I remember sometime around 1969 or 70 my room mate in college, Dennis Rutherford, was the chief engineer there. He came home one day and said shortly after they signed on one morning a big truck from a repo company showed up in the driveway and told him they were there to repossess the new board, turn tables, and carts. He called the manger who arrived and parked his car in the driveway so they couldn't get out. When the sherrif arrived he told the manager they had the right to take the stuff and Dennis signed it off while the guys took a pair or dikes and cut out all the wireing. As soon as they had left, Dennis fished out the old RCA board and tables and ran some wires down the hall and had them back on in a couple of hours.

When Big Jim Bonnett ran the station he told me he had a bunch of Ford Mavericks painted with the call letters and would take his salesmen and decend on a town with each salesmen driving a Maverick. They would try to park one after another in the downtown area of the town they were hitting then double team the store owners to get them on the air. I remember seeing those Mavericks parked in downtown Bowling Green when I worked at 93.5 WAWR

WAWR was around the corner from WMGS and we used to taunt the evening jock on WMGS, I believe it was Joe Wolf who also anchored news on channel 11. Knowing he was there alone we would wait until he cracked the mike then call and let his phone ring. As soon as he stopped talking we would hang up and wait for him to open the mike again. Each time he stopped we hung up. I remeber after a half hour his long disertation: " Let the phone ring I'll be sure to get to your request as soon as I can, just please hang on !!! "


The funniest thing we ever did to them was when Dan Deal was a jock on the station and a friend of mine knew Dan's home number. One morning at 3AM my buddy called Dan. When he got him on the phone, half asleep, he ask," Is this Dan Meyerholtz? " Dan said yes, Is this the Dan Meyerholtz who calls himself Dan Deal? ,,yes,,Is this the Dan Deal that works at WMGS?..yes...Now Dan WMGS is at 730 isn't it?...yes...That's on AM? ,,umhum....and you work on the air there?...yes...and you are siging on at 6am this morning,,,yes,,,well Dan this is officer Smith of the Ohio State Patrol...at this point Dan wakes up abit more....YES? Dan I wonder if you would do something for us in the morning? ...sure what would you like?............................................................................................could you play us a song?

Dan never figured out it was a joke or that we put laxative in the Christmas cookies we left him at the door later that year, lots of seqs that day
 
gr8oldies said:
I take it Jimmy has a main studio waiver now and no staff whatsoever. Always interesting that when WJYM was live and local, it still sounded like one of Swaggart's southern stations, with programming like the "Dixie Gospel Caravan". They carried Bob Larson "now on line 3 it's Beezlebub", an absolute screamer from Lima who railed against "mixed bathing", Billy Janes Hargis and all kinds of entertainment. Several years ago it went "All Jimmy All the Time".

I stopped by WMGS in 1975 after I had heard about an opening at crosstown WAWR, which obviously I didn't get. WMGS needed first phones from what I was told when I dropped by there unnanounced.
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Probably the operator on duty had to have a first phone since a directional array was involved.
 
Actually, they just needed to have a designated first phone because of the array. The rest of us "on duty" just had the usual third class FCC licenses with broadcast endorsements. I think the financial turnover of the place made it hard to hang on to a chief engineer, and perhaps the rules back then required them to be fulltime.

Guess many of us were around the same place at around the same time. Perhaps another thred about WTTO Toledo in the Commodore Perry Hotel or WOHO is next.
 
gr8oldies said:
My Dad's favorite station in the 60s and early 70s. I dropped a tape off there in 1975. Kick butt signal for 1000 watts
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They put most of that 1,000 watts into one heck of a lobe pointing right at Bowling Green but sailing beyond toward Lima and Dayton. They put a decent signal into Columbus during the day as well. Their slop is evident on WGN around the St. Marys area ... my mom remembers hearing it while trying to listen to the Cubs back in the 1960s.
The flip side is a terrible signal into Toledo and Michigan. Tip your hat to those engineers for a job well done.
 
WMGS/WJYM has this "bowling pin" pattern. In the 70s at least they made it to just north of Cincinnati. Could get them in Ft. Wayne and even northwest of Indianapolis. I can also get them to the east in Vermilion. Obviously they had to protect 710 in Leamington ONT (on FM now), and the Canadian clear on 740.

Going east on US 30 they were replaced by WPIT, which at the time was also doing screaming fire and brimstone preaching.
 
I had been associated with WMGS thru the 60's and early 70's and was Program director in 73 when we were "Super 73" the jocks were Jerry Kiefer, myself, Ken Roberts, and Bob Daney on weekends. Jerry had been PD and then left to go to Florida. I replaced him as PD and hired Klaus Helfers as John Paul Jones who I had worked with at WGLN in Toledo at the home of the Jones boys, where all of the DJ's were named Jones. I think I was Casey Jones. I was also acting chief engineer of WMGS until I hired my good friend Dennis Rutherford as chief engineer. CaptBob and I were good friends and worked together at WAWR just around the corner from WMGS which had offices on main street. We had moved the WMGS studios from main street to our Lime City transmitter site and left the offices in Bowling Green. We had switched formats to oldies Rock & Roll and used the "Super 73" logo with jingles mixed from WMGS and early CKLW jingles spliced together to use the "Your in all heart country...with one of the secretary's doing the From "Indianapolis to Detroit to Cincinnati" or somethiing to that affect voice over. I still have the original masters of all the WMGS jingles I took since we discontinued them before I left. There were still copies left in the office. The jingles included the early "Wondeful Music" jingles and the "King Country" jingles that Johnny Dauro (Lonesome John) bought when he was GM of the station in the mid 60's. I had been friends with most of the jocks thru the years with Big Jim Bonnet as GM in the early sixties who started the "The sound of the country WMGS 730 on the dial in Bowling Green Ohio" My good friend the late Roger Price (Pistol Pete) was PD and the lineup was Big Jim, sign on to 9:00am, Religious programming till noon, Polly Possum noon till 1:00, Pistol Pete tiill 3:00, Lonesome John (Johnny Dauro) till either sign off or until 6:00pm Raving Dave till sign off. Dan Myerholts aka Dan Deal on weekends. Others thru the years were Jay Trackman (Jay Bird), Tiny Tim (George Lubgate who was also a professor at BGSU) Roy Blair (Cousin Roy), Rod Douglas in 1969, Jeff Rice, Dave Olson, Lowell Thomas (LT) Not related to the infamous Lowell Thomas. Jerry Kiefer, Myself 72- 73, Ken Roberts, Klaus Helfers as John Paul Jones. And of course our infamous Bob Daney on weekends. He asked me one time if there was anything he could do different when I was PD, I said Bob you just continue doing whatever you want..LOL and he was happy with that. He also worked for the City of Toledo. Ed Montgomery (someone mentioned him earlier in this thread) was a part timer who would record a show called words and music, playing religious music mixed with a few words of encouragement. It got so he started to preach according to H Max Good and H Max ordered me to tell him to stick to music and leave the preaching to Max. I told Ed to tone it down but Ed insisted and H Max was furious. He ordered me to fire Ed, but I refused and just took the tapes Ed did every week (5 days of 15 minute shows) and started the tape then stopped it and advanced it to the end of the show while I segued music for the fifteen minutes. So all you heard was Hi I am Ed Montgomery and music started then 14 minutes later, this Ed Montgomery see you tomorrow...One day Ed storms into the station and asks "WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO MY SHOW?" I explained that I had asked him per Max Good to quit preaching and you refused, so Max wanted me to fire you, and I refused, so I just segued music to keep you on the air. He calmed down and thanked me but said I quit. I said I am sorry Ed (because I really liked the kid). H Max would come into the office and tell the secretary to cut him a check for $5,000 and take it with him. He would then go to his other station in Parkersburg and do the same thing. He had bought a home called PLEASANT VALLEY Arizona. WMGS had a great signal South toward Cincinnati. The day after Jerry Keifer left for Florida, he called me at 6:15 and said he was 200 miles South of Atlanta and was listening to me on Low power and I was coming in like gang busters, and it sounded like he was sitting outside the WMGS studios and told me every song I had played etc. Of course skip was helping out with this good signal. I soon left WMGS and went back to work at WTOD in Toledo where I had been working before coming to WMGS, and WOHO. Incidentally, Roger Price's son Roger Price Jr is a good friend and is in radio in Ardmore as Operations manager. Roger sr. passed away in 2002 and had owned his own radio station before passing away.
 
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Rick Allen said:
I had been associated with WMGS thru the 60's and early 70's and was Program director in 73 when we were "Super 73" the jocks were Jerry Kiefer, myself, Ken Roberts, and Bob Daney on weekends. Jerry had been PD and then left to go to Florida. I replaced him as PD and hired Klaus Helfers as John Paul Jones who I had worked with at WGLN in Toledo at the home of the Jones boys, where all of the DJ's were named Jones. I think I was Casey Jones.
I was also acting chief engineer of WMGS until I hired CaptBob and my good friend Dennis Rutherford as chief engineer. CaptBob and I were and still are good friends and worked together at WAWR just around the corner from WMGS which had offices on main street. We had moved the WMGS studios from main street to our Lime City transmitter site and left the offices in Bowling Green.
We had switched formats to oldies Rock & Roll and used the "Super 73" logo with jingles mixed from WMGS and early CKLW jingles spliced together to use the "Your in all heart country...with one of the secretary's doing the From "Indianapolis to Detroit to Cincinnati" or somethiing to that affect voice over. I still have the original masters of all the WMGS jingles I took since we discontinued them before I left along with all the production from the Super 73 era. There were still copies of the jingles (not masters) left in the office. The jingles included the early "Wonderful Music" jingles and the "King Country" jingles that Johnny Dauro (Lonesome John) bought when he was GM of the station in the mid 60's.

I had been friends with most of the jocks thru the years with Big Jim Bonnet as GM in the early sixties who started the "The sound of the country WMGS 730 on the dial in Bowling Green Ohio" My good friend the late Roger Price (Pistol Pete) was PD and the lineup was Big Jim, sign on to 9:00am, Religious programming till noon, Polly Possum noon till 1:00, Pistol Pete tiill 3:00, Lonesome John (Johnny Dauro) till either sign off or until 6:00pm Raving Dave till sign off. Dan Myerholts aka Dan Deal on weekends. Others thru the years were Jay Trackman (Jay Bird), Tiny Tim (George Lubgate who was also a professor at BGSU) Roy Blair (Cousin Roy), Rod Douglas in 1969, Jeff Rice, Dave Olson, Lowell Thomas (LT) Not related to the infamous Lowell Thomas. Jerry Kiefer, Myself 72- 73, Ken Roberts, Klaus Helfers as John Paul Jones. And of course our infamous Bob Daney on weekends. He asked me one time if there was anything he could do different when I was PD, I said Bob you just continue doing whatever you want..LOL and he was happy with that. He also worked for the City of Toledo.

Ed Montgomery (someone mentioned him earlier in this thread) was a part timer who would record a 15 minute show called words and music, playing religious music mixed with a few words of encouragement. It got so he started to preach according to H Max Good and H Max ordered me to tell him to stick to music and leave the preaching to Max as Max had a program called "WINGS OF PRAYER" which I still have a few tapes of that show in my collection. I told Ed to tone it down but Ed insisted and H Max was furious. He ordered me to fire Ed, but I refused and just took the tapes Ed did every week (5 days of 15 minute shows) and started the tape then stopped it and advanced it to the end of the show while I segued music for the fifteen minutes. So all you heard was Hi I am Ed Montgomery and music started then 14 minutes later, this Ed Montgomery see you tomorrow...One day Ed storms into the station and asks "WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO MY SHOW?" I explained that I had asked him per Max Good to quit preaching and you refused, so Max wanted me to fire you, and I refused, so I just segued music to keep you on the air. He calmed down and thanked me but said I quit. I said I am sorry Ed (because I really liked the kid). To sort of get even with Max for the Ed Montgomery deal, while playing Max's preaching show I would hold the tape in different spots when Max would pause causing it to sound like he was pausing longer (maybe up to a minute) than he actually did. Of course we all would laugh our butts off. Max was never the wiser.

H. Max would come into the office and tell the secretary to cut him a check for $5,000 and take it with him. He would then go to his other station in Parkersburg and do the same thing. He had bought a home called PLEASANT VALLEY Arizona. WMGS had a great signal South toward Cincinnati. The day after Jerry Keifer left for Florida, he called me at 6:15 and said he was 200 miles South of Atlanta and was listening to me on Low power and I was coming in like gang busters, and it sounded like he was sitting outside the WMGS studios and told me every song I had played etc. Of course skip was helping out with this good signal.

I soon left WMGS and went back to work at WTOD in Toledo where I had been working before coming to WMGS, and WOHO. Incidentally, Roger Price's son Roger Price Jr is a good friend and is in radio in Ardmore as Operations manager. Roger sr. passed away in 2002 and had owned his own radio station before passing away. CaptBob Ladd had it close on the car situation Big Jim Bonnett had bought (trade out) with the local Plymouth dealer and had something like 6 or 7 light blue Plymouth Fury's with "WMGS 730 on the Dial The Sound Of The Country in Bowling Green Ohio" on the side of each car. They would as CaptBob says, park them lined up in front of the station on Main Street across from the Cla Zel Theater. Roger Price (Pistol Pete) as PD told me that it was the best deal they ever made at the station. They would get a semi flat bed trailer and do remotes at local business's like Bargain City parking lots and they all wore cowboy hats. I still have a big pile of promotional pics of Big Jim and Lonesome John posing with their cowboy hats on I obtained while Pd of the station.
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Hi Rick Allen and all you aging WMGS one-time announcers! Really enjoyed the extra info on the glory days of this strange little station that still lives on in our memories. Hard to believe, however, that Jimmy Swaggart has now had the license longer than anybody else ever did! I'd sure love to hear some audio from back in those days!
FYI, Rick, I sent you a private message in response to your posting.
 
If so, Voicetrack, can't imagine that group is too big. That signal is too good to be wasted. Sad, really.
 
WMGS 730 On The Dial In Bowling Green Ohio

Goldilocks94941 said:
Hi Rick Allen and all you aging WMGS one-time announcers! Really enjoyed the extra info on the glory days of this strange little station that still lives on in our memories. Hard to believe, however, that Jimmy Swaggart has now had the license longer than anybody else ever did! I'd sure love to hear some audio from back in those days!
FYI, Rick, I sent you a private message in response to your posting.
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Hi Goldilocks, I never received your private message. You can email me at your convenience at [email protected] Perhaps it got caught up in the spam folder and I missed it. Looking forward to your response. WMGS was a good station, with bad management is all. :)
 
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