money 700 WLW has been on the air for 100 years. Here are some memories
It's been one crazy century for WLW. Famous voices have graced the station's airwaves. The frequency has reached people across the world.
As the station celebrates its centennial, here are some stories and reflections from the past, including that time one of the hosts helped nab robbers and killers.
When Delta Burke took a nap in the studio
Mike McConnell, morning talk show host at WLW for almost 40 years, said social media has changed the game.
Fewer celebrities travel to radio stations. And when they do, they don't want to take calls from the public, McConnell said.
"It didn’t matter if it was a Tiny Tim-type person doing Bon Jovi songs, weird stuff would happen. You’d come in one morning and somebody would say don’t go in, Delta Burke is asleep on the floor. Why? Cause she’s tired. People use to pop in, Charlton Heston, people of that ilk. If they put out a book or had a cause, they traveled. Since social media hit, nobody does that anymore."
Gary Burbank first heard WLW in Germany
Gary Burbank was a WLW radio show host from 1981 to 2007 and is a member of the National Radio Hall of Fame.
Before he got into radio, Burbank was in the Army stationed in near Stuttgart, Germany in 1959. As Burbank and his Army buddies stood around tanks and jeeps, the radio kicked in. It was WLW. He doesn't remember what the program was. But he remembers the excitement of hearing something from back in the United States.
"I’m not from Cincinnati, I didn't really know what it was. We all sat around yelling, sitting around yelling, 'We got a station, we got a station!' That was beautiful."
Years later, after he started his career at WLW, the moment hit him again.
"I wasn’t thinking about it at first, standing in control room one day, it just hit me, that and 15 tears. I was thinking about my friends, and how I hope they made it in life."
A fateful call
Bill "Seg" Dennison was a student at Northern Kentucky University when he got a call from an executive at WLW in September 1978. They needed someone to type sports copy over the weekends.
He's been there ever since covering the local sports scene.
Local sports fans will instantly recognize Dennison distinct voice that has graced airwaves for more than 40 years.
"I was Bob Horner, the old baseball player," Dennison said. "He skipped all the minor leagues and went to the pros. I think that was me. I got a call in September of 1978. You want to come work for us? He said be down there Saturday. He’s had me here ever since."
Truckin' Bozo nabs snipers
The audience began to grow again across the nation. Perhaps there's no better example of WLW's reach in the 1980s and 1990s than Dale Sommers, aka "Truckin' Bozo."
Michaels hired him in 1984 to host the overnight program geared toward truckers. His national audience grew to such an extent that he helped fight crime around the country.
In 1986, he was chatting off the air with a regular caller known as the "Mississippi Lady" who was in a 24-hour store in Camilla, Georgia.
Suddenly, she paused and told someone "You can't come back here." Then she said. "Bozo, I got to go."
He sensed something was wrong. It turned out a robbery suspect had a kitchen knife and told the woman to hang up the phone.
Sommers put on a 10-minute record and called the Camilla Police Department. It turned out the Georgia officer who arrested the suspect was also a regular listener to the Truckin' Bozo show.
Almost two decades later, two snipers terrorized the Washington D.C. area, killing 10 people. Sommers' description of the vehicle driven by snipers led to a trucker spotting the car. The trucker blocked the snipers at a truck stop until police came.
Sommers died in 2012. His son, Steve Sommers, hosted the show until 2020.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: 700 WLW is 100. Here are some memorable moments
