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After returning to Ohio from our year in Milwaukee, we stayed with my Dad and Mom who held
the letter I had received from the Chicago FCC office containing my new first-class FCC license. My second day in Columbus, I was fortunate enough to obtain an interview with Lester Nafzger who at the time was the director of engineering for the WBNS Stations. We talked for several minutes in his office, with him repeating that he had no current job openings. But as I was about to leave, I noticed a morse code key on a shelf and asked if he was a ham. He told me he was, and that's when I mentioned that I was going to try and get my license too. I explained I was hoping to do phone patches for Navy ships, and within a few minutes, he asked if I could start Monday. Working at WBNS-TV and radio was a great privilege and great fun working in the mid 60's before tape machines and using 16MM film for commercials and when most everything else was live. During news programs, most local commercials were aired live against the opposite wall where anything and everything could happen, and believe me it did. Some of the shows I worked on were The Judge, like Judge Judy, the Early Show with Flippo, an afternoon movie program, a children's program called Luci's Toyshop with Chuck White playing Lamb, Mr. Tree and Dragon (Check out the Unofficial Luci's Toyshop Homepage for more Luci Toyshop memories). Then there was Farm Time with Bill and Dick Zipf (Dick would sometimes substitute for Flippo on the Early Show) and was really funny, a quiz show called "In The Know" and of course all the news shows. I should also mention all the remotes we did too! (Note... Harlow Lucas (W8QQ) is in the doorway of our truck.) Once, I brought my kids into work for a picture on the Luci set with Tom Gleba posing as Santa. After ten years my decision to leave WBNS came to me while working on one of the worst shows I had worked on or had ever seen, which I believe was called "Schoolies". The man working next to me was in his 60's and I decided I didn't want to be doing this when I got to be his age and I started to look around for another broadcasting job in the area. After a short time, I landed a Chief Engineer position for WLOH, WHOK and K95 in Lancaster (You won't believe what happened on my first day). |
