2011 – Dayton Area Broadcasters Hall of Fame

Looking back, April of 1980 was a big moment in my life. That’s when I joined WHIO-TV as a part-time stringer. I had been covering the Miami Valley since 1970 for WPTW AM/FM radio in Piqua, and I was excited to take what I learned in radio news, and go to work for the legendary News Center 7. That’s where I fell in love with television news; telling stories with videotape.

Since 1983, I’ve provided full-time coverage for News Center 7 as a “one-man band,” which means I not only write and report the news you see each night, but I shoot and edit everything myself! In 1987, when WHIO-TV wanted to open a Northern Bureau in Troy, I was proud to get the call. Today, as the Northern Bureau reporter, I cover the great region of Miami, Darke, Shelby, Mercer, and Auglaize counties. (Source: www.whiotv.com)

Bucks Braun was morning host, program director and Vice President of Operations at WHOO-AM 990. “…WHOO was in a modern country format at the time, and we rode the urban cowboy movement to several years of good ratings. Our air staff included Clay Daniels, “Large” Larry English, Tony George, and several others. Jim Poling was news director, with Gary Anstaett and others on a very good information staff. Kathy O’Neill and later Nate Webb were our airborne traffic reporters…” wrote Bucks in an email.

After being with WONE-AM 980 for many years in December of 2003 WONE was switched from standards to sports, so morning man Bucks Braun has moved to sales for Clear Channel. He is currently working at WBZI, Xenia.

Bucks has been heard on airwaves in Dayton, Cincinnati, Louisville, Orlando and Phoenix over the past 46 years. In addition to hosting radio shows, Bucks has performed voice-over narrations, on camera presentations and has been Master of Ceremonies for many local military events, group events and ceremonies. His unmistakable voice can be heard weekdays 7AM-12PM EST on Classic Country Radio in Ohio.

Jim Baldridge was raised in Lima, Ohio. He attended Shawnee High School, and is a graduate of Wright State University and Sinclair Community College.

Jim began covering news at WCIT radio in Lima, Ohio, in 1964 as a senior in high school. He worked for several stations in the Dayton-Springfield area and served in the Army with the United States Armed Forces Radio and Television Service in the Pacific.

Jim joined WHIO-TV in 1972 as a general assignment reporter. In 1977 Jim began anchoring with Dayton broadcast legend Don Wayne, whom he had grown up watching. During his years at WHIO Jim Baldridge has traveled the world to cover stories important to the Dayton area. Special assignments have taken him to China, Vietnam, Nicaragua, Europe, including covering the Fall of the Berlin Wall. H(Source: Wikipedia)

Barry Hobart (June 23, 1941 – January 14, 2011) was a local television personality widely known to fans as Dr. Creep. He was a horror movie host on WKEF Television in Dayton, Ohio.

Hobart graduated from Middletown High School in 1959, then attended the University of Cincinnati where he graduated in 1963 with a degree in broadcasting. After an overseas stint in the Air Force, Hobart returned to southwest Ohio and was hired by WKEF television as a camera specialist and Master Control Operator.

In 1971, WKEF management began looking for a gimmick to garner ratings on Saturday nights. When Hobart suggested a late-night horror movie show, station management accepted the idea; encouraged by colleagues, Hobart himself auditioned for the hosting job by donning a monk’s robe, fangs and skull-like make-up, initially calling himself “Dr. Death”. After Hobart was given the job the fangs were abandoned and the skull face motif toned down for being too fearsome, and the character’s name was changed to “Dr. Creep”.Shock Theater premiered on Saturday, January 1, 1972 and was a fixture on WKEF for thirteen years. During that time, Dr. Creep co-hosted Clubhouse 22, a popular weekday afternoon kids show, adding to his local star power.

As Dr. Creep, Hobart had been an avid supporter of local charities, helping out the MDA during their annual Labor Day telethon. Hobart and Linda Gabbard founded “Project Smiles”, a charity that collects toys every Christmas for needy children in the Dayton area. The charity is still active today. (Source: Wikipedia)

Sharon D. Howard served as Executive Director of Community and Public Relations for WDTN-TV, Dayton NBC affiliate. Included in her many duties she is the host of “Dayton and Beyond,” a weekly public affairs program. Over the years, she has interviewed such notables as Johnnie Cochran, Kenny G, Jerry Springer, Gloria Steinem and many more. She coordinates all station community projects, including Channel 2′s COATS FOR KIDS and FOOD FOR FRIENDS. She also is responsible for administering station community and public relations.

Howard is affiliated with numerous civic and volunteer organizations including the Sinclair Community College Foundation Board of Directors, the Board of Directors of Culture Works, Board and Founding Member of the Dayton Area Broadcasters Hall of Fame, the Salvation Army Board of Trustees and the Kettering Medical Center Foundation Board of Directors. She is also a member of the National Association of Black Journalists, Tau Lambda Omega Chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. and The Dayton Chapter of The Links, Incorporated. In December of 2005, she was appointed by Ohio’s Governor to serve on the Ohio Arts Council Board where she chairs the Education Committee and serves on the Executive Committee. Howard holds a BA degree from the University of Dayton.

Already known for her wit, Erma Bombeck’s career as a humorist really began to take off in the mid-1960s. Entitled “At Wit”, her humor column developed quite a following and gave voice to suburban housewives. In addition to her column, she wrote for magazines such as Good Housekeeping. She also authored several popular books. Beginning in the mid-1970s, Bombeck also became a TV personality, appearing on Good Morning America for more than a decade.

Humorist, writer, columnist, journalist. Born Erma Louise Fiste on February 21, 1927, in Dayton, Ohio. Erma Bombeck found the humor in the everyday experiences of being a wife and mother and shared it with her readers. She worked for the Dayton Herald (which later became the Journal-Herald) as a copygirl as a teenager and got her first article published while she was still in high school. After graduating in 1944, she joined the publication’s writing staff and saved money for college. Bombeck graduated from the University of Dayton in 1949 and returned to the Journal-Herald. That same year, she married Bill Bombeck. Around this time, she also started writing for the paper’s women’s section.

Already known for her keen wit and humorous observations, Bombeck’s career as a humorist really began to take off in the mid-1960s. Her humor column, which first appeared in the Kettering-Oakwood Times, eventually went national through a newspaper syndicate. Entitled “At Wit”, her column found humor in some of the headaches associated with motherhood and family life and developed quite a following. She gave voice to the nation’s many suburban housewives while making them laugh and even cry at the same time.

In addition to her column, Bombeck wrote for magazines such as Good Housekeeping, Reader’s Digest, Redbook, and McCall’s. She also authored several popular books, including such best sellers as The Grass Is Always Greener Over the Septic Tank (1976) and If Life is a Bowl of Cherries, What Am I Doing in the Pits? (1978). The Grass Is Always Greener Over the Septic Tank was later turned into a television movie starring Carol Burnett and Charles Grodin.

Nancy Cartwright was born in Dayton, Ohio, on October 25, 1957. She grew up in Kettering, Ohio, and discovered her talent for voices at an early age. While in the fourth grade, she won a school-wide speech competition with her performance of Rudyard Kipling’s How the Camel Got His Hump. Cartwright attended Fairmont West High School, and participated in the school’s theater and marching band. She regularly entered public speaking competitions, placing first in the “Humorous Interpretation” category at the National District Tournament two years running. The judges often suggested to her that she should perform cartoon voices. Cartwright graduated from high school in 1976 and accepted a scholarship from Ohio University. She continued to compete in public speaking competitions; during her sophomore year, she placed fifth in the National Speech Tournament’s exposition category with her speech “The Art of Animation”.

In 1976, Cartwright landed a part-time job doing voice-overs for commercials on WING radio in Dayton. A representative from Warner Bros. Records visited WING and later sent Cartwright a list of contacts in the animation industry. One of these was Daws Butler, known for voicing characters such as Huckleberry Hound, Snagglepuss, Elroy Jetson and Yogi Bear. Cartwright called him, and left a message in a Cockney accent on his answering machine. Butler immediately called her back and agreed to be her mentor. He mailed her a script and instructed her to send him a tape recording of herself reading it. Once he received the tape, Butler critiqued it and sent her notes. For the next year they continued in this way, completing a new script every few weeks. Cartwright described Butler as “absolutely amazing, always encouraging, always polite”.

Cartwright is best known for her role as Bart Simpson on the long-running animated television show The Simpsons. On March 13, 1987, Nancy Cartwright auditioned for a series of animated shorts about a dysfunctional family that was to appear on The Tracey Ullman Show, a sketch comedy program. Cartwright originally intended to audition for the role of Lisa Simpson, the eldest daughter. After arriving at the audition, she found that Lisa was simply described as the middle child and at the time did not have much personality. Cartwright became more interested in the role of Bart, described as “devious, underachieving, school-hating, irreverent, [and] clever”. Creator Matt Groening let her try out for Bart, and gave her the job on the spot.

In 1989, the shorts were spun off into a half-hour show on the Fox network called The Simpsons. Bart quickly became the show’s breakout personality and one of the most celebrated characters on television—his popularity in 1990 and 1991 was known as “Bartmania”. Bart was described as “television’s brightest new star” by Mike Boone of The Gazette and was named 1990’s “entertainer of the year” by Entertainment Weekly. Despite Bart’s fame, however, Cartwright remained relatively unknown. During the first season of The Simpsons, Fox ordered Cartwright not to give interviews, because they did not want to publicize the fact that Bart was voiced by a woman. Cartwright voices several other characters on the show, including Nelson Muntz, Ralph Wiggum, Todd Flanders, Kearney and Database. In 2000, Bart, along with the rest of the Simpson family, was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. (Source: Wikipedia)

Steve was born July 19, 1959 in Cincinnati, Ohio. He attended Sidney Holy Angels Elementary School and graduated in 1977 from Lehman Catholic High School. Steve enrolled in Edison Community College graduating with an associate degree in 1979. While at Edison Community College, Steve initiated what would eventually become a 33 year career in radio, first broadcasting from the student lounge at Edison Community College on WECC Radio with great friend, Brett Beaty. He also played college basketball at Edison. After graduation from Edison Community College, Steve enrolled and graduated in 1981 from the University of Dayton.

While attending classes at UD during the day, he worked the “graveyard shift” at WVUD Radio, saying that he had been inspired to make a career of radio by legendary fellow UD graduates, Dan Patrick, Mike McConnell, amongst others. After WVUD, Steve embarked on a “paid” broadcasting career at Columbus, Ohio’s WLVQ QFM96 for a very successful five years. It is at QFM96, Steve showcased his enormous on-air talent and his incredible quick-witted humor. After QFM96, Steve was recruited by WTUE Dayton’s best rock station to launch a successful rock and roll morning show in the Dayton, Ohio district, teaming for nearly 18 years with co-host and close friend, Christopher Geisen, forming the Kerrigan and Christopher Morning Show entertaining and inspiring nearly a generation of rock and roll fans. While at WTUE, Steve created many, many humorous characters like “Biff Wellington” poking fun at the well-to-do, and “Small Town News” playfully chiding his hometown of Sidney and the country life. Steve’s loyal supporters recall celebrating St. Patrick’s Day toasting with the Kerrigan and Christopher Morning Show broadcasting live under the tent from Pat Flanagans.

At K-99.1, Steve teamed with Dayton Country music broadcasting legend, Nancy Wilson, to form the Nancy and Kerrigan Morning Show for five years until Steve voluntarily left his mike behind to provide full time care for himself and his wife’s cancer fight. During his radio career of over 33 years, Steve has interviewed and introduced on stage many rock stars such as Aerosmith to country stars including Kenny Chesney and many, many more in between. With the help of his close friend, Nancy Wilson, and before that, Christopher Geisen, Steve literally raised millions of dollars for charity during his broadcasting career. His lifelong love of cycling and his endless pursuit of charitable, fund-raising events has even enabled him to participate with Lance Armstrong in raising money for the Live Strong Cancer Foundation. Countless appearances on Jerry Lewis Telethons, decades of honorary chairmanship of the “MDA Bike-a-thon” fundraiser, to his most recent participation with Nancy Wilson in the “Cares for Kids Radio-a-thon”, Steve and Nancy have supported Dayton Children’s Medical Center raising hundreds of thousands of dollars for children of our community. Steve’s more memorable charitable events have included being frozen in a block of ice for a weekend in order to successfully fill semi-trailers full of canned goods on behalf of the Red Cross Food Drive and dressing up as the Easter Bunny and being dipped in chocolate at Ester Price.

Steve Kerrigan, former Sidney resident passed away March 14, 2011 at The Ohio State University Hospital, James Cancer Complex, after a courageous three year battle with incurable multiple myeloma leukemia. (Source: Wikipedia)

Cissy Clemons Lovett started working at WKEF 22 as Public Affairs and Special Events Co-ordinator. Working with the late Johnny Walker, Cissy produced “Black Impact” public affairs program. Cissy also became active with the Jerry Lewis MDA telethon along with Walker.

Over the years, Cissy has been involved in many community groups, including: President of the Weslyn Block Club for 38 years, North West Priority Board, Southern Christian Leadership Confrerence and many more. Cissy has been recognized for her activism by many organizations including the Dayton Police Crime Prevention commitee and she was also given the Ohio House of Representative ‘s Community Service Award.

After leaving WKEF Cissy joined the Dayton Metro Library in outreach and senior services. Recently retired Cissy still is active in the community.

I should have known I was destined to have a career where all I do is talk when I was in kindergarten at Plattsburg Elementary in the late 60’s. I got the customary “S’s” and “S-pluses”, but got one “U”-–unsatisfactory, because my teacher said I talked too much! Can you believe it? And it makes further sense that I love country music, since George Jones, Johnny Cash, and Dolly Parton were in our house all the time! (Even though Mom didn’t much like Dolly-–wonder why?) My Dad loves country music and my sister and I would play his records on our “close and play” record player. Not much to do out on the farm, you know!

The years passed, I kept getting in trouble for talking too much at Southeastern High School in my hometown of South Charleston. Then it was on to college at the University of Dayton ….where my major was ….civil engineering! But not for long, I quickly switched to Broadcast Journalism (the talking thing again). After graduating in 1985, I couldn’t find a radio job anywhere, so I worked as bank teller at Banc Ohio in Springfield till my big radio break at WIZE in 1988.

In 1989, I got a call from K99.1FM and I’ve been on the morning show ever since!!! During all this time, I’ve acquired four nephews…CJ, Derrick, Matt and Andy, gained and lost a husband….and found a new man! And have probably gained and lost the same amount of weight over and over and over again! After all this time in my house, I still haven’t figured out what to do with my bathroom!

Source: www.whko.com web site:

Alyce Lucas was chosen in 1965 to host WDAO’s home program. This was a show for the woman who was the sole breadwinner of her family, a single mother. As a WDAO radio personality Alyce organized several fund raisers to aid less fortunate young adults in the area. One area high school student, who broke Jesse Owens record, was sent to the Olympics with her help.

During the 1966 riots Alyce took to the airwaves to call for calm and later rode through the area to encourage the crowds to refrain from further harmful activities. In 1967 Alyce and three others became co-ordiators of Dayton Public school’s “Volunteers in Education” which later was instituted as a federal program. In 1969 she initiated a program on WDAO called “Understanding through Education”. She produced, directed and announce this Sunday morning program. This was one of many of Alyce’s efforts to boast race relations in Dayton.

In 1970, and for the next 22 years, Alyce served on the Montgomery County Children’s Services Board. She was also a staff member of the Dayton Human Relations Council. Alyse contributed so much to the Dayton area through her activism, broadcasting and fund raising skills.

Judge Rice was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He is a graduate of Northwestern University, receiving a B.A. degree in 1958. He attended the Columbia University School of Law and received a Juris Doctorate degree in 1962. He also attended the Columbia University Graduate School of Business Administration and received a Master of Business Administration in 1962. He received an Honorary Degree, Doctor of Laws, from the University of Dayton, in 1991 and an Honorary Degree, Doctor of Humane Letters, from the Wright State University in 2000.

Judge Rice began his law career as an Assistant County Prosecutor for Montgomery County, Ohio, in 1964. He left that position in June, 1966 and became an associate with the law firm of Gallon & Miller.

In June, 1969, Judge Rice returned to the Montgomery County Prosecutor’s Office as its First Assistant Prosecuting Attorney. He was elected Judge of the Dayton Municipal Court in November, 1969, and served in that position until July, 1971, when he was appointed Judge of the Court of Common Pleas, Montgomery County, Ohio. He was re-elected to the Court of Common Pleas in 1972 and in 1978.

On June 4, 1980, Judge Rice was sworn in as Judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, at Dayton, having been appointed to that position by President Carter.

Judge Rice served as Chief Judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio from October 13, 1996 to October 12, 2003.

Steve Baker

Bucks Braun

Jim Baldridge

Barry "Dr. Creep" Hobart

Sharon Howard

Erma Bombeck

Nancy Cartwright

Steve Kerrigan

Cissy Clemons Lovett

Nancy Wilson

Alyce Lucas - Life Time Achievement Award

Judge Walter Rice - Community Service Award