By Mannix Porterfield
Bob Brunner’s defining, and perhaps most taxing, moment as a journalist came when a dam collapsed at the head of Buffalo Creek hollow in a remote pocket of Logan County, unleashing a tidal wave of water.
Once the water receded, in its wake were a known 125 dead, 500 homes had been ripped apart and some 4,000 suddenly found themselves homeless.
Brunner recalled that horrific chapter in West Virginia history Thursday as he prepared to join a number of colleagues across southern counties for induction into the West Virginia Broadcasting Hall of Fame.
Among others destined for induction in an Oct. 25 ceremony are Fred Persinger, once the “voice of the Flying Eagles” in football and basketball, former WJLS radio station owner Bill O’Brien, country legend Tom T. Hall and the Nick Rahall family.
Twenty-five new faces will be enshrined in the ceremony at the West Virginia Museum of Radio and Technology in Huntington.
“These inductees have created a rich diversity of programming at radio and TV stations across the state,” committee chairman Tom Resler said.
“This year’s class of 25 and last year’s class of 32 inductees, along with the initial class of 61, represent West Virginians who have been an important part of the lives of viewers and listeners in the region and even across the country.”
Among the honorees are Rep. Nick Rahall, D-W.Va., and four members of his family — his father, Nick Joe, and uncles Farris, Deem and Sam. The family created radio station WWNR in Beckley and expanded to own and operate radio and television stations nationwide.
“West Virginia’s broadcasters will always be an important voice in my life,” Rahall said from his Capitol office.
“Three generations of Rahalls in broadcasting spell a lot of work and passion for an industry that serves the public, our communities and local business as well. It has been a long but happy path since those first steps my grandfather took, starting his new life here in West Virginia.”
Rahall said he is proud of his family and humbled by the hall of fame honor, and saluted his fellow inductees for their “considerable achievement.”
Now news director for WOAY-TV in Oak Hill, Brunner said no other news event in his long and storied broadcasting career, which began under the tutelage of Boz Johnson at WSAZ, affected him as much as the Feb. 26, 1972, disintegration of a coal slurry impoundment that spawned the killer flood in Logan County.
“And it was because of the frustration,” Brunner recalled.
“Television is a visual media. Unless you had been up that hollow in Logan County before that dam broke, you couldn’t really show people how bad this was. We took pictures and you’re kind of looking at a mud flap. There were hundreds of homes up there. There were people but you couldn’t see it. That was one story I don’t think the media did a real good job of following up on.”
Brunner launched his career in 1968 and has been in on a number of major news stories in a 40-year run, among them the Marshall airplane disaster in 1970, the two trials of former Gov. Arch Moore, the Willow Island collapse and a follow-up on the Silver Bridge disaster.
Over that span, Brunner also covered numerous political campaigns, among them the first showdown between Moore and Jay Rockefeller, who lost his first time out but eventually won two terms as governor before reaching the U.S. Senate.
Politics opened a career door to him for three years, serving as an executive aide to former Gov. Gaston Caperton.
Brunner also has been managing editor at WCHS-TV in Charleston, from 1993-1996, and was news director for the CBS station in Montgomery, Ala., and executive editor for the CBS affiliate in Knoxville, Tenn.
Brunner came out of brief retirement in 2005 to become WOAY’s news director.
Persinger, a Beckley native who graduated from the former Trap Hill High School, handled Flying Eagle football and basketball games for 27 years at both WWNR and WTNJ in Mount Hope.
“I guess when it comes right down to it, I probably miss every Friday night going with the Flying Eagles to do their games,” said Persinger, now with radio station WKAZ based in Charleston.
Working with Metro-News, which boasts 59 member stations across the state, Persinger has earned a new moniker with the network, “the voice of high school sports in West Virginia.”
“I have a high school football program called ‘Game Night’ every Friday night on 40 radio stations,” he said.
“And I still do the post-game show for the Mountaineers. I do all kinds of things still for the state tournament — basketball, football, Super Six. That kind of keeps me busy. I’m in Morgantown every weekend now in the football season.”
Persinger can be heard on company-owned stations that specialize in popular music of the 1960s in both Charleston and Summersville.
“What a tremendous honor,” he said of his impending induction, coming on the heels of last July’s honor as this year’s Mel Burka Distinguished Broadcaster award.
“Honestly, the crew I’m going in with really makes me feel good. Probably one of my better friends in this industry was John McKinney, who passed away. He was with the Mountaineers so long. That makes it really special. And Bill O’Brien and I have been friends a long time.”
O’Brien broke in as a summer fill-in announcer at WJLS in 1967, working under the tutelage of Gene Morehouse, who died in the Marshall plane crash.
After two summer stints, O’Brien was hired full-time in 1969 and has been at WJLS ever since, ultimately purchasing it with his wife in 2002, then selling it four years later. O’Brien remains there as a consultant and still does Woodrow Wilson football and basketball games.
In his first summer job, O’Brien recalled the “incredible experience” of working with Morehouse, whom he had listened to handling Beckley athletic contests as a youngster.
“He wasn’t one to give advice unless asked,” he remembered.
“Here was this legend, doing Little League baseball games. He treated the Little League games as if they were World Series Game Seven. Just everything was top of the line with him.”
O’Brien said he felt “thrilled” to become part of this year’s crop of inductees.
“It’s just an incredible honor to be up there with all of those legends,” he added.
Hall once worked as a disc jockey for WRON radio station in Ronceverte and at WVRC in Spencer before his career spiraled upward as a singer and teller of tales, penning such hits as “The Year Clayton Delaney Died” and “A Week in a County Jail.”
Others to be inducted include:
Janet Coleman Evans, general manager of WBTH/WXCC, Williamson; Conchata Ferrell, a Charleston actress and comedienne with a number of roles, including “Two and a Half Men”; Robert “Bob” Brown, longtime owner of WCLG, Morgantown; Lewis Ross Dobbins, country-western DJ in Weston, Clarksburg and Buckhannon; Woody O’Hara, who teamed with the late Jack Fleming at West Virginia University on football and basketball games; Daniel “Zag” Pennel, WELD radio in Fisher;
Marshall Rosene, first general manager of WSAZ-TV in Huntington; Sam and Mary Sidote, co-owners of WELC radio; Ned Skaff, a radio and television announcer at WCHS in Charleston; Earl J. Ward Jr., a 40-year news photographer at WCHS-TV and WSAZ-TV;
Monte Scott “Yogi” Yoder, personality at WEPM and WKMZ in Martinsburg, eventually becoming general manager at both; Thomas “Tom” Garten, management at WPAR radio in Parkersburg and WCHS radio; Joe Johns, WSAZ-TV reporter who became NBC Capitol Hill correspondent, now CNN Washington correspondent; Toufie Kassab, sales executive and general manager in a career that included WGNT, WAMX-FM, WKEE, WRVC radio in the Huntington area; Frank Lee, disc jockey 48 years and finally general manager of WMMN in Fairmont;
Ted McKay, WTIP and WKNA radio show host in Charleston in the 1940s and 1950s, also hosted “Goofus Orchestra” on old WKNA-TV; Paul Miles, general manager of WCAR radio in Charleston; and Jackie Oblinger, who opened her career at WHIS radio in Bluefield, then WHIS-TV, and hosted popular women’s shows on WCHS-TV in Charleston.
— E-mail: mannix@register-herald.com
