Monroeville's Radio Station Louis Chandler It All Began One Day in The

Monroeville’s Radio Station Louis Chandler

It all began one day in the 1960s, when a group of friends just back from a fishing trip, approached Monroeville businessman T. M. “Tipper” Sylves with an idea they had been kicking around for a community radio station. Sylves was a prominent citizen at the time. He had been a coal miner, horse trader, lumberman, railroader, cattle baron and real estate broker, and he was always alert to new business opportunities – he listened.

The WPSL days

The first step was to see if there was an AM frequency available. Jack Lieb, an attorney who worked with the FCC, was contacted and he found that 1510 on the AM dial had been frozen for government use, but was about to be released. Leib wanted to pursue the opportunity, but he needed financial backing, and that’s where Tipper Sylves came in.

Monroeville’s Radio Station off Strochein Road

Sylves and Lieb soon formed Monroeville Broadcasting Company, Inc. The next step was to find a location. Sylves set aside five acres of some property that he owned just off Strochein road. There they would build a seven-room office building adjacent to the entrance of the US Steel Research labs. The facility, with an initial investment of over $100,000, would be one of the most modern equipped stations in western Pennsylvania. The new owner-operators appointed Bill Lynch as station manager and senior announcer. Lynch would also use the station to train radio personalities at his “Broadcast Arts Academy of Monroeville.” Sharing the microphone with Lynch would be Ed McLaughin and Bob McKee, both well-known local radio personalities. The nickname of one of Sylve’s daughters, Esma, (Punchy) was to find a place in the new stations call letters: W …P…Punchy…S…Sylves… L…Lieb, -- WPSL. WPSL first went on the air on September 27, 1964. Operating from sunrise to sundown, it had an effective radiated power of a quarter kilowatt with a signal that radiated out over 47 air miles, effectively covering Allegheny County. Soon Sylve’s other daughter, Sarah Sylves Thompson, a school teacher and local educator, was asked to help to run the station. When asked about the programming at WPSL Sarah Thompson remembered: “Our programming was called middle-of-the- road. The music was contemporary music. We had a number of ethnic programs: Irish, Polish, Solvenian, Italian, you name it. We had some religious programs. When we asked for the frequency, we said it would be for community service, and it was. We’d get all kinds of announcements for various things. We had what we called a “punchboard,” and it went every hour, and told of events that were coming up and what have you. And I did an hour’s program myself, and it was “The Shopping Mart,” and it was a “buy, sell, and trade” thing. There were many days that we had 50 calls in an hour. You jotted down, real quick like, what they had and their telephone number. And the next day, if you had the time, you announced it, and if you didn’t, they’d call again.” One of the popular features of WPSL in those early days was called: “Those Two.” Beverly Pollack and her girlfriend, Shirley Katz were doing little skits for women’s organization and at Temple David, when station manager Bill Lynch heard of them. He invited them to do a radio show for 15 minutes a day, 5 days a week. Thus was born “Those Two” billed as the show for “The average American housewife, and the ordinary, everyday Nuclear Physicist.” (Ed.: At the time Westinghouse’s Nuclear Division was the largest employer in Monroeville). Beverly Pollack recalled: “She (her partner, Shirley) would be different people and whatever she would say, I would give a homily to it. I remember she would say something wild, and I would say like ‘…better a warm hearth than a clean chamber’ -- made no sense whatever! It was great fun. It was brand new and that’s why they hired a couple of crazy people they didn’t have to pay much money to. We did it for nine months. It was great fun.”

In time, Jack Leib sold his interest to Sarah Thompson, so that she and her father now owned two-thirds of the stock. With the death of Tipper Sylves in the 1970s, Sarah put the company up for sale.

The WRUA Days

Dr. Subrata Barua of Greensburg purchased the station in 1980 and the call letters were changed to WRUA. No longer a community station, it expanded its scope to become a Pittsburgh radio station based in Monroeville. The first WRUA broadcast was on August 25, 1980. The station was to play “Oldies but Goodies” throughout the day. Staff changes and financial problems were to plague the new ownership, and less than 15 months later several employees lost their jobs. Barua reported that he owed more than $100,000 for overdue bills. And in 1985, Duquesne Light Co., discontinued power to the station for non-payment of bills. Soon after Dr. Barua sold the station, and WRUA became WNRZ.

The WNRZ days

In November 1985, WNRZ (pronounced “winners” radio) went on the air with a format of contemporary hits. Porky Chedwick, a veteran Pittsburgh deejay, and Bob Tracey, former announcer for KDKA and WJAS, were among the anchor personalities for WNRZ. But in only a few months the station again changed hands, and WNRZ became WXVX.

The WXVX days

The new owner of the Monroeville radio station, Al Cleveland of Pittsburgh Communications, Inc, saw a need for expanding some popular FM offerings to the AM dial. He believed that Pittsburgh market was ready for a second urban music oriented station, along with WAMO on the FM dial, and so the station began offering urban contemporary music. Steve Creegan, Dale King and Sly Jock, former deejays of Pittsburgh’s WAMO, the other urban music station in the Pittsburgh area, began sharing the on-air duties. The new station would begin a promotional campaign by having the deejays appear at local clubs and by promoting concerts and upcoming acts at Monroeville’s Holiday House. In 1989, the station was to change formats yet again when WXVX was marketed as “X-15,” a change which reflected its shift to Rock’s Progressive and Alternative Music.

“X-15 was considered to be, by some, an experiment. An experiment to see if Rock music could survive on AM.” According to a contributor to the AirChexx website, Chris Cuomo. “WXVX took up the banner for early Alternative and played a wide variety music, including breaking artists such as Nirvana and Pearl Jam…the jocks were anything but polished and the station’s promos and imaging left much to be desired by today’s standards. …the air staff of this Alternative station was, indeed totally comprised of amateurs! Listeners loved it. Advertisers, apparently, hated it.”

Chad Stevens Deejay at X-15

Chad Stevens, a young deejay well remembered his days at the old radio station.

“Paul Goodman was GM of the station. I think he had worked at other Pittsburgh FM stations in the 1980s. I can assure you, we were anything but professionals. Most of us were just high school kids or recent grads looking to get a foot in the door. No one ever got paid one penny. I was just hoping to get something to put on a resume and get an entry into the business…”

…“The studio was in a sad looking building. There were squirrels running loose in the roof and the building was damp, musty, and cold. My car got stuck in the badly rutted gravel driveway on several occasions. I was at the station Tuesdays and Thursdays from November 1994 through the end of the alternative format on New Years Day 1996 and I actually did what turned out to be the final airshift. Though I didn’t know it at the time. The station was sold and the new owners locked us out.”

X-15 made it till 1996, before changing formats and ownerships several more times. It remained at the Monroeville location until 1999. Today (in 2014), AM 1510 is a non-commercial radio station, WPGR -- “Pittsburgh’s Gospel Radio Station.” The station is owned by the Catholic Church’s St. Joseph Missions. The station’s address is in Lexington Kentucky, although the “city of license” remains Monroeville, Pa. ______References: -- AirChexx website: http://airchexx.com/, 2014. -- Pollack, B. K., Interview with the Monroeville Historical Society, (Interviewer: L. Chandler), Archives of the Monroeville Historical Society, 2013. -- Thompson, S. S., Oral History, (Interviewer: L. Lyman), Archives of the Monroeville Historical Society, September, 1986. -- Times-Express, New Radio Station on Air, September 14, 1964. -- Times-Express, New Name, Format for Station, 1986.