This year commemorates the 70th anniversary of when Beaver County’s first radio station, WBVP, was heard over the airwaves for the the first time on May 25, 1948.  To mark the historical event, each week, another “70th Anniversary Moment” will be showcased on the airwaves and published on the station’s online feeds.

The fact that WBVP has been on the air since 1948, and WMBA has been broadcasting since 1957, tells us a couple of things.  1. Both stations have offered great local programming through the years that both listeners and advertisers have been quite fond of.  2. There have been some very capable men wielding soldering irons in the shadows installing, repairing and maintaining equipment.  Just to give you an idea, WBVP is on it’s 4th transmitter, and probably due for a new one soon.  New equipment is always coming out, and old gear always needs fixed or replaced.  This requires having very talented people around to tend to these needs.  Fortunately,  WBVP and WMBA have had their fair share of some of the very brightest engineers in the business.

Bill Hinds was originally a technician who worked with Bell Telephone, who was recruited by Frank Smith, Tom Price and Charlie Onderka to help put the pieces together and put WBVP on the air some seventy years ago.  It was a perfect scenario for WBVP, as in those days, transmitting over phone lines was a big deal.  They were were used in many different ways such as carrying the feed between the main studio and transmitter building in Pulaski township.  Phone lines were also used for remote broadcasts like the weekly church services from St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church in Beaver Falls, and broadcasts from Beaver Falls City building council chambers.  Hinds reportedly had great skills in setting all these scenarios up and making all these broadcasts possible.  According to local historian Kenneth Britten, Bill Hinds was the first chief engineer for WBVP, and had several assistants in those early days, including  Jerry Feaser, Harvey Dull, Mike Arbutina, Bob Matau, Andy Sivak and Gene Catalano.  In 1959, the current producer of the Weekly Sunday morning  program “Sounds of Faith”,  Jim Roush, was hired and became chief engineer into the early 70’s.  One of the reasons there were so many engineers is because in the early days of radio, according to FCC regulations, an engineer with a fist class operator license had to be on duty at all times that the station was on the air.  The men would serve continuous eight hour shifts at the transmitter site, seven days a week.  So serious was the FCC rule back then, that on the occasions when WBVP had staff Christmas dinners or summertime employee picnics, food would be prepared and taken to the engineers on duty at the tower site, so they could enjoy and partake in the festivities,  because they couldn’t leave their post.

Other engineers who kept WBVP sounding great and on the air through the years included Jim Reed, Wayne Gignac, Ed Monskie, Jerry Bowers, Bob King, Chuck Doyle and Cliff Bryson, among others.  Ted Ruscitti served as both owner and chief engineer for WBVP and sister F.M. station, WWKS, in the 1980’s.

Walter “Red” McCoy  is the man credited with assembling equipment, patching wires together, hanging a microphone and installing other amenities in the Duss Avenue, Ambridge, studio and putting  WMBA on the air in 1957.  McCoy’s forte was recycling. Reportedly, according to WMBA staffer from the early 1970’s, John Poister,  McCoy turned a vintage Volkswagen micro bus in a complete mobile studio on wheels, that WMBA used for remote broadcasts,  by re purposing old turntables and parts that had already been cast off and replaced at the radio station’s main studio.  Ken “Kevin” Maguire, Jr., Ted Ruscitti, Steve Conti, Tom Zehnder, Henry Burgess, and Ed Lightman were other men assigned with engineering duties at WMBA through the years.  The aforementioned Jim Roush, and Cliff Bryson, along  with Lightman still serve in that capacity for WBVP and WMBA.  In a pinch, Ted Ruscitti, who originally started at WMBA in 1970, can also still  be sighted, on special  occasions, helping out with technical issues at WBVP and WMBA.

Here is a salute to the men who, while they are never heard over the air,  have had a huge impact on how well the stations have sounded!

70th Anniversary Moments” is presented by  Abbey Carpet and Floor,  Albert’s Heating, Cooling and Plumbing,  Aliquippa Giant Eagle, The Beaver Falls Municipal Authority, Beaver Valley Auto Mall, Beaver Valley Sheet Metal, Castlebrook Development, The Community College Of Beaver County,  Farmers Building and Savings Bank, Freedom United Federal Credit Union, Hank’s Frozen Custard and Mexican food, The Health Huts, Kitchen City, Laughlin Insurance Agency,  Rochester Manor and Villa and Young’s Jewelry and Coins.

This year commemorates the 70th anniversary of when Beaver County’s first radio station, WBVP, was heard over the airwaves for the the first time on May 25, 1948.  To mark the historical event, each week, another “70th Anniversary Moment” will be showcased on the airwaves and published on the station’s online feeds.

One of the popular options for young people graduating from high school in the 1970’s and 1980’s, who didn’t want to go away to college, was to enroll in one of many local broadcasting schools.  Broadcasting was an exciting,  popular field and these programs offered the opportunity to learn the skills necessary to get a job at a radio station in a relatively short period of time.

Ambridge native, Dan Dunlap, was a graduate of one of the local broadcasting schools, Columbia School Of Broadcasting in Pittsburgh.  Dunlap had just finished his coursework at Columbia and showed up at the Duss Avenue studio of WMBA with a tape in his hand  around 1985. Travis Green, also known as Jim Green on the airwaves at WMBA,  served as the Program Director at  back then and remembered meeting Dunlap.  Green said: “Dan was nervous and timid, but he sounded great. His audition tape sounded real good.  I told him even back then on that very first day of meeting him, that he would do very good in the business.  So, I asked Dan if he could start that day, and he about dropped his drawers”.

Travis Green was right about the sound of the talent on the cassette tape that Dan Dunlap brought with him to WMBA that day.  Dunlap has a beautiful, velvet toned, smooth,  low pitched baritone voice that doesn’t seem to go with his smaller physical stature.  If Dan didn’t make it in the broadcasting business, he could easily have found work as a base singer in a barbershop quartet.  Listeners loved the sound too.  Not too long after starting at WMBA, Dan Dunlap starting doing part time fill in work at WWKS, Kiss 106.7 F.M. in Beaver Falls.   Dunlap was so smooth, so professional in the way he could say even mundane things like the call letters of the radio station, that young part timers at WBVP and WWKS during 1986 and 1987 would reportedly gather at the studio window just to watch Dan work his craft.   While it’s never been researched, Dunlap is thought to be the only announcer ever to achieve such fame among fellow employees at the Beaver Falls radio headquarters.  Dunlap could read the lottery numbers and make them sound like a romance novel.  His tone and delivery style would mesmerize people.  He was, and is, that good.

Other radio operators began to fall in love with what they were hearing as well. Dan Dunlap also started working part time at WSHH, Wish 99.7 F.M. in Pittsburgh in 1986 and Eventually was hired on full time as the afternoon host.  WSHH was often referred to as “Beaver Falls South”, because many WBVP and WWKS employees ended up working at that radio station as well.  Dunlap teamed up again later on in Pittsburgh with other people familiar to WBVP , WWKS and WMBA listeners, including  Steve Granato, Chris Shovlin and Current WBVP newsman, Pat Septak, who also worked  at the Greentree based station in the 1990’s. Judy Marcella and Mark Peterson were sales staffers in Beaver Falls who also worked with Dunlap at WSHH and it’s sister A.M. counterpart radio station, WJAS. 

For a couple years, around 2008, Dan Dunlap, along with his wife Sue Dunlap, hosted a Saturday Morning variety talk show on WBVP and WMBA appropriately called “The Dan and Sue Show” .  Dan loved radio so much, that even on his day off at his full time gig in Pittsburgh, he elected to spend his free time on the airwaves.

Dan Dunlap continued to  talk to listeners on Wish 99.7 F.M. until 2014.  Since then he has become a very highly sought after voice over artist, working with many major businesses like Netflix, Charter Communications, Bristol Motor Speedway, Dietz & Watson, Edward Jones Financial, Cox Media, Field & Stream and Tin Cup Whiskey along with many others.  Locally, Dan Dunlap continues to do the voice over work for the annual Medic Rescue membership drive commercials which are on the air now on WBVP and WMBA.

70th Anniversary Moments” is presented by  Abbey Carpet and Floor,  Albert’s Heating, Cooling and Plumbing,  Aliquippa Giant Eagle, The Beaver Falls Municipal Authority, Beaver Valley Auto Mall, Beaver Valley Sheet Metal, Castlebrook Development, The Community College Of Beaver County,  Farmers Building and Savings Bank, Freedom United Federal Credit Union, Hank’s Frozen Custard and Mexican food, The Health Huts, Kitchen City, Laughlin Insurance Agency,  Rochester Manor and Villa and Young’s Jewelry and Coins.