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.

In 1954, a group of eight people that made up Miners Broadcasting Service, Inc., headquartered in  Pottsville, PA,  purchased a ten acre plot of ground on a hill  in Bell Acres that would eventually become the tower site for WMBA.  Miners Broadcasting Service was already operating WPAM in Pottsville, which came on the air in 1946.  The Angst brothers,  John “Bud” Angst, and Roy “Mickey” Angst were both involved with the operation at WPAM out east as talented talk show hosts.  Both men loved politics and Bud even served as a Commissioner in Carbon County  at one point in time.  Roy was sent out west in 1957 along with Managing Partner, Ken McGuire, to help get their new radio station in Ambridge,  WMBA,  on the air.  Roy also served as WMBA’s first General Manager.

One of the things that Roy brought over from WPAM was the concept of the local call in talk show.  In the early era of WMBA, Roy hosted a show called “Air Your Opinion”, that continued to air on the station for decades, later on hosted by Nick DeSantis, Barb Trehar and Rick Bergman, among others.  Roy’s interest in politics was an asset to the on air conversation and most of the time, he was able to blend in his opinion on local issues quite successfully.   His staunch opposition to and almost daily disputes over policy, procedures, issues in town, or really, almost anything,  with then Ambridge Mayor, Walter Panek, made for very entertaining programming.  So heated were their feuds that on more than one occasion, Angst found himself in a courtroom having to answer to charges filed by Panek, one such case going all the way to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court before being dismissed in 1962.

Roy Angst continued to work for WMBA until 1972, after which he moved back east.

Former competitors, WMBA and WBVP, began simulcasting programming in 2000, when the owner of WBVP at the time, Iorio Broadcasting, Inc., bought WMBA from Donn Communications.

“70th Anniversary Moments” is presented by Freedom United Federal Credit Union and Rochester Manor and Villa.  Archived editions can be viewed on the 70th Anniversary Moments page.