In the early 60's, WNBF General Manager George Dunham was approached by the Susquenango Council of the Boy Scouts to establish a Boy Scout Explorer Post. Dunham saw the value in establishing the Explorer Post to introduce teens to broadcasting.
The First advisor to the group was the Channel 12 Program Director, Karl Friedlander. There were a number of WNBF adult employes who served as advisors to the Post over the years, among them WNBF Program Director Frank Randall.
Information on the early days of Explorer Post 12 is sparse.
Through the years, the teen members of the Post were given access to the station to learn and participate in all phases of Radio and TV Broadcasting.
Many of the Explorers served as unpaid interns, notably during
the holidays, when the scouts, with adult supervision, were given access to presenting the on-air product of WNBF, including reading news and weather and servicing as disc jockeys during overnight programming.
Later, a significant number of the Scouts went on to careers as DJ's, Engineers, managers, and station owners.
Here is an except from an e-mail from Bruce Nelson (pictured below) about the early days of WNBF and Explorer Post 12.
At WNBF, the scouts were learning more and more about
broadcasting, and were sometimes working
as unofficial interns. At one point, the management felt that the boys had enough skills to be on the air. The actual
thought of turning over a 5000 watt station to a bunch of teenagers overnight on a holiday weekend was mind blowing
and would probably never happen again, but it did. Some of the account managers even sold ad time to run during
those shows.
As the Explorer Scouts hung around the stations, the radio announcers and engineers taught them the skills. Some of
the boys were hired as board operators to run the evening music shows and insert the ads into sports broadcasts, and to
tap into the Sunday morning services at several churches. Some of them got hired to run the TV master control and
operate TV cameras.
Besides creating a pool of trained high school students they could hire as part-timers, there was another event which
happened, which has benefited the station to this day. One of the Explorers brought in a magazine article with the
meanings of various station call letters. It claimed that WNBF stood for “Where Neighbors be Friends”. One of the
guys looked at the letters and said, c’mon, it’s “Where News Break First”. They told Bob Klose, the Program Director,
and the slogan was adopted and has been in use for the last 50 years.
In 1966, Post 12 was featured in the national “Exploring” magazine.
Here is a listing of some of the notable Explorer Post members who pursued a career in Broadcasting:
George Thomas who spent years at Mutual Broadcasting.
Jim Pratt, who was a top technician at Time-Warner Cable.
Bruce Nelson, Chief Engineer at WITR, and engineer at WSKG.
Dave Freeman, the long-time co-host on WHWK.
Tom Birch, station owner and founder of the Birch Ratings Service.
Wally Roper, Dj and news, and voice of the NYS Dept of Labor.
Jeff Simek, who rose to be the morning man at WHAM.
Dana Potter, over 25 years in Binghamton as an announcer
Engineer Conrad Bach
Keith Nelson. Master Control WNBF TV, and Ops Mgr at WAAL
DJ Chip Austin
Jack Gallager, DJ
Mark Levinson
Matthew Holleran
Actor John Fionte
Mark Spencer
Jim Chirumbolo, long time broadcaster and Ad agency guy
(thanks for Bruce Nelson and Jim Pratt for the pictures and information on Post 12
Well, here's a surprise. While researching the newspaper archives, we came across an article that talked about a Second Explorer Post, this one associated with WENE and WMRV. It was Explorer Post 105.
WENE's Tom Piccano established the Post, and was the advisor to the group.
Explorer Post 105 was in operation from 1986 to 1988. Tom left WENE in 1986 for a new job at WSKG, and it appears that the post faded out at that time.
One of the big events for the Post was doing two live broadcasts from the Oakdale Mall Scout Show.
Some members of Post 105 were local students Ken Ayres, Valentina DeNardis, Denise Haynak Jody Venkatesan and Scott Transue.
Later, Kim Cone and Steve Tripp, both members of Post 105 transitioned to a career in broadcasting.
(thanks go Tom Picciano, and Kim Cone for the update here)
Notice:
The facts here and the list of broadcasters in the Post is no where near complete. If someone can fill in the blanks, or add additional information, please send a note to rayross@yahoo.com.
This page is a work in progress.
