December 5, 2025 • 19 mins
WHAS11 news anchor Doug Proffitt popped by to wish Terry Meiners a Happy 40th Anniversary at WHAS Radio and they fell into a history lesson of the TV and radio stations.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Vhas TV eleven.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
I'm always here, Yes, yes, I'm here. I'm in this building,
in your building. I'm somewhere all the time.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Did you say brook Kats.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Yeah, that's brook Katz is the I worked with her.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
She was at WHAS. Yeah, the same Brookett.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
That's the voice who introduces my show every day.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Where is she now Nashville? Oh?
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Okay, she was in Dallas and then now she's in Nashville.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Is she's still anchoring the news?
Speaker 2 (00:22):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Oh, she was with WHAS eleven and yeah, we're good buddies.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
That's why she's the voice on my show.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Well I did not I did not know. I'm glad
you said her name. That's another memory coming back.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
So if you met Doug Prophet before, I don't believe
we don't. Lincoln over there, Hi, Joe, I hear.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
I hear you a lot, you know, following Whas to
do a great job.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
How many years are you up to in April? This
coming April will be thirty nine years? So I'm just
behind you. I'm just behind so sorry for that.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
But you've actually you actually have just celebrated fifty years
as a bro that's coming up next year.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
That's next year.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Okay. I started at nineteen seventy six, so next year's
technically by fiftieth altogether. I started in Lexington when I
was at UK, on a rock station that our company owns, Yes,
and then I went to QMF, excuse me, a WLRS
in Louisville, then to QMM then here.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
Well, see, for me, it was always great hearing you
on the radio, because those were not you just mentioned
two stations. Those were not small, lightweight stations. Those were
heavyweight stations owned by families in this town. Went Oddings
on QMF and the Hensons on WLRS and the very
community oriented. And for me, as a young young person
(01:37):
hearing your voice, it was like, Wow, I could do
this too, and you can start at a young age.
Look at you now, Yeah, you started at a very
young age though on radio.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
At age eighteen eighteen. Okay, so you though, coming up
on forty years, that makes you the king of WHASTV.
Who's been there longer than you?
Speaker 1 (02:00):
Nobody? I mean it is, It has been quite. It
has been quite the run.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
And what do you do when you hire these youngsters? Look,
Joe's over here, he's a youngster. He knows how this
goes when they move here, because he's from around here.
But when someone moves here, some twenty two year old
just out of school, and they hi.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
Mister prophet, it's a pleasure to work with you.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
And then they say they gave me an assignment. I'm
broadcasting live from Shivley. And then you have to say.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Well, well, we've had a few of the Shipley's come
on the air, that's for sure. And I get it.
I pick up the phone right away.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
But when they do get hired, and I'm sure you've
done this before too, probably joke and confirm it. I
throw him in the car and I drive him around
town and I show him some landmarks and I tell
him here's how you say doumenil.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
And again, that's even being from around here, I didn't
have that one in my back pocket as soon as
I got yeah, you pick it up quick, you.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
Did, right, douminil. We don't know why it's pronounced that way,
and we run away from our French roots.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
All of that's right.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
And King Louis is not King Law. That's just what
people do.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
And I tell him his last name is Capaluto, not Orkaput,
and somebody called him on the other other day.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
So things like that, I want to see them succeed.
When I went to Charleston, South Carolina, I really wanted
to cover hurricanes. Before I came to H. A. S
and eighty seven.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
They had a wonderful guide of pronunciations, because you're talking
about a wild town with pronunciations. You have the French
creole sound, and of course you have Native Americans that
named a lot of the islands out there, and you
have to really get it right, like L E. G.
A R. E. Street.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
You would think we would say Lagai or something, but
it's Lagree. It's stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
Of course, Yeah, we don't say Powis Kentucky or no.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
We are. We've had Versailles, I mean no Versailles Kentucky.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
That's just how that go. We lose the intents.
Speaker 3 (03:59):
But when I came in on the air in eighty seven, Terry,
you were in the throes of the on air war,
in battle with Coyote Calhoun. I always love, I'll never
forget that he'd come out of his studio and this
was in our TV building and walk down to your window. Yes,
and he would raise his hand and tell you with
his fingers, that you were number one in his mind
(04:20):
because you were you were saying his real name or something.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
I don't know what happened when the company was sold.
Bob Latter, the news guy said in the five o'clock news,
Coyote Calhoun, whose real name is? And then he said it,
oh really? And then and then within thirty seconds, coyote
came running down the hall, and it was it was
worse than just flipping the bird.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
Oh but you too liked each other.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
You all, yeah, that's right, but it's like, I don't
it was the news guy.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
Oh, okay, I didn't know that. We'll see. The lore
was you got blamed for it.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
Y I did, because he's yelling at me. But it
was Bob Latter and he wasn't even the anchor. The
anchor was there, and it was playing on a tape,
so he didn't have the the he didn't have the
right person to strangle that he wanted to at that second.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
And so but you kept that alive, and you would
drop his real name.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
You kept going, Well, that happened a few times, for sure, And.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
The other one was the you had the news.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
Lyssa's going right, Melissa Swan and Melissa Forsyth, and you
created a battle in the newsroom, which probably was not
too far off.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
Actually, Melissa Swan took it well. Forsyth, I think, was
not a fan of that, the late Melissa forsythe good person,
but she was not thrilled with that. But I had
two women speaking in unison. It was actually Anne Hubbs
and Helen Huber who worked in the office, and they
would come in and record those segments, but they would
speak in unison.
Speaker 3 (05:42):
We would always the news department. Joe, as you know,
was always so you know, everything was getting thrown at us,
certain tense. We'd round the corner and it was a
happy time. It was Whas Radio.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
It was literally Terry and Tony Cruz on the ground
wrestling in Trey. One time it sounds all right, I
had to step over them.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
He texted me today, Tony Krusky Cruisy is still there.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
And it was.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
It was Van Vance, who never wrote a script in
his life, but would run to the studio to anchor
his sportscast with a notepad and he would just add
libbit and he would do a nod or an inflection
in his voice to let the director know, roll the
video and I'm going to write I'm going to talk
about the video.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
But he never that director, never had a script. Unbelievable.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
Van Vance was also the Ryan Seacrests of that era.
He came to WHS in the nineteen fifties and was
he did a Saturday Records show playing music. Was it
called High Variety?
Speaker 1 (06:40):
Yeah, yes, High Varieties and he was like.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
The DJ and I don't know if it was a
countdown show, but it was the same sort of a
premise because he was the cool I guess, young hip
guy or whatever at the time, and you just interviewed him.
How's he doing?
Speaker 1 (06:54):
He's doing? He told me to tell you happy anniversary
because I had gotten a text from your producer Gus
Allen yesterday to come on over. And Van is ninety two,
when he's still driving, and he's sharper than ever.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
He's still got that big boy. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
I put him through some paces.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
I wanted him to add libs and play by play
for me for a story I'm doing, and we just
let him go and it was just amazing.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
That's fantastic. How'd you get him to tell you his age?
Speaker 3 (07:21):
Well, I hope he's okay with me saying it, but
I'm telling you, when you walk, I think he does
a total seven miles a day.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
He does. Good for him because he's still in shape.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
I saw your photo and he breaks it up two
parts of the day. And you find him in southern
Indiana and he's just amazing. Got a new truck and
he's proud of it and moving around and got right
in our building. I was waiting outside for him, and
they said, no, he's already in the front lobby.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
Let's hear band dance. I got something here, Oh I
got it.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
I can't get a play a card rain for nineteen
eighty thick?
Speaker 2 (07:55):
Can it come?
Speaker 1 (07:56):
Comes down to take hands with? Okay, in nineteen.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
Eighty there's Van Line right there. And he also was
the voice of the Kentucky Colonel's ABA team, so he
would do Louisville games, ABA games. I mean, he was
a busy guy.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
I should have asked him. I would love to get
his thought on the great debate. Is it Louisville or Louisville?
You know, because Van emphasizes this he did with us yesterday.
It's it's he says, it is Louisville. You could hear
it in that cut right there. Man, he's a Kentucky boy.
Where's he out?
Speaker 1 (08:27):
So? Am I it's other in Kentucky? Or it's some king.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
Louis and v I ll E's not vull. That's just
lazy mouth. And we're professional announcers. It doesn't matter what
the locals say. Does someone move to the biggest city
in Louisiana and start saying today in New Orleans? No,
they say New Orleans.
Speaker 3 (08:44):
Well, I use your professional I use you an example
because people will ask me a lot, how do you
say it? And I said, well, you're going to hear
it all over the map. But I said, Terry Miners
is from here, has always said Louisville. He always emphasizes
it as Louisville.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
It's not Durham, North Carolina's Durham. That's a good boys,
it's not it's not Missoura. Who does any professional broadcaster
over there say today in Missoura. No, that's just the
local colloquial thing.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
Well, it's as you know, it's not Jessamine County. It's
Jessemon County. It's Jenrison County. Before here, we're it.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
But that's what professional announcers should hold themselves to some
kind of standard. But a lot of people go, ah,
well whatever, and we're just playing along with WLRS Radio
had a big campaign in the nineteen seventies, I think
it was late seventies where it's all about call it Woville,
call it Woville, and so that kind of a hay
seed thing, and then people around here say, I don't
(09:38):
understand why people think we're hillbillies here in Woe.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
That's why the question I've always wanted to ask you
is because those were amazing rock stations and they were
known for the cutting edge, the bad, bad boys getting
in trouble, but very involved in the community. When was
your When did it come into your.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
Mind that you wanted to come to the staid whas
right now the home of Wayne Perky and Milton net City.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
Because I was twenty eight years old and I thought, well,
it's time. You know, there's only so many times you
can do sixth grade humor or whatever.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
You know, you had switched your mind to already a
different format with a different station.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
It's just more grown up stuff, you know, he's got
to do more adult things. And some people, you know,
they like body humor and that's just they'll be that
way their whole life, and there's nothing wrong with that.
That's your choice. But for me, I just wanted to
graduate my life and not be stuck in a thing
because some people will still write online. I liked you
(10:37):
were run Clay. It's like, well, that's great. That's the
nineteen eighties. That's a long time ago.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
So you made it.
Speaker 3 (10:43):
Also the decision to go from two powerhouse FM stations
to an AM station at the time, and at the
time FM was still the roar, but there was another
reason why.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
I guess you wanted to come here.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Yeah, but everybody's on the same platform now as long
as you can be one. I mean, I've gotten emails
from people in Korea, right South Korea, they go, I'm
listening to you on online.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
We are a network now more so than well this
station always was.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
Yeah, So it doesn't matter wherever you are, you can
you can platform yourself to be available anywhere. It's just
a matter of me. I like being involved in news,
and you know today I have several people that are
on this show. Some of them their newsworthy, others happened
to do with sports and some with community service. It's
(11:29):
all good. That's what I do is that that's the
package every day.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
And even though you're able to ask him some tough questions,
people still do speak to you because I know you
were you were pretty hard on the Binghams, or or
you like to tease the Binghams. When they they sold
the station, they wrote you a nice email.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
That's true, but there are you know, there's changes in
the relationship with people. Some people who used to talk
to them with me don't anymore because that you ask
them a thing or two, or it's more difficult to
get them on. One of our senators used to be
on me a lot. He's not anymore. I'm talking about
junior senator. But he was on recently, but it took
a while. And the governor's not very friendly here. I
(12:06):
saw him Saturday at the football game. Hey just goes
right by. But before he was much more open to talking.
But he's got people handling him now, and so it's
they're trying to limit his exposure to somebody asking him, so.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
Where's last time you interviewed Andy? Butser one on one.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
It's been a few years has been Yeah, see him
at things and we'll we'll we're pleasant with each other.
But they don't want to They don't want him.
Speaker 3 (12:30):
On Well that you're right, I mean, he's we all
think is going to run for president and so that's
probably going to come out next year.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
Get that.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
They just don't want to leave anything open the chance
that that he miss steps.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
Well, hasn't forty years been a blur?
Speaker 2 (12:44):
Yeah, but it's also been a methodical learning session, so
that you know, each day is builds upon the next one.
Life is a stack of pancakes. The bottom one where
it starts, it has to be there in order for
the next one to be there, and then that, and
(13:05):
then you can't get to the top of the stack
without going through each of the sessions that have happened
there to build you to who you are at this moment.
And that's true for everybody in life.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
Well, you've had great funny moments.
Speaker 3 (13:17):
There is there a favorite interview that's percolated to the
top of your head.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
I know you've had to think about it over forty years.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
I have a million of them. I mean, I have
a good time with people because I like to see
I like people to tell their stories, but you know,
I like for them to have a moment to amplify it.
I've got this, Like the comedian Tim Wilson said to
me one time, I still laugh about it. He's been
dead for a long time. He's hilarious. I used to
watch him outside the window and he'd take his last
(13:44):
big smoke and then he'd exhale, and then he'd run
and he goes, I got eight minutes before the nicotine
crave would drive him to go outside. We came to
the end of a segment one time and I said, hey,
can you hang around to another segment? He goes, Darry,
You're my only friend with fifteth thousdats, so yes, I
will come back into an of course.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
Well, you know it was.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
It was.
Speaker 3 (14:09):
I mean, just think about the days when they said
Muhammad Ali would walk into the studios if a whs
and just PLoP down and say, hey, here's where my
career is today.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
Right. He was hilarious and he was good to the crew,
I understand. You know, Milton Matts would interview him, and
you know, we've had the rich history of the station.
It's one hundred and three years old now and everybody's
been here, and a lot of people say, you know,
you've made it in life when you get interviewed on
this station. So I love that. I love that legacy
(14:39):
part of what this station is. And that's why it's
different from playing rock records and making fart chokes on
a well.
Speaker 3 (14:47):
One of my favorite stories that Milton ever told me
was when Hurricane Hugo wiped out the southeast and Charleston,
South Carolina, and they lost all their power and suddenly
he's getting He was on his night I'm show getting
calls from people down there. We can hear you in
Louisville at whas can you tell us the latest news
(15:08):
for what's happened down here. We don't know how big
this is. And he was reading the AP stories and
what was coming out of South Carolina.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
There's a bill in Congress. I've talked with Brett Guthrie
about it multiple times. It has to do with keeping
AM radio in cars. Some of the car manufacturers go,
it's a nuisance for us because we have to have
a wire in here because of this interference. Whatever. Tesla
started the issue, and now some sty some manufacturers have said, well,
we're changing the way the whole audio system because they
(15:36):
all have paid apps that are on there that's the
whole thing. But we have a bill in Congress that's
saying you got to keep AM radio in cars. And
just for the reason you cited, there are times when
certain things go down. Nine to eleven taught us again
as well. Certain things go down, communications die. But this
broadcast the methodology of amplitude. It's the word. I've forgotten
(16:02):
it all of a sudden. What AM stands for uses
a different skywave to get to receivers, and so it
is more abundantly available, universally available. These open signals like
this one, it's modulation, that's the other word. They reach
receivers in ways that other transmission levels can't. When other
things are knocked out, this still comes through. That's why
(16:25):
I always tell people you still want to have a
battery powered radio in your home just in case.
Speaker 3 (16:30):
Right, my wife and founder or father's old one. I mean,
this was a little silver box. Put batteries in it
and you could hear the AM radios I have one.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
You just never know if you're going to be out
of power and there's no way to you know, the
Wi Fi's out, this that or whatever. It's like I've
taught my kids, they're all such suckers. They're all hooked
into just watching a GPS on their phone, and I'm like, well,
what happens if the Wi Fi is not available? What
happens if your phone? What happens if you drop your
phone down the stewer?
Speaker 1 (16:58):
What happens?
Speaker 2 (17:00):
How will you know how to get somewhere? I don't know?
And I said, well you need to learn, Yeah, you need.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
To learn where you are.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
No, but just teaching them basics of where northeast southwest
and what all that means on a highway sign. They're
not paying any attention that their phone is everything and
when that is interrupted, and it does get interrupted, then
you're you're lost.
Speaker 3 (17:20):
I was asked a couple of days ago how to
get to seventh in Kentucky, and the person was saying
that the GPS keeps telling me west Kentucky or whatever.
I said, well, there's only one take seventh. It will cross,
it will hit Kentucky event and then you will be there.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
I'm even asking kids, like, the sun's going down, which
way is west? I don't know. It's like, I think
it's pretty easy to figure that.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
Out if it goes down the other way. We got
a new lead story tonight right.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
Indeed, all right, what are you gonna feature your Van
Vance interview.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
Monday after Monday Night football? And they were going to
run it again the next day.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Okay, mister van Vance aged ninety two. There you've been
out at van line. Sorry about that, but Doug, great
to see you.
Speaker 3 (18:01):
Happy anniversary, Terry from all of us at WHS eleven
your other home.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
That's right. Always it's a dual.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
Home, mister Crusade. We'd love your communities. How many years
on the Crusade now?
Speaker 2 (18:11):
I'm also the longest serving host of the Crusade.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
Very good.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
I'm the longest serving show host in Louisville history, being
in the same time slot by a lot already with
forty years ear and also the longest serving Crusade for
Children hosts. So that's kind of nice, right.
Speaker 3 (18:27):
I remember when they had to make the transition after
Wayne stepped away, and Ken Middleton was our general manager
WHS eleven who picked the host, and he said, oh,
he said, going with Terry was a no brainer. He said,
I need somebody to be able to talk about the
Crusade every single day of his life. I did, and
he and he said, I think he'll be doing that
(18:47):
the rest of his life.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
Yeah, Bud Harvesmeyer was great to me there too, in
that transition. I greatly appreciate that, and I'll look forward
to seeing you over in the other buildings soon enough. Oh,
just like every other kid, I live in two homes.
It's good to see them walking. Back back in a minute, Joe,
absolutely back in a minute. Here we are on news
Radio eight forty whas
Vhas TV eleven.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
I'm always here, Yes, yes, I'm here. I'm in this building,
in your building. I'm somewhere all the time.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Did you say brook Kats.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Yeah, that's brook Katz is the I worked with her.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
She was at WHAS. Yeah, the same Brookett.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
That's the voice who introduces my show every day.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Where is she now Nashville? Oh?
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Okay, she was in Dallas and then now she's in Nashville.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Is she's still anchoring the news?
Speaker 2 (00:22):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Oh, she was with WHAS eleven and yeah, we're good buddies.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
That's why she's the voice on my show.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Well I did not I did not know. I'm glad
you said her name. That's another memory coming back.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
So if you met Doug Prophet before, I don't believe
we don't. Lincoln over there, Hi, Joe, I hear.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
I hear you a lot, you know, following Whas to
do a great job.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
How many years are you up to in April? This
coming April will be thirty nine years? So I'm just
behind you. I'm just behind so sorry for that.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
But you've actually you actually have just celebrated fifty years
as a bro that's coming up next year.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
That's next year.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Okay. I started at nineteen seventy six, so next year's
technically by fiftieth altogether. I started in Lexington when I
was at UK, on a rock station that our company owns, Yes,
and then I went to QMF, excuse me, a WLRS
in Louisville, then to QMM then here.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
Well, see, for me, it was always great hearing you
on the radio, because those were not you just mentioned
two stations. Those were not small, lightweight stations. Those were
heavyweight stations owned by families in this town. Went Oddings
on QMF and the Hensons on WLRS and the very
community oriented. And for me, as a young young person
(01:37):
hearing your voice, it was like, Wow, I could do
this too, and you can start at a young age.
Look at you now, Yeah, you started at a very
young age though on radio.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
At age eighteen eighteen. Okay, so you though, coming up
on forty years, that makes you the king of WHASTV.
Who's been there longer than you?
Speaker 1 (02:00):
Nobody? I mean it is, It has been quite. It
has been quite the run.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
And what do you do when you hire these youngsters? Look,
Joe's over here, he's a youngster. He knows how this
goes when they move here, because he's from around here.
But when someone moves here, some twenty two year old
just out of school, and they hi.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
Mister prophet, it's a pleasure to work with you.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
And then they say they gave me an assignment. I'm
broadcasting live from Shivley. And then you have to say.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Well, well, we've had a few of the Shipley's come
on the air, that's for sure. And I get it.
I pick up the phone right away.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
But when they do get hired, and I'm sure you've
done this before too, probably joke and confirm it. I
throw him in the car and I drive him around
town and I show him some landmarks and I tell
him here's how you say doumenil.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
And again, that's even being from around here, I didn't
have that one in my back pocket as soon as
I got yeah, you pick it up quick, you.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
Did, right, douminil. We don't know why it's pronounced that way,
and we run away from our French roots.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
All of that's right.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
And King Louis is not King Law. That's just what
people do.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
And I tell him his last name is Capaluto, not Orkaput,
and somebody called him on the other other day.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
So things like that, I want to see them succeed.
When I went to Charleston, South Carolina, I really wanted
to cover hurricanes. Before I came to H. A. S
and eighty seven.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
They had a wonderful guide of pronunciations, because you're talking
about a wild town with pronunciations. You have the French
creole sound, and of course you have Native Americans that
named a lot of the islands out there, and you
have to really get it right, like L E. G.
A R. E. Street.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
You would think we would say Lagai or something, but
it's Lagree. It's stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
Of course, Yeah, we don't say Powis Kentucky or no.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
We are. We've had Versailles, I mean no Versailles Kentucky.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
That's just how that go. We lose the intents.
Speaker 3 (03:59):
But when I came in on the air in eighty seven, Terry,
you were in the throes of the on air war,
in battle with Coyote Calhoun. I always love, I'll never
forget that he'd come out of his studio and this
was in our TV building and walk down to your window. Yes,
and he would raise his hand and tell you with
his fingers, that you were number one in his mind
(04:20):
because you were you were saying his real name or something.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
I don't know what happened when the company was sold.
Bob Latter, the news guy said in the five o'clock news,
Coyote Calhoun, whose real name is? And then he said it,
oh really? And then and then within thirty seconds, coyote
came running down the hall, and it was it was
worse than just flipping the bird.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
Oh but you too liked each other.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
You all, yeah, that's right, but it's like, I don't
it was the news guy.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
Oh, okay, I didn't know that. We'll see. The lore
was you got blamed for it.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
Y I did, because he's yelling at me. But it
was Bob Latter and he wasn't even the anchor. The
anchor was there, and it was playing on a tape,
so he didn't have the the he didn't have the
right person to strangle that he wanted to at that second.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
And so but you kept that alive, and you would
drop his real name.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
You kept going, Well, that happened a few times, for sure, And.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
The other one was the you had the news.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
Lyssa's going right, Melissa Swan and Melissa Forsyth, and you
created a battle in the newsroom, which probably was not
too far off.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
Actually, Melissa Swan took it well. Forsyth, I think, was
not a fan of that, the late Melissa forsythe good person,
but she was not thrilled with that. But I had
two women speaking in unison. It was actually Anne Hubbs
and Helen Huber who worked in the office, and they
would come in and record those segments, but they would
speak in unison.
Speaker 3 (05:42):
We would always the news department. Joe, as you know,
was always so you know, everything was getting thrown at us,
certain tense. We'd round the corner and it was a
happy time. It was Whas Radio.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
It was literally Terry and Tony Cruz on the ground
wrestling in Trey. One time it sounds all right, I
had to step over them.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
He texted me today, Tony Krusky Cruisy is still there.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
And it was.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
It was Van Vance, who never wrote a script in
his life, but would run to the studio to anchor
his sportscast with a notepad and he would just add
libbit and he would do a nod or an inflection
in his voice to let the director know, roll the
video and I'm going to write I'm going to talk
about the video.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
But he never that director, never had a script. Unbelievable.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
Van Vance was also the Ryan Seacrests of that era.
He came to WHS in the nineteen fifties and was
he did a Saturday Records show playing music. Was it
called High Variety?
Speaker 1 (06:40):
Yeah, yes, High Varieties and he was like.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
The DJ and I don't know if it was a
countdown show, but it was the same sort of a
premise because he was the cool I guess, young hip
guy or whatever at the time, and you just interviewed him.
How's he doing?
Speaker 1 (06:54):
He's doing? He told me to tell you happy anniversary
because I had gotten a text from your producer Gus
Allen yesterday to come on over. And Van is ninety two,
when he's still driving, and he's sharper than ever.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
He's still got that big boy. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
I put him through some paces.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
I wanted him to add libs and play by play
for me for a story I'm doing, and we just
let him go and it was just amazing.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
That's fantastic. How'd you get him to tell you his age?
Speaker 3 (07:21):
Well, I hope he's okay with me saying it, but
I'm telling you, when you walk, I think he does
a total seven miles a day.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
He does. Good for him because he's still in shape.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
I saw your photo and he breaks it up two
parts of the day. And you find him in southern
Indiana and he's just amazing. Got a new truck and
he's proud of it and moving around and got right
in our building. I was waiting outside for him, and
they said, no, he's already in the front lobby.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
Let's hear band dance. I got something here, Oh I
got it.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
I can't get a play a card rain for nineteen
eighty thick?
Speaker 2 (07:55):
Can it come?
Speaker 1 (07:56):
Comes down to take hands with? Okay, in nineteen.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
Eighty there's Van Line right there. And he also was
the voice of the Kentucky Colonel's ABA team, so he
would do Louisville games, ABA games. I mean, he was
a busy guy.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
I should have asked him. I would love to get
his thought on the great debate. Is it Louisville or Louisville?
You know, because Van emphasizes this he did with us yesterday.
It's it's he says, it is Louisville. You could hear
it in that cut right there. Man, he's a Kentucky boy.
Where's he out?
Speaker 1 (08:27):
So? Am I it's other in Kentucky? Or it's some king.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
Louis and v I ll E's not vull. That's just
lazy mouth. And we're professional announcers. It doesn't matter what
the locals say. Does someone move to the biggest city
in Louisiana and start saying today in New Orleans? No,
they say New Orleans.
Speaker 3 (08:44):
Well, I use your professional I use you an example
because people will ask me a lot, how do you
say it? And I said, well, you're going to hear
it all over the map. But I said, Terry Miners
is from here, has always said Louisville. He always emphasizes
it as Louisville.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
It's not Durham, North Carolina's Durham. That's a good boys,
it's not it's not Missoura. Who does any professional broadcaster
over there say today in Missoura. No, that's just the
local colloquial thing.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
Well, it's as you know, it's not Jessamine County. It's
Jessemon County. It's Jenrison County. Before here, we're it.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
But that's what professional announcers should hold themselves to some
kind of standard. But a lot of people go, ah,
well whatever, and we're just playing along with WLRS Radio
had a big campaign in the nineteen seventies, I think
it was late seventies where it's all about call it Woville,
call it Woville, and so that kind of a hay
seed thing, and then people around here say, I don't
(09:38):
understand why people think we're hillbillies here in Woe.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
That's why the question I've always wanted to ask you
is because those were amazing rock stations and they were
known for the cutting edge, the bad, bad boys getting
in trouble, but very involved in the community. When was
your When did it come into your.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
Mind that you wanted to come to the staid whas
right now the home of Wayne Perky and Milton net City.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
Because I was twenty eight years old and I thought, well,
it's time. You know, there's only so many times you
can do sixth grade humor or whatever.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
You know, you had switched your mind to already a
different format with a different station.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
It's just more grown up stuff, you know, he's got
to do more adult things. And some people, you know,
they like body humor and that's just they'll be that
way their whole life, and there's nothing wrong with that.
That's your choice. But for me, I just wanted to
graduate my life and not be stuck in a thing
because some people will still write online. I liked you
(10:37):
were run Clay. It's like, well, that's great. That's the
nineteen eighties. That's a long time ago.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
So you made it.
Speaker 3 (10:43):
Also the decision to go from two powerhouse FM stations
to an AM station at the time, and at the
time FM was still the roar, but there was another
reason why.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
I guess you wanted to come here.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Yeah, but everybody's on the same platform now as long
as you can be one. I mean, I've gotten emails
from people in Korea, right South Korea, they go, I'm
listening to you on online.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
We are a network now more so than well this
station always was.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
Yeah, So it doesn't matter wherever you are, you can
you can platform yourself to be available anywhere. It's just
a matter of me. I like being involved in news,
and you know today I have several people that are
on this show. Some of them their newsworthy, others happened
to do with sports and some with community service. It's
(11:29):
all good. That's what I do is that that's the
package every day.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
And even though you're able to ask him some tough questions,
people still do speak to you because I know you
were you were pretty hard on the Binghams, or or
you like to tease the Binghams. When they they sold
the station, they wrote you a nice email.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
That's true, but there are you know, there's changes in
the relationship with people. Some people who used to talk
to them with me don't anymore because that you ask
them a thing or two, or it's more difficult to
get them on. One of our senators used to be
on me a lot. He's not anymore. I'm talking about
junior senator. But he was on recently, but it took
a while. And the governor's not very friendly here. I
(12:06):
saw him Saturday at the football game. Hey just goes
right by. But before he was much more open to talking.
But he's got people handling him now, and so it's
they're trying to limit his exposure to somebody asking him, so.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
Where's last time you interviewed Andy? Butser one on one.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
It's been a few years has been Yeah, see him
at things and we'll we'll we're pleasant with each other.
But they don't want to They don't want him.
Speaker 3 (12:30):
On Well that you're right, I mean, he's we all
think is going to run for president and so that's
probably going to come out next year.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
Get that.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
They just don't want to leave anything open the chance
that that he miss steps.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
Well, hasn't forty years been a blur?
Speaker 2 (12:44):
Yeah, but it's also been a methodical learning session, so
that you know, each day is builds upon the next one.
Life is a stack of pancakes. The bottom one where
it starts, it has to be there in order for
the next one to be there, and then that, and
(13:05):
then you can't get to the top of the stack
without going through each of the sessions that have happened
there to build you to who you are at this moment.
And that's true for everybody in life.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
Well, you've had great funny moments.
Speaker 3 (13:17):
There is there a favorite interview that's percolated to the
top of your head.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
I know you've had to think about it over forty years.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
I have a million of them. I mean, I have
a good time with people because I like to see
I like people to tell their stories, but you know,
I like for them to have a moment to amplify it.
I've got this, Like the comedian Tim Wilson said to
me one time, I still laugh about it. He's been
dead for a long time. He's hilarious. I used to
watch him outside the window and he'd take his last
(13:44):
big smoke and then he'd exhale, and then he'd run
and he goes, I got eight minutes before the nicotine
crave would drive him to go outside. We came to
the end of a segment one time and I said, hey,
can you hang around to another segment? He goes, Darry,
You're my only friend with fifteth thousdats, so yes, I
will come back into an of course.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
Well, you know it was.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
It was.
Speaker 3 (14:09):
I mean, just think about the days when they said
Muhammad Ali would walk into the studios if a whs
and just PLoP down and say, hey, here's where my
career is today.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
Right. He was hilarious and he was good to the crew,
I understand. You know, Milton Matts would interview him, and
you know, we've had the rich history of the station.
It's one hundred and three years old now and everybody's
been here, and a lot of people say, you know,
you've made it in life when you get interviewed on
this station. So I love that. I love that legacy
(14:39):
part of what this station is. And that's why it's
different from playing rock records and making fart chokes on
a well.
Speaker 3 (14:47):
One of my favorite stories that Milton ever told me
was when Hurricane Hugo wiped out the southeast and Charleston,
South Carolina, and they lost all their power and suddenly
he's getting He was on his night I'm show getting
calls from people down there. We can hear you in
Louisville at whas can you tell us the latest news
(15:08):
for what's happened down here. We don't know how big
this is. And he was reading the AP stories and
what was coming out of South Carolina.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
There's a bill in Congress. I've talked with Brett Guthrie
about it multiple times. It has to do with keeping
AM radio in cars. Some of the car manufacturers go,
it's a nuisance for us because we have to have
a wire in here because of this interference. Whatever. Tesla
started the issue, and now some sty some manufacturers have said, well,
we're changing the way the whole audio system because they
(15:36):
all have paid apps that are on there that's the
whole thing. But we have a bill in Congress that's
saying you got to keep AM radio in cars. And
just for the reason you cited, there are times when
certain things go down. Nine to eleven taught us again
as well. Certain things go down, communications die. But this
broadcast the methodology of amplitude. It's the word. I've forgotten
(16:02):
it all of a sudden. What AM stands for uses
a different skywave to get to receivers, and so it
is more abundantly available, universally available. These open signals like
this one, it's modulation, that's the other word. They reach
receivers in ways that other transmission levels can't. When other
things are knocked out, this still comes through. That's why
(16:25):
I always tell people you still want to have a
battery powered radio in your home just in case.
Speaker 3 (16:30):
Right, my wife and founder or father's old one. I mean,
this was a little silver box. Put batteries in it
and you could hear the AM radios I have one.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
You just never know if you're going to be out
of power and there's no way to you know, the
Wi Fi's out, this that or whatever. It's like I've
taught my kids, they're all such suckers. They're all hooked
into just watching a GPS on their phone, and I'm like, well,
what happens if the Wi Fi is not available? What
happens if your phone? What happens if you drop your
phone down the stewer?
Speaker 1 (16:58):
What happens?
Speaker 2 (17:00):
How will you know how to get somewhere? I don't know?
And I said, well you need to learn, Yeah, you need.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
To learn where you are.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
No, but just teaching them basics of where northeast southwest
and what all that means on a highway sign. They're
not paying any attention that their phone is everything and
when that is interrupted, and it does get interrupted, then
you're you're lost.
Speaker 3 (17:20):
I was asked a couple of days ago how to
get to seventh in Kentucky, and the person was saying
that the GPS keeps telling me west Kentucky or whatever.
I said, well, there's only one take seventh. It will cross,
it will hit Kentucky event and then you will be there.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
I'm even asking kids, like, the sun's going down, which
way is west? I don't know. It's like, I think
it's pretty easy to figure that.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
Out if it goes down the other way. We got
a new lead story tonight right.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
Indeed, all right, what are you gonna feature your Van
Vance interview.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
Monday after Monday Night football? And they were going to
run it again the next day.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Okay, mister van Vance aged ninety two. There you've been
out at van line. Sorry about that, but Doug, great
to see you.
Speaker 3 (18:01):
Happy anniversary, Terry from all of us at WHS eleven
your other home.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
That's right. Always it's a dual.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
Home, mister Crusade. We'd love your communities. How many years
on the Crusade now?
Speaker 2 (18:11):
I'm also the longest serving host of the Crusade.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
Very good.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
I'm the longest serving show host in Louisville history, being
in the same time slot by a lot already with
forty years ear and also the longest serving Crusade for
Children hosts. So that's kind of nice, right.
Speaker 3 (18:27):
I remember when they had to make the transition after
Wayne stepped away, and Ken Middleton was our general manager
WHS eleven who picked the host, and he said, oh,
he said, going with Terry was a no brainer. He said,
I need somebody to be able to talk about the
Crusade every single day of his life. I did, and
he and he said, I think he'll be doing that
(18:47):
the rest of his life.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
Yeah, Bud Harvesmeyer was great to me there too, in
that transition. I greatly appreciate that, and I'll look forward
to seeing you over in the other buildings soon enough. Oh,
just like every other kid, I live in two homes.
It's good to see them walking. Back back in a minute, Joe,
absolutely back in a minute. Here we are on news
Radio eight forty whas
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