by Gary DEEB
It has become the must-attend event of the year for Buffalo broadcasters. Its the
annual gala that saw Buffalo Bob Smith bring down the house with the final performance of
a spectacular 65-year career. Its the extravaganza that moved Irv Weinstein to
tears. Its the momentous occasion where Joe Rico accepted acclaim as the master of
jazz radio, where Dan Neaverth implored parents to tell your kids that youre
proud of them, where Jack Mahl saluted the crowd and declared Thats all
from Mahl! for the final time, and where Joey Reynolds thanked the higher power for
more than 2 decades of sobriety.
Its also the grand affair that found Ralph Hubbell describing his love for Buffalo:
The soil is goodand the trees grow tall.
And yes, its also the festive evening that found Van Miller tossing Viagra pills at
Weinstein, Rick Azar and Tom Jolls.
Now in its fifth year, Hall of Fame Night, produced by the Buffalo Broadcast Pioneers,
continues its splendid tradition of shining the spotlight on the richly textured history
of Buffalo radio and television. The eagerly anticipated affair again will make its home
in Bobby Militellos Tralfamadore Café in downtown Buffalo, with another
standing-room-only throng of 400 expected to be there.
Getting into the Western New York Broadcasting Hall of Fame is an awfully tough trick.
Only 30 illustrious broadcasters have pulled it off so farGeorge Hound
Dog Lorenz, Clint Buehlman, Doris Jones and Foster Brooks among them.
The following are the six supremely gifted broadcasters who have been chosen for that rare
honor this yearthe class of 2001to be inducted at the Tralf on Tuesday
evening, May 15:
LIZ DRIBBEN |
LIZ DRIBBEN has scaled the heights of broadcast journalism alongside Mike
Wallace, Dan Rather, Charles Osgood, Charles Kuralt and Walter Cronkite. Through 21 years
as a producer, writer, reporter and interviewer at CBS News in New York, she contributed
her formidable talent and discerning critical eye to the betterment of the careers of
several of the most distinguished journalists in American broadcasting history.
Invariably, says Wallace, the listener comes away from a Liz Dribben
interview enlightened, entertained and sometimes even moved. Wallace knows, because
Liz was the producer, interviewer and ghostwriter of his daily radio program Mike
Wallace at Large, as she also was for Dan Rather Reporting and
Newsbreak with Charles Osgood. But the foundation that formed the greatness of
her CBS years1972 through 1993was created in Buffalo, where she was one of the
most memorable personalities on WKBW-TV (Channel 7). She started in 1959 as a publicist
and production go-fer. By 1964, with Dialing for Dollars 5 days a week, her
landmark one-on-one interviews on weekends and a daily morning newscast, Dribben had
elbowed her way into a medium that previously segregated females into the bailiwick of
cutesy-pie duties. Stymied by lack of further advancement, she hopped a plane to the Big
Apple in 1969 and never returned. To this day, Western New Yorkers of a certain age hold
indelible memories of the charming woman with the intellectual depth and the love of
language, a definitive star who lit up that living-room tube through the
60sand has continued to be a devoted Buffalo booster from 450 miles away ever
since. Dribben now works as a commentator at WNYC-FM, hosts talk shows at WEVD Radio and
teaches broadcast journalism at Columbia University. Says Charles Osgood: Liz could
have been a great detective or psychiatrist. When she listens, people talk.
BILL & MILDRED MILLER |
BILL & MILDRED MILLER seemingly came out of nowhere but a Colden
turkey farm when they waltzed into the WBEN-TV (Channel 4) studios in the old Hotel
Statler to begin their daily Meet the Millers program right after New
Years Day in 1950. Indeed, they did raise gourmet turkeys 30 miles south-southeast
of the city. But there was nothing smalltown or rookie-like about the way they handled
themselves in front of a camera. Bill & Mildred were seasoned showbiz pros, having
worked vaudeville from coast to coast through the 1930s and 40s as dancers and
sketch performers. Thus, when Channel 4 executive George Torge invited the Millers to
prepare a Thanksgiving dinner for viewers of the fledgling station in 1949, he had a
notion that this Mutt & Jeff team might have a long-term TV future. Two months later,
Meet the Millers went on the air. For a half-hour every weekday for nearly 21
years, Bill & Mildred offered cooking tips, petty and serious bickering, and cozy
interviews with the worlds biggest starsfrom Perry Como to Tony Bennett; from
Debbie Reynolds to Elizabeth Taylor. The Millers were intelligent, classy, warm-hearted to
newcomers in Buffalo broadcasting and, most of all, fabulous ambassadors for the City of
Good Neighbors. Virtually every celebrity who guested on their show left town with
generous thoughts about the Millers and the city Bill & Mildred called home. After
Meet the Millers left the air in 1970, Bill Miller became Colden town
supervisor. In the 1980s, the Millers closed up the turkey farm and retired to Florida,
where they both passed away in the early 1990s.
RAMBLIN' LOU SCHRIVER |
RAMBLIN LOU SCHRIVER is the personification of the American dream,
where rugged individualism crossed with personal generosity creates genuine greatness.
Like The Little Engine That Could, Lou Schriver blazed a downright solitary
path starting more than a half-century ago, preaching the gospel of country music way
before it became cool to be country. When 1950s morons called him a hick, a hayseed and
far worse, Lou hung tough and earned an increasingly fine living simply by being
himselfa broadcaster who played Ernest Tubb instead of Frankie Avalon, a bandleader
who barnstormed the Northeast, an irrepressible salesman who cajoled merchants into
investing in his radio show, and a radio station chieftain who now ranks as the only
independent owner in the Buffalo radio market. In the process, he became indisputably the
most revered country-music radio personality north of the Mason-Dixon line. Beginning as a
teenager at WJJL in 1947, Schriver parlayed his love of country and his relentless pursuit
of the public ear into a career that probably knows no equal. Moving to WWOL in 1964
broadened his audience, and purchasing WMMJ in 1970 and transforming it into WXRL gave him
the ultimate bona fides as a broadcaster. With tens of thousands of ferociously loyal
fans, Ramblin Lou has worked his way into the Country Music Disk Jockey Hall of Fame
in Nashville and the Buffalo Music Hall of Fame here at home. Along with his wife Joanie
Marshall, hes also a member of the Country Music Hall of Fames Walkway of
Stars. Ramblin Lous Family Band continues to perform regularly, and Lou still
hosts his daily radio show each afternoon on WXRL. Friends, hes the real article.
TOM SHANNON |
TOM SHANNONs career runs a parallel path to the history of rock
n rollbreezy and carefree; hard-driving and entrepreneurial; dedicated
to roots. As one of our towns finest exports of the 1960s, his enormously popular
18-year tenure in Detroit still ranks as one of the prime reasons why outsiders always
treated Buffalo radio with respect. Cutting his teeth in his early teens at WXRA Radio in
1955, Shannon soon moved to WKBW and took over 7-to-midnight after Dick Biondis
departure for Chicago, the handsome youth immediately becoming a Buffalo teen heartthrob
and one of Americas best-known rock jocks via KBs near-total East Coast
penetration at night. The sun never sets on the Shannon empire, he declared,
in that singular mixture of innocence and chutzpah that seemed to embody his on-air
persona. Near midnight, hed often spin his bearskin rug music, perhaps
the Flamingos track of I Only Have Eyes for You, and the girls alongside
the radio would get all dreamy and moist. With the face of a matinee idol, Shannon quickly
grabbed a weekly TV gig as host of Buffalo Bandstand on next-door neighbor
WKBW-TV (Channel 7). By 1964, his huge KB Radio ratings and the infectious joy of his air
work landed him at rock powerhouse CKLW in Detroit, where once more he made it look easy,
simply duplicating the household-word success that he had magically spun in Buffalo. In
Detroit he also stepped up his TV work, eventually becoming host of the morning show at
ABC-owned WXYZ-TV. In 1972, he switched to Denver, handling a daily radio air shift and
the daily TV gig Afternoon at the Movies with Tom Shannon at KWGN-TV. For the
past 25 years, he has shifted back-and-forth between popular stints in Detroit and
Buffalo, with a short stretch at the Shop at Home TV Network in Nashville. Shannon is the
co-writer of his theme song, Wild Weekend, a top 10 hit in 1963 and still a
gutbucket oldies favorite worldwide. Forty-six years after it launched, his career
continues in full-stride at WHTT-FM, where he still pumps out the hits each day in
afternoon-drive and where he still intones at the close of each broadcast: Above and
beyond all elselater.
DAVE THOMAS |
DAVE THOMAS is the ultimate triple-threat. He has left huge footprints in
Buffalo and Philadelphia in three very distinct television arenaskids
programming, talk shows and the weathereach of which has seen him couple first-rate
creative achievement with long-term No. 1 popularity rankings. If television is a cool
medium, Dave is the perfect fit, his low-key pleasantness and soothing voice having
seduced viewers in two fiercely competitive markets throughout an eclectic career that
spans an astounding 47 years. The Buffalo native drew his first broadcast paycheck at
Syracuse radio stations while awaiting graduation from Syracuse University. Drafted into
the Army, he served as news director for the Caribbean Forces Radio-TV Network out of
Panama and performed air work on Armed Forces Radio out of New York. But it wasnt
until 1961, when he joined WKBW-TV (Channel 7), that Thomas picked up a real head of
steam. Before long, it was Dave Thomas the weatherman, Dave Thomas creating and hosting
kids favorite Rocketship 7 each weekday morning, and Dave Thomas
triggering Buffalos liveliest TV talk show (with Liz Dribben and Nolan Johannes) on
Dialing for Dollars. He headed the vanguard of heartily artistic souls who
transformed Channel 7 from an also-ran in the early 60s into Buffalos most
popular TV outlet by the early 70s. In 1978 Thomas left for Philadelphias
WPVI-TV, where he took the reins of A.M. Philadelphia and brought it to No. 1
and then became the most popular weathercaster in that citys history. Twenty-three
years later, Dave still anchors the weather three times nightly, hosts local specials
throughout the year and has gained widespread acclaim for his annual stint as Philly host
of the Jerry Lewis-Muscular Dystrophy Telethon. He also has acted on numerous network TV
programs, including the ABC drama Thirtysomething, and in the motion picture
Blow Out. Near the end of the year 2000, Thomas was selected as the first
Person of the Year by the Philadelphia Broadcast Pioneers.
JOHN RIGAS |
DAN LESNIAK |
NANCY LESNIAK |
JOHN RIGAS, who borrowed $300 in 1952 to establish the company that
eventually became the Adelphia Communications empire, and DAN & NANCY LESNIAK,
who created the last of the Buffalo radio stations spotlighting the Golden Era of American
Music, will be honored for their manifold accomplishments by the Buffalo Broadcast
Pioneers during the BBP's annual Hall of Fame Night on Tuesday evening, May 15, at the
Tralfamadore Cafe.
As founder, chairman and CEO of Adelphia, Rigas operates the sixth-largest cable company
in America, with nearly 6 million residential subscribers in 32 states. He and his family
also preside over the Buffalo Sabres hockey team, cable TV's Empire Sports Network,
all-sports radio station WNSA-FM, the HSBC Arena, and subsidiaries offering
voice-and-telephone services and Internet access. His pioneering media achievements
recently earned him induction into BROADCASTING & CABLE magazine's Hall of Fame. At
Buffalo's Hall of Fame Night, Rigas will receive the George F. Goodyear Jr. Award, for his
colorful and innovative career and for his lifelong commitment to community involvement.
Dan & Nancy Lesniak will be saluted for their venerable partnership that resulted in
WADV-FM, the groundbreaking station that became a touchstone for lovers of great American
pop music through the 1960s and '70s. Not content simply to broadcast classic pop music,
the Lesniaks instituted a supremely smooth and intelligent on-air presentation of these
standards that featured genuine personalities instead of bloodless automation. Among the
great WADV voices were Fred Klestine, Rick Bennett, Jerry Glenn, Bernie Sandler, Ken Ruof
and Jack Horohoe. On the technical side, WADV also was Upstate New York's first FM stereo
station in 1962. Dan & Nancy Lesniak's ownership of WADV was preceded by Dan's
longtime radio career, both on the air and in sales and management. Dan Lesniak died in
1982. The Broadcast Pioneers will honor the Lesniaks with the Distinguished Broadcaster
Award on Hall of Fame Night.
Gary Deeb is a longtime media critic and commentator in Buffalo and Chicago. He also operates Deeb Enterprises, a commercial talent agency.