Dr. Johnny Fever and Venus Flytrap won’t be there, but five familiar voices from Cincinnati radio will help the National Voice of America Museum of Broadcasting inaugurate its new Cincinnati radio station exhibit.
Dusty Rhodes, Jim LaBarbara, Chris O’Brien, Janeen Coyle, and “Rocking Ron” Schumacher will cut the ribbon at 1:30 p.m. Saturday, June 7, at the museum, 8070 Tylersville Road, West Chester Township.
The tribute to the “sounds, reach and fun of radio broadcasting” includes a re-creation of a radio disc jockey’s studio in the late 1960s and 1970s.
Visitors can sit down at the microphone under the “ON AIR” sign surrounded by two record turntables; two machines to play eight-track like carts (including twin towers filled with 50 carts); the control board; a reel-to-reel tape recorder; a dial telephone; transmitter; a huge Western Union clock; a newswire teletype machine; and a blinking red beacon from atop a broadcasting tower.
“Many who come to the museum remember fondly how they became ‘friends’ with various on-air talent," says Jack Dominic, museum executive director. "Jim Scott, Jerry Thomas, Robin Wood — these people came into your home or accompanied you in your car every day.”
“You felt that they knew you and you them. Listening for your school to be closed for snow, or where your favorite band would be playing. Making your long day end with a smile with Gary Burbank and Doc Wolfe creating creative funny bits. Who can forget Gary’s KY Jelly (prank) call? We wanted to show visitors where their ‘friends’ worked,” Dominic says.
Rhodes and LaBarbara, who came here in the 1960s, are still living on the air in Cincinnati. Rhodes hosts Sunday night oldies shows on WMKV-FM (89.3) and WLHS-FM (89.9), and on “The Oasis” 1970s rock stations WOXY-FM (97.7) and WNKR-FM (106.7).
LaBarbara, Cincinnati’s “Music Professor,” hosts 2-7 p.m. weekdays on the WDJO oldies network (99.5 and 107.9 FM, and 1480 AM).
Schumacher, who started at WKRC-AM in 1983, has been heard on WGRR-FM (103.5) for 35 years. Husband-and-wife O’Brien and Coyle retired from the WGRR-FM Married with Microphones morning show in December 2023.
The mock studio walls are adorned with promotional varsity-style jackets from radio stations WLW-AM, WEBN-FM, WKRQ-FM, WUBE-FM, WGRR-FM, WVXU-FM, WSAI-AM, WSAI-FM and WFIB, the University of Cincinnati campus station.
On the south wall is a huge “Welcome to Everybody’s Farm” from WLW’s working farm for agricultural news and programs heard throughout the Midwest on the station’s 50,000-watt signal broadcast from a tower on Tylersville Road less than one mile east of the VOA.
Displayed in glass cases are several dozen portable radios, and promotional novelty radios, from the last half of the 20th century.
“People seem to enjoy seeing all the crazy radios,” Dominic says.
The radio studio is in the west wing of the VOA, behind this region’s biggest display on WLW-AM founder and entrepreneur Powel Crosley Jr. and his Crosley Manufacturing Co.
Earlier this year the museum opened a revamped Cincinnati broadcasting exhibit in the east wing featuring legendary talk show host Ruth Lyons; a recreation of a 1930s radio studio; items from the Uncle Al Show children’s program hosted by Al and Wanda Lewis; Larry Smith’s puppets; a hands-on radio sound effects collection; and a 20-seat theater.
A slideshow loop features a photo and one-sentence description of famous Cincinnati broadcasters, mostly from WLW-AM’s “Cradle of Stars”: Singers Doris Day and Andy Williams; comedian Red Skelton; musicians Chet Atkins, Grandpa Jones and Fats Waller; sportscasters Red Barber and Harry Hartman; radio-TV hosts Lyons and Bob Braun; TV’s Midwestern Hayride country music showcase; broadcasting visionaries Fred Ziv, Powel and Lewis Crosley; and WCPO-TV newsman Al Schottelkotte. Visitors also can hear historic audio from Day, Skelton, Waller, Braun, the Mills Brothers and Everybody’s Farm at an interactive WLW listening station.
The VOA Bethany Relay Station, built in 1942 during World War II, broadcast VOA programs to Europe, South America and Africa. The museum has preserved the control room in the center of the building. Exhibits are located where the VOA’s six huge 250,000-watt transmitters once stood to either side of the control room.
The museum is open noon-4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Guided tours are given at 12:30 p.m., 2 p.m. and 3 p.m. Admission is $10 for age 16 and older.
