Viewer Comments
Page Last Updated May 15, 2010
(Here are some of your comments and e-mails we've received, some of which have been lifted from the Forum page)
(We appreciate and proudly add the comments from Judy French!!)

"I have many great memories of growing up in E-town in the 60's and 70's and listening to WIEL and hanging out there as a teenager. I had a number of friends who worked at the station including Greg Kapfhammer who was a night time DJ. Greg's brother Jon and I hung out there a lot and helped sweep up and take out the trash (one of the job's night time DJ's had to do apparently). I can still hear that old news teletype maching clacking away in it's little room. I remember listening to Dick Curtis calling ball games for EHS and making them come alive over the air! I would listien to away basketball games and pretend I was a player and would set a pot up on the kitchen cabinet and use paperwads for basketballs and I would play along to Dick's 'play by play'. I also remembeer Dick having an evening show called Dinner Date on which he played a lot of older Big Band music and from listening to those shows I developed a livelong interest in that style of music. I met Ron Boone when he arrived in 1973 and was a friend of his for the rest of his life. I sure do miss his wonderful voice doing the local news. I think Ron had the most trusted voice in Hardin County! His coverage of the 1974 tornados will be in my head forever! I can also remember way back to Mr. Bill Earl doing the news and Bill Harris and his wonderful booming voice. I remember Mr. Harris announcing at the Hardin County Fair Horse Shows for years. A little newer memory is of the Santa and Sparky show, what a hoot! I better quit, I am getting carried away with the good memories!
                                                                                                                                                                                 Danny O'Brien
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"An interesting comment, in that in the stone age (read that early 1970s) we were actually programming a WHAS type of format with the basic idea 'Variety Is The Spice Of Life'. I believe I have thrown that paper away, but basically WIEL didn't mind being the second radio station on folks radios in the Heartland. Most folks, regardless of age, had a favorite Louisville radio station. The teens like WAKY and WKLO. the adults liked WAVE and WHAS. WIEL played music you would find on all these stations. So at night when WAKY cut power the teens tuned to WIEL. During the day adults would leave Louisville stations at least for a while to hear local talk shows of items of interest like Mike Harmon's What's On Your Mind (a Milton Metz clone of sorts) or catch up on the local news. Services not offered to Hardin County on Louisville stations. So I guess being second best to most everybody is not that bad."
                                                                                                                                                                                 Paul Urbahns
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"Dennis Wilson was a part time night DJ there in the 50s while he was still in high school. I think Charlie Logsdon was also a part timer there. You know, Charlie taught school (I think at Lincoln Trail) and did a lot of acting (Steven Foster Story at Bardstown, Abe Lincoln at Hodgenville, Daniel Boone at Old Fort Harrod, etc.) and wanted to make a career of acting. I think during that time was when he worked at the station. Charlie's father was the custodian there when we were in school. We use to go to the station when Dennis worked there. One of their full timers tried to get me interested in radio because he said I had the voice for it. It would be good [if you] could interview Dee Huddleston and include that on the web site. You might could even do it by mail. Dee was not only the General Manager, he also called the local sports events for the station and also did other on-air things. Too bad you couldn't have interviewed Bill Earl before he died. He just died about a year ago I think...Bill's personality was one thing that kept people tuning in because of the way he butchered the English language and the interesting ways he told stories. I will never forget we were listening to him one day and he started his noon news program with "Well, the hum-i-didity is really bad out there today". He continually walked the square in search of stories. Bill Evans was one of the WIEL personalities [not WQXE's]. Of course he is deceased but his wife, Toy, still lives in the big old brick house behind the old Kroger (now NAPA Auto Parts) and kind of across from our 7th and 8th grade school building. (Larry also said he forwarded our link to Bob Fouts)...in the 1960s Bob Fouts was the engineer at WSAC before he moved on to Voice of America in Washington, D.C. in 1967. I thought during his time at WSAC he might know of some interesting items about WIEL. If he has any input I will forward it to you. Keep up the good work!
                                                                                                                                                                                  Larry Bolls
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I stumbled onto your site by accident and could not pass it by with out reading most of it.It brought back many memories of the golden age of radio. I am now 75 and when I was growing up the family had a radio on all the time. 40 years ago our local station 1340 WBIW Bedford, Indiana had a talented crew and I would get up early so I could get my radio fix before going to work. OH for the old days, now our radio is turned on for the news and that is about it.

I just had to tell you I appreciated the site and wish we could go back a few pages in the book of time. Good luck to you all and if you talk to Scott Goettel tell him I said HI and miss his program on easy out of  Louisville. We made tapes when we heard they were changing formats and still play them some times.
                                                                                                                                                                                  Larry Goettel

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I read the article in the newspaper (News-Enterprise 3/30/10)...I immediately went to your website. Boy, did that intro bring back memories. I think that your website is GREAT!!!  I love any type of media preserving the history of E-Town. Going over the site brought back names of people that had slipped my mind.  I remember as a teen, Bill Evans offering me a job at the radio station, and to this day regret not taking that opportunity. I do make the radio or TV occasionally, reporting on activities of the state police. One other thing, Bill Harris was a close friend of mine, and my oldest daughter, bears his middle name, Jordan. Keep up the good work.
                                                                                                                                                                                  Bruce Reeves

{We are assuming Bruce is referring to Bill Walters, rather than Evans, one time WIEL GM-MH}

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Tom Maples and Charlie Lewis were both working at WIEL in the early to mid 50’s. Tom Maples was the DJ for “Square Block Jr” (no idea where the name came from) for at least a couple of years. After leaving E’town, I lived in Tucson AZ for a number of years, and about ’62 on my way to a dentist appointment I heard a radio announcer say “Stay tuned for the Tom Maples show”. I called the station from the dentist office, asked for the DJ on the air, and then told  that person I wanted “Square Block Jr.” After a long pause, Tom said “who is this?” We ran into each other over the years at banks, shopping centers, and even when my family went to buy a puppy. Strange to find someone so far from where we first knew each other. Charlie Lewis went on to work at the Pentagon after a stint in the Army.

                                                                                                                                                                                    Thanks for the memories,
                                                                                                                                                                                    Judy French
                                                                                                                                                             (New!)

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