IN TOUCH WITH OUR MEMBERS:

There was a nice article about the Civil War in USA Today last month. Member Henry Shaffner is mentioned (including a photo). Seems that Henry is the great-great-grandson of Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson, the second best known Confederate General after Robert E. Lee. Board member Dave Custis is a direct descendent of Martha Washington. Martha's great granddaughter Mary Anna Custis married Robert E. Lee. Our Chairman of the Board, Gerry Wilkinson, says that his father's mom told him that they were distant relatives of Stonewall. However, Wilkinson also said that his grandmother was known for stretching the facts. As our former Chairman of the Board Bill "Wee Willie" Webber also said, "Never let the truth get in the way of a good story." As a sidebar, we thought you might wish to know that that Henry and Bobbie Shaffner's song, "Philadelphia, I Love You" is coming up on its 40th anniversary.

Broadcast Pioneers member Uschi Keszler's Foundation, "Pennies in Action" will host a "Showers of Hope" dinner this Friday, May 6th. Various members the area's Rock and Roll groups will be in attendance, along with broadcaster Lou Tilley. The foundation raises funds to aid in cancer research done by Dr. Brian Czerniecki of the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. He has had amazing results in his first trials of his vaccine.

Broadcast Pioneers member Harvey Sheldon is finally out of rehab. Laughter is the best medicine. We would say that Harvey kept all the residents in stitches but we're not sure that's the best choice of words. Anyhow, Harvey arrived home just in time for the publication of his latest book, "The History of the Golden Age of Pop Music." This 812 page journal is his second printed work this year. In January, he published "Philadelphia's History of Music." The latest is available at Amazon.com. Way to go, Harvey.

By the way, decades ago, Harvey Sheldon used to do stand up comedy. Here's a few of his old jokes:

A doctor says to a man, "You want to improve your love life? You need to get some exercise. Run ten miles a day." Two weeks later, the man called the doctor. The doctor says, "How is your love life since you have been running?" "I don't know; I'm 140 miles away!"

A bum told me, "I haven't tasted food all week." I told him, "Don't worry, it still tastes the same!"

I was walking down the street, and found a man's hand in my pocket. I asked, "What do you want?" "A match," he answered. "Why didn't you ask me?" I replied to which the man quickly said, "Sorry, I don't talk to strangers."

Many people don't know that the current Broadcast Pioneers logo was designed by Board Member and former President and Chairman of the Board Les Waas. We started using the logo six years ago in 2005. That's the good news. The bad news is that Les promised to design a Broadcast Pioneers logo when we were formed 50 years ago. "Good designs take a long time," says Waas. Of course, Les is the President of the Procrastinator's Club of America. He's been president for decades but his inauguration was in 2003. By the way, later this month, Waas plans to celebrate Armed Forces Day and just wants everyone to know he supports the doughboys returning home from the conflict against the Kaiser. He also hopes that President Woodrow Wilson can make it out to the celebration. The festival will include a sing-a-long of the Melrose Diner and Mister Softee jingles. (FYI, Les Waas wrote both).

Broadcast Pioneers member John Primerano’s album, “Somewhere South of Heaven” has been picked up by Denny Farrell, host of Chicago’s show, “Original Big Band Showcase” and is part of a nationally syndicated broadcast throughout the country and into Canada. John was also recently interviewed on the Bob Rovner show “Speaking with the Stars” on 1540 AM. The show airs on Fridays 1 to 2 pm. Nice going John!

We spoke with Broadcast Pioneers Board member and 2001 Person(s) of the Year, Carter Merbreier, aka Captain Noah. The rascally ol' captain recently underwent serious mouth surgery that was affecting his speech. As he noted, “things don’t work the way they used to…yesterday I was 49, now I’m mid 80’s,” but he was able to tell us he is finishing a book about “lessons I learned from being the Captain of Noah’s Ark. He expects the book to be completed by the end of the month. Mrs. Noah (Patricia) continues her struggle with dementia. However, in pure Captain Noah style he said, “all things considered, we’re doing okay.”

Diane Allen
Moorestown High School Senior Portrait
1966

We were pleased to hear 2005 Hall of Famer and former Philadelphia TV anchor Diane Allen gave the keynote address at a conference before the Penn Medicine physicians who took care of her, as well as patients and community supporters. She spoke about how she fought an aggressive cancer and wanted to get the word out to others. “Let’s talk about it, let’s deal with it, and most importantly, let’s take charge of it and get through it,” said Allen. Well done Diane.

Checking in on 1995 Hall of Famer Sally Starr, she tells us, "I’m having some difficulty moving around and had to discontinue some of my activities. Probably should have taken better care of myself when I had chance." Sally had just lost her favorite cat, Thomas but still has his sister (named Sissy) and the mom cat (called Mommy). The tom cat was only 4 years old. The mother is a year older. Sally got the mom cat at WVLT Radio in Vineland where she did a country-western music show until recently. At first, the cat wasn't eating, so Our Gal Sal kept trying and finally brought her home. Sally (who turned 88 in January) continues to hang in there and is interested in finding a part-time radio gig in South Jersey. When we spoke with Sally over this past weekend, she was just returning home from a personal appearance. In the words of Sally Starr, “Love, luck and lollipops!”

On April 28th, our 2007 Person of the Year and Board member, Kal Rudman received the Golden Gavel of Excellence award at a ceremony hosted by Fox Rothschild Center for Law and Society at Community College of Philadelphia. The Kal and Lucille Rudman Foundation has given more than $100,000 to 250 police officers toward criminal-justice degrees at the Community College of Philadelphia. Congratulations to all!

At Anne Klein Communications Group, Robert Johnson has been promoted to senior associate.  Robert is the person who currently drafts the news releases about our luncheons and annual awards banquet that we send the news media each month.  Our Broadcast Pioneers president Jerry Klein is executive vice president of AKCG, and his firm has been creating and sending these releases pro bono for the past five years. They also donate our website space. Thanks, Jerry and Anne.

Member Kenny Jeremiah who will be at our May luncheon has serveral appearances coming up this month. He's at The Steak House Centerton Country Club in Pittsgrove, NJ on Friday, May 6th, 13th and 27th and Saturday, May 14th and 21st. And on Saturday, May 7th, he's at Antonietta's Restaurant in Runnemede.

Danny and the Juniors with members Joe Terry and Frank Maffei (they will also be at the May luncheon) will be appearing at the Millville Elks Lodge #580 in Millville, NJ on Friday, May 13th. Then they will be on tour in Indiana, New York, Wisconsin, California, Colorado and Reno and Las Vegas. They are busy guys.

Mike Volpe wants you to know about a couple of his appearances coming up this month. He's at the Filomena-Cucina Italiana Restaurant in Clementon, NJ on Friday, May 20th and Friday, May 27th. The next day, Saturday, May 28th, Volpe is at the Bogey's Club and Cafe at the Pitman Golf Club in Sewell, NJ.

Member Maura McKinney Mastro (daughter of Jack McKinney) and her husband, Frank Mastro are appearing on Wednesday, May 4th at the Villa Roma Resort in Callicoon, NY the Catskills, the Historical Society in Penns Grove, NJ on Thursday, May 5th and Mimmo's Italian Bistro in Rio Grande, NJ.

Member Sam Lit continues the legacy of Hyski. Sam and HyLitRadio.com are appearing at the Ice Nightclub in the Radisson Valley Forge Hotel every Saturday evening with a live broadcast. It all begins this Saturday and continues every Saturday evening from then on.

For those of you with Comcast cable service, "On Stage at Curtis" is available for free on the Comcast On Demand service. The weekly hour-long program, originating out of WHYY-TV, is produced by member Ed Cunningham and member Trudi Brown is the executive producer. The program was originally broadcast just on one of the Channel 12 sub-channels. However, this season the program also aired on the WHYY main channel on Sundays. Ten shows, all from 2011, are available for no charge to Comcast subscribers. Go to your On Demand service. Then look for LOCAL. Next click on NEWS & INFORMATION and then WHYY and finally ON STAGE AT CURTIS. They will remain available for the next few months. If you love classical music, then this is definitely for you.

Speaking of stations' sub-channels, did anyone notice that the WPVI Weather Sub-Channel is gone and has been replaced by Live Well Network programming (network is owned by ABC/Disney). Both sub-channels carry (6.2 & 6.3) the same programs. One is HD format and one for analog. For Comcast subscribers with analog service, Live Well was previously unavailable. It is now on Comcast channel 246.

Anyone catch Broadcast Pioneers member Larry Mendte reporting from Tripoli, Libya, during the first part of last month? Well, you would have to live far enough north to pick up WPIX-TV from NYC. He was there with former US Congressman Curt Weldon (PA), who had discussions with Muammar Qaddafi. During his report, Larry said that he and the WPIX team were with the former congressman exclusively. Watch one of Mendte's WPIX reports! By the way, Larry just won a local Emmy for On-Camera Talent.

We have previously told you that the CBS Radio Group in Philly won numerous awards at CBS Radio’s corporate annual meeting in San Diego. What we didn't say is that Philadelphia’s CBS Radio management Marc Rayfield, Jim Loftus, Andy Bloom and Steve Butler, received the large market “Market of the Year” award for superior performance Marc and Jim have both joined the Broadcast Pioneers in the last couple of months. We're glad to have them aboard. Nice going!

By the way, member Marc Rayfield and David Dinenberg of Grasso Holdings are the co-chairs for the annual Poker and Blackjack Tournament at Del Frisco's at 15th and Chestnut. This is the fifth time the event has raised money for the Jewish National Fund of Eastern Pennsylvania. The date is Wednesday, May 4th.

Anyone awake Sunday morning between 4 and 6 am? Well, if you were, you might have been tuned in to either KYW-TV (CBS 3) or sister station KYW Newsradio. Broadcast Pioneers members Pat Ciarrocchi and Harry Donahue were anchoring a rare simulcast of TV and radio. It was live coverage of the Beatification of Pope John Paul II. Also on hand was Cardinal John Patrick Foley, who served for almost a quarter of a century as president of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications in the Vatican. The cardinal also represented the church on numerous news programs and for the last twenty-five years, he has been the host of NBC-TV's Christmas Mass. You can watch part of the coverage here! Scroll half way down the page, and type "Beatification of Pope John Paul II" into the search bar. There you will find a 97-minute click of the coverage. Both Pat and Harry anchored the coverage from Philadelphia.

However, Action News and WPVI-TV had Alicia Vitarelli in Rome feeding back live and recorded reports. Alicia flew from London to Rome for the event. Previously, she was in Britain's largest city for the station's coverage of the Royal Wedding between Prince William and Kate Middleton.

And speaking of the Royal Wedding, Broadcast Pioneers member Jay Lloyd's daughter went to St. Andrews University during the same time as the prince. One time, Jay called his daughter and her phone message said, "Out chasing the Prince. Leave a message!" READ MORE!

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