March 6, 2018, Issue 591
Wholly Toledo: Shores Steps Down
Gas sold for $1.10 a gallon and cell phones weighed 11 pounds when Gary Shores was tapped to lead WKKO/Toledo as PD. Roughly 12,000 music logs later, the Country radio veteran is stepping away from those responsibilities. His focus moving forward will be on the station’s long-dominant morning show, a solo operation since the December passing of longtime friend and co-host Harvey Steele (CAT 1/2). Country Aircheck recently caught up with Shores for a chat that spanned the show’s history, the duo’s friendship and the future. Face Forward: “It’s something you can’t plan for,” Shores says of his partner’s death. “And when it happens, you just have to do Gary Shores what you think is best as far as telling the audience.” Shores, on vacation when the news came, returned to the studio with Steele’s daughter to inform WKKO listeners. He’d been admitted to a local hospital days earlier with diabetic ketoacidosis, the pair explained, and had died the previous day. His condition had been exacerbated by decades of health issues that years earlier necessitated two liver transplants in a single week. “It was the toughest day in my 45 years of radio – just terrible,” Shores says of the show that day. “But it had to be done.” Scientific Method: Shores & Steele launched 23 years ago in afternoon drive. “I was in WKKO afternoons at the time and he was doing a midday shift on our AM station,” Shores explains, noting that the pairing was a “science experiment” undertaken by his GM at the time. “There may have been some other afternoon teams in Country radio, but it was certainly new for Toledo, and it took off like a rocket. We were No. 1 every day.” A CMA Award for Medium Market Broadcast Personality followed the next year. “That was really the moment when we said, ‘I think we’re on to something,’” Shores recalls. “And that’s probably what put the station on the map both locally and nationally.” The (continued on page 9)
Chasing Paper: Team WUSY/Chattanooga raises an impressive $503,647 during their St. Jude radiothon. Pictured (holding signs, l-r) are the station’s Justin Cole, Mo Turner Wagner, Daniel Wyatt, Nichole Hartman, Styckman, Devon and Cowboy Kyle with fellow staffers and volunteers.
Clarence “The Legend” Spalding
Maverick’s Clarence Spalding received the “Bob Kingsley Living Legend Award” at a Feb. 28 dinner benefitting the Opry Trust Fund. Held on the Opry House stage, the event put Spalding in company with previous honorees Bob Kingsley, Joe Galante, Jim Ed Norman and Crook & Chase. Brooks & Dunn, Reba, Exile, Rascal Flatts, Terri Clark, Darius Rucker and Jason Aldean performed and offered anecdotes Kingsley, Spalding, Aldean about their manager.
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