2 minute read
Wayne Winkler Signing Off
SIGNING OFF… WELL, SORTA
The first time Wayne Winkler came to WETS-FM, he didn’t even have enough money to get home.
At the time, he lived in North Miami, Florida, where he worked as a surveyor after being laid off from a job at a radio station. A friend from college let Winkler know about an opening with WETS, and Winkler bought a one-way ticket to Knoxville – which was all he could afford – and then hitchhiked to Johnson City.
“I had relatives (in Sneedville),” said Winkler, “And I was counting on them not allowing me to hitchhike back to Florida.”
After landing the job, Winkler’s first few weeks at WETS coincided with the 1977 U.S. Senate hearings on the ratification of the Panama Canal treaty. Because the hearings ran all day, there was little for Winkler to do except sit in the booth and listen to the broadcast, and he worried that he would not get an opportunity to prove himself in his new job.
That opportunity did come. The station manager at that time, Dick Ellis, encouraged Winkler to find something that he would enjoy doing. What Winkler liked was blues music, so he approached Ellis with an idea to do an afternoon blues show, and he hosted “Blue Monday” every week from 1984 to 2010.
As an employee of East Tennessee State University, Winkler was eligible to take free classes after six months at his job. He brought an associate degree with him from Vincennes University, but he thought he could benefit from a bachelor’s, so he worked toward a degree in communications with a minor in history.
“When I got the bachelor’s degree, I thought: ‘I’ve finally figured this school thing out, I know how to study, I know how to do this stuff; and just when I get it figured out, it’s over? Let’s go get a master’s degree.’” Winkler would defend his master’s thesis the day before interviewing with the search committee for the station manager job at WETS. That was in August of 1993. Winkler got both the job and the degree, and he still considers that to be one of the best weeks of his life.
“Dick Ellis left a pretty good operation with a lot of potential,” said Winkler, “And I think that’s exactly what I’m leaving to the next person here.”
Though he is retiring as station manager, Winkler will still hang around WETS. One thing he will work on is repackaging a regional TV show, “Song of the Mountains,” as a radio show. Winkler also plans to continue running the “Soul Kitchen” program.
“I watched the station grow,” said Winkler. “I watched the industry change a lot....In 1978, if I walked in to (the station as it is today), I would recognize the microphone. The board would look a little bit space-age to me, but I’d figure out what that was. But what is the rest of this stuff? Where are the turntables? Where’s the tape recorder? I’ve had people say, ‘You’ve been in the same job for 44 years.’ No, not at all. The job changes every few years. Time just flew on by. I don’t even know where it went.”
Jared Nesbitt is Communications and Multimedia Assistant in ETSU’s Office of University Marketing and Communications. | Photo by Ron Campbell
