A reporter in the field with the WRVA mobile broadcasting unit, circa 1940s
Debbie Ashley, with a little help from her friends, saved the history of WRVA 1140 AM radio, which first went on air a century ago this year.
In October 1999, Ashley, the office manager of 20 years, found herself at odds with the owners of several Richmond stations, including WRVA. Clear Channel Communications was consolidating operations, part of a broader industry trend at the time, which meant “the 50,000-watt voice of Virginia” since 1939 would have to leave its landmark Philip Johnson-designed Church Hill studios. Everything unnecessary needed to go.
“The second Clear Channel Communications told me to throw away everything in the basement,” Ashley recalls, “my mind went straight to the history of WRVA. I knew in my heart that I was going to do something else.”
In April 1925, Pleasant Larus Reed, vice president of the Larus and Brother Tobacco Co., asked his administrative assistant, Calvin T. Lucy, if he owned a radio.
“When I told him I’d never seen one,” Lucy recalled years later, “he informed me that I was going to hear a lot about radio.”
Larus informed Lucy he’d purchased the largest broadcasting unit offered by Western Electric. WRVA installed 1,000-watt transmission equipment on the East Main Street side of the Larus company’s recently completed Edgeworth Building at 2100 E. Cary St. (today adapted into offices and apartments).
The two 125-foot towers on the building’s roof, joined by transmission wires, punctuated Richmond’s cityscape with an emphatic declaration of modernity.
A Richmond Times-Dispatch editorial enthused that WRVA’s presence signified Richmond taking its place “among those cities making themselves known coast to coast and from border to the Gulf.”
At 9 p.m. on Monday, Nov. 2, 1925, WRVA went live with, as a newspaper columnist described, “one of the most brilliant gatherings of notables and artists ever assembled together in Richmond.”
Elmer G. Hoelzel, a former El Paso, Texas, radio announcer and music director of Broad Street Methodist Church, organized the programming.
WRVA's former headquarters in Church Hill
There were remarks from Gov. E. Lee Trinkle and Richmond Mayor J. Fulmer Bright. Interspersed between the dedicatory comments came live music from Dave Garson directing the six-piece Jefferson Hotel Orchestra; the Acca Temple Shrine Chanters, with “Allah, All Praise to Thee”; then “old Southern songs and several old-time barbershop harmonies.” The Arion’s Orchestra and the Old South Negro Quartet also performed.
Decades later, in Ashley’s mission to preserve the station’s past, she approached Glenn Smith, a member of her church. He worked for the Library of Virginia and handled grants for the Circuit Court Records Preservation Program. Ashley explained the circumstance of WRVA departing its broadcast home since 1968 for suburban Henrico County.
Former Gov. L. Douglas Wilder hosted a daily two-hour talk show on WRVA in the mid-1990s.
Ashley described how WRVA had covered the speeches of every Virginia governor and U.S. president. Professional photographers following reporters recorded their work at many sites throughout the state. “I considered these recordings and pictures as history,” she told Smith. “I didn’t have the heart to throw it all away.”
Smith guided Ashley to Jay Gaidmore, the library’s manager of private papers. But before the rescue mission could occur, the library required an official agreement of transfer. This required the signature of General Manager Carl McNeill.
“So, I had to do some talking,” Ashley recalls with some amusement. “Clear Channel told us to get rid of the old stuff. He was signing something we were told not to do. I assured him it was done by me, all after hours and [on] weekends. I would take the hit if it came back on us. And to tell the truth, Mr. McNeill didn’t want to see all of that go into the dumpster, either.”
Thus, the Library of Virginia is today home to the “WRVA Radio Collection 1925-2000,” comprising 75 years of letters, anniversary booklets, program scripts, drawings, photographs, and recordings of news and music.
For Richmonders of mid-20th-century vintage, this means Sunshine Sue and the “Old Dominion Barn Dance”; the voices of revered morning anchor Alden Aaroe and his popular successor, Tim Timberlake; the annual WRVA/Salvation Army Shoe Drive; Larry Dodd’s midday “Open for Opinion”; reports from sportscaster Chuck Noe; Lou Dean’s overnight shift; and Big John Trimble’s wee-hours program broadcast for long haulers from Jarrell’s Truck Plaza off Interstate 95.
There’s some tragedy amid the collection, too: the 1974 crash of a traffic helicopter into a South Richmond home that killed reporter Howard Bloom, pilot Walter J. Cottrell Jr. and a 9-year-old boy.
A harmonious component was the Silver Star gospel quartet, which debuted on WRVA in 1939 and aired every Sunday at 6:30 a.m. until their last episode on Oct. 8, 2000.
Through the often tumultuous decades there was laughter, too, beginning with the musical variety of the national “Corn Cob Pipe Show” in the 1930s and later characters such as the Capitol Squirrel and Millard T. Mallard, the many-voiced afternoon drivetime personality Dick Hemby, and the humor of Jim Jacobs. And then there were the contrarian views of the evening opinion talk show host, Jerry Lund.
John Reid, years before becoming WRVA morning host and Republican candidate for lieutenant governor, started out during his college days training as an announcer with Timberlake, now with music promotion group JAMinc.
Former Gov. Colgate Darden, date unknown
Through the 1990s, this was the AM radio of news, weather, traffic and music absent a playlist, which now seems adventurous. WRVA’s fare fit a niche of comfort, nostalgia and occasional novelty: Listeners in the 1970s and 1980s might have heard a block with songs from Frank Sinatra to Jimmie Rodgers, David Rose’s “The Stripper Song,” Hot Butter’s synthesized “Popcorn” and Mike Post’s intro music for the TV police drama “Hill Street Blues.”
Over a century, the station went through several relocations, network affiliations and ownership changes until its 1992 acquisition by Clear Channel.
WRVA moved from the “down-home, old pair of jeans” feeling, as Timberlake explains, to an all-talk and often politically charged format.
Charles Pyle, who’s been in Richmond’s radio world since 1979, is WRVA’s news director. He remembers the station’s busy newsroom: “It was like a newspaper, with anchors, around-the-clock updates, reporters covering all the beats, City Hall, the counties.”
Rich Herrera came into the morning slot following Reid’s departure at the beginning of this year. “I 100% knew what WRVA stood for in the community,” he says.
Herrera occupies the same position as Alden Aaroe in his decades at the microphone. “The duty’s still the same,” he says. “The duty is to be there, inform, to enlighten, to share the news, to be a voice for the community and make it better — because it’s my home, too.”
