STLMHF

Columbus Gregory – 2011

What began as a part-time job in 1959 turned into a lifetime career for Columbus Gregory. He began working as a remote engineer at KATZ while attending Hubbard Business School. His duties soon expanded to include work in the station’s promotions and marketing departments. Four years later he was hired as an announcer at KXLW, where he stayed for 19 years. Shortly after he moved to WGNU-FM, the station was sold to a national chain, and Gregory moved to KIRL in 1979. That station was sold in 2005, and Gregory was soon working for KXEN/WGNU as an announcer and senior account executive. He appeared as the announcer in the movie “Say Amen Somebody” and was named one of America’s Top 25 Disc Jockeys by Dollars and Sense magazine in 1986.

Robert Coe – 2013

At the age of 15, Robert Coe began operating an amateur radio station in suburban Clayton, an act that led him to become one of the co-founding engineers of KSD in its earliest construction phase in 1921. He was 19. By the time he turned 22, the station’s owner had promoted him to the position of assistant manager and chief engineer and later, executive of radio engineering. After a brief job with competitor KMOX, Coe was back at KSD, where he later helped develop the station’s “radio newspaper” transmitted via facsimile to home receivers.

In service during World War II, Robert Coe built the military communications network for the Asian-Pacific theatre. He returned to a new challenge: television, which he embraced, building KSD-TV locally before moving on to ABC-TV in New York.

Andre Fuller – 2013

Andre Fuller started out in 1978 as an intern from Lewis and Clark College reading morning news at WESL Radio. “The Son of Mr. and Mrs. Fuller” was the first African American to attend the radio broadcasting program at Lewis and Clark College in 1975.  While at WESL he coined the station slogan: “the Greatest Station in the Nation.” The Spyderman was the first jock in the market to expose to his audience to the sounds of the founding fathers of Hip-Hop.  Andre Spyderman Fuller was appointed Program Director WESL in the mid 80″s.  He left WESL when an offer was made to him and fellow DJ Dr. Jockenstein to join the new Black-owned station Z-100 FM, where he also became Program Director. Andre also worked the 6 pm-10 pm shift at Majic 108.

Jeremy Lansman – 2013

After apprenticing at KRAB in Seattle, at the time one of four U.S. stations supported by listener donations, Lansman returned to his home town in 1967 intending to pioneer a station more open to the community, forms of expression, and ideas, than is common in mass media.

Staffed by volunteer announcers and producers, KDNA became a platform for unusual music, serious news, as well as a platform for political expression from John Birchers to Communists. 

Listener support was a new concept.  Cajoling listeners to give cash to keep the station afloat required constant on-air reminders. Keeping KDNA alive was a huge challenge for Lansman and his staff.  Lansman also had to deal with people who were offended by the broadcasting of ideas that included both right wing and left. A worn-down Lansman (and station co-owner Lorenzo Milam) sold KDNA in 1974 with the idea of establishing a new station in the non-commercial-educational band.  Besides local offspring KDHX, Lansman helped create a plethora of independent community stations throughout the country.

Skeets Yaney – 2013

One of the only live radio musical performers to make the transition to disc jockey in St. Louis, Clyde “Skeets” Yaney, the “Golden Voice Yodeler,” began performing for free, singing and yodeling on KMOX in the 1930s. Within three weeks he was hired, allowing him to quit his job in road construction. He soon achieved star billing as part of the Skeets and Frankie duo, part of the National Champion Hillbillies, a group was featured on KMOX and CBS Network programming into the 1950s. They developed a large nationwide following, and Skeets received a stream of gifts and fan mail from female admirers.

When economic pressures caused radio stations to do away with live entertainment, Yaney re-invented himself as a disc jockey, first on WEW, then KSTL, extending a local radio career that spanned 40 years, all the while continuing his personal appearances at local clubs and fairs.

Brad Hildebrand – 2015

Brad Hildebrand began his radio career on KSLQ St. Louis in 1973 where he worked as a DJ, traffic reporter, production director, assistant program director and host of talk programming. In 1984 he started CompuTraffic, one of the first independent companies in the nation to provide on-air traffic reports, and, later, news reports to subscribing radio and television stations. After selling the company in 1994, Brad developed the nation’s first traffic reporting website, and he expanded his traffic reporting operations to three other Midwestern cities. In 1998 he purchased an AM/FM radio operation in Washington, MO.

While working in the business full-time, Brad also taught at St. Louis Community College and Lindenwood University. His charity work over the years included the Missouri Special Olympics, Emmaus Homes, American Cancer Society and the Salvation Army.