08/07/2023
Remembering the "good old days" of WNPV
BACK THEN by DICK SHEARER
The approach of another scholastic football season reminds us that more than three years have passed since 1440 WNPV Radio signed off the air for the final time.
WNPV specialized in local news and sports from the very beginning of its 60 years as “The Voice of the North Penn Valley”. Broadcast radio changed a lot during those six decades and locally-owned, community-oriented AM stations like WNPV are fading into history.
Back in 1960 when the station went on the air, management saw the tremendous popularity of high school football in this area and began broadcasting Bux-Mont League games every weekend. If memory serves me correctly, Bob Fretz, NPV’s news director, doubled as play-by-play announcer in the early years. The likes of Bob Brinker, Pal Dwyer and Dean Bennett followed before Jim Church came on board for a decades-long tenure that featured interviews with coaches and players.
To augment live coverage of the games, the station inaugurated a Saturday morning football recap/preview show called “Football Flashbacks,” with a
host and panelists who covered the games for The Reporter, WNPV’s parent company.
As The Reporter ad from 1960 says, the premiere panel included Fretz; Edgar Williams, best known as a columnist for the Inquirer and The Reporter; Charley (not Charlie) Myers, sports editor, and Don Beideman, a sports writer for the paper.
All of this is a fading memory for many of us. But it was good while it lasted, and we can be thankful for that.
