Join Trevor and Joe in the morning as they discuss topical events, music, sports, and many more topics that push the buttons of the comfort zone! HISTORY (a long tale indeed):
The WPPJ Morning Show revamped Point Park radio's morning show during the 30th Annual Rock-a-Thon in October 2010 under the management of Anthony Costulas with new hosts Andy Limberg and Wayne Weil. The show aired from 7-
9am Monday through Thursday. Building the new show from scratch, Andy & Wayne had instant on-air chemistry together with their dry senses of humor and savvy commentary on popular culture. Together, they established a daily program featuring News of the Weird, This Day in History, Comedy Cuts, Hard News, and Sports. Along with daily segments, the two also conducted interviews with local Pittsburgh celebrities such as Rick Sebak. At the beginning of the Spring 2011, Andy & Wayne invited contributors to provide content for the show. (They also changed the air time from 7-9 to 8-10)
Val Palmieri, who at the time worked as the executive producer for the WPPJ Morning Show, created an entertaining talk segment entitled "Men vs. Women," in which they would discuss how women would react to certain scenarios differently than men. Then-WPPJ promotions director Couch Cooper started a weekly segment called "Ass Tattoo of the Week" that became a Morning Show favorite. He would research and choose his favorite ass tattoo then describe it on air. Andy, Wayne, and Couch would then grade the tattoo on a 1-10 scale. This later changed to a 1-5 scale based on the phases of the moon. Anthony Costulas, WPPJ's general manager back then, also added a weekly segment called "Dead or Alive." He would choose a topic for the week and then debate with Andy & Wayne whether the category is dead or alive. Nick Sperdute, host of Nick-on-Night and assistant GM at the time, would drop by the show to do various comedic bits including candy reviews and top five lists. Nate Zerambo, former program director, gave a Video Game Talk segment, featuring news, reviews, and debates about well, video games. Zac Weiss of A to Z Sports became the show's sports correspondent, going into the details of the games with stunning accuracy and insight. After the Spring 2011 semester concluded, Andy announced that he was stepping down as the co-host for the Morning Show. Wayne was given the option to choose a new co-host for Fall 2011. After reviewing several candidates, he chose Morning Show contributor Nate Zerambo, who previously filled in for Andy when he went to class. Nate also co-hosted The Morning Time Man Show on Fridays (with Steve Althardt), a show featuring heavily grotesque news stories, rants about anything from elevators to fat "chicks", and overall edgy material. The WPPJ Morning Show with Wayne and Nate had a successful, if somwhat rocky start. The overall tone of the show changed a bit, as Nate's more absurd sense of humor was a major departure from Andy's dry sarcasm. Nonetheless, it wasn't long before Wayne & Nate made the new comic mix work, and work well. In January of 2012, Wayne and Nate wanted to include a female voice to balance the male-dominated show, so they asked long-time Morning Show producer Val Palmieri to join as a third co-host. The Morning Show also added new weekly contributors Kelsey Kahla and Kevin Calhoun. Kelsey hosted The Most Indietastic Show and was WPPJ's music director. She came on the Morning Show to talk new music on WPPJ, but would invariably end up kidding around with Wayne on various subjects. Kevin was host of the long-running sports talk show The Last Word and was PJ's sports director. He gave the Morning Show insightful sports analysis, but he also had a razor sharp wit that complimented Wayne's wry humor well. With this line up, The WPPJ Morning Show won the Point Park University School of Communication Best Radio Show award for the second year in a row. In April of 2012, Nate left the Morning Show to devote time to other projects. Filling in for him was WPPJ news director Liz Layhew, who clicked instantly with the Morning Show audience and showed great on-air chemistry with Wayne. Based on her performance, Wayne asked Liz to become his co-host full time in the fall, which she accepted. The WPPJ Morning Show headed into the Fall 2012 semester strong. Wayne and Liz brought back some of the classic segments that make the show great, but also introduce some new material as well. Val stepped down as third co-host due to limited schedule availability, but she continued contributing with Men vs Women and Lyrics By Idiots. Both Kevin and Kelsey graduated and left Pont Park, also lleaving the show. However, Kevin's replacement as sports director, Aaron Cooney took over the Thursday sports segment. Aaron was a long time friend of the show, and is one funny guy as well. Kelsey's apprentice Kiley Koscinski has assumed her place both as head of the music department and doing new music reviews on the Morning Show. In Fall 2013, the Morning Show got a renovation. Liz moved on from WPPJ to work for Froggy radio, while Wayne took the position of WPPJ General Manager for the Fall 2013 semester. In an interview process, Zack Durkin (Director of Sales) and Kelsey Diercks (Promotions Director) were named replacements. Zack and Kelsey, along with a new found morning show board (which consisted of Justin Druga, Mary Jo Maloney, and Justin Watson) decided that the morning show needed updated. Some segments stayed, but for the most part, the show was clean swept. They also decided hard rock was no longer a suitable genre for the show, and changed it to an Indie show. And now with Spring 2015 Trever Sheets and Joe Giel, with the assistance of Producer Thria Devlin and current General Manager, Nathan Keenan, they hope to propel The Morning Show to even greater heights with a much larger social media presence. As well as a greater campus presence!
