Doug Proffitt and Terry Meiners on WHAS history

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You, though, coming up on 40 years, that makes you the king of WHASTV? Who's been there longer than you? Nobody. I mean, it has been quite the run. No, what do you do when you hire these youngsters? Look, Joe's over here. He's a youngster. He knows how this goes. When they move here, because he's from around here. But when someone moves here, some 22-year-old just out of school. And they, hi, Mr. Prophet, it's a pleasure to work with you. And then they say, they gave me an assignment. I'm broadcasting live from shivley. And then you have to say, well, we've had a few of the shivlis come on the air, that's for sure. And I get it. I pick up the phone right away. But when they do get hired, I'm sure you've done this before too. Probably joke and confirm it. I throw them in the car and I drive them around town and I show them some landmarks and I tell them. Here's how you say Dumanil. And I think I missed. Even being from around here, I didn't have that one in my back pocket as soon as I got here. You pick it up quick. You do. Duminil, we don't know why it's pronounced that way. But we run away from our French roots all the time. That's right. King Louis is not King Law, but that's just what people do. And I tell him, his last name is Capiludo, Caputo, or Caput, as somebody called him on the other day. So things like that, I want to see them succeed. When I went to Charleston, South Carolina, I really wanted to cover hurricanes before I came to HAS and 87. They had a wonderful guide. of pronunciations, because you're talking about a wild town with pronunciations. You have the French Creole sound. Of course. You have Native Americans that named a lot of the islands out there. And you have to really get it right, like L-E-G-A-R-E street. You would think, we would say Lagare or something, but it's Legree. It's stuff like that. Of course. Yeah, we don't say Paris, Kentucky or Versailles. We've had people say for sales. I mean, no, Versailles, Kentucky. Right. That's just how that goes. We lose the intent. But when I came in on the air in 87, Terry, you were in the throes of the on-air war and battle with Coyote Calhoun. I always love, I'll never forget that. He'd come out of his studio and this was in our TV building and walk down to your window. Yes. And he would raise his hand and tell you with his fingers that you were number one in his mind. Because you were saying his real name or something. It happened when the company was sold. Bob Lauder, the news guy, said in the 5 o'clock news. Coyote Calhoun, whose real name is, and then he said it. Oh, really? And then within 30 seconds, Coyote came running down the hall. And it was worse than just flipping the bird. But you two liked each other? Yeah, that's right. But it's like, I don't, that was the news guy. Oh, okay. I didn't know that. We'll see, the lore was you got blamed for it. Yeah, I did because he's yelling at me, but it was Bob Lauder.

And he wasn't even the anchor. The anchor was there and it was playing on a tape. So he didn't have the right person to strangle that he wanted to at that second. And so, but you kept that alive and you would drop his real name. You kept it going. Well, it happened a few times. For sure. And the other one was you had the newslissa's going. That's right. Melissa Swan and Melissa Forsyth, and you created a battle in the newsroom, which probably was not too far off of being accurate. Melissa Swan took it well. Forsyth, I think was not a fan of that. The late Melissa Forsythe, good person, but she was not thrilled with that. But I had two women speaking in unison. It was actually Ann Hubbs and Helen Huber, who worked in the office, and they would come in and record those segments, but they would speak in unison. We would always, the news department, Joe, as you know, was always so, you know, everything was getting thrown at us. Certainly. We'd round the corner, and it was a happy time. It was WHS radio. It was literally Terry and Tony Cruz on the ground wrestling in front of me one time. That sounds about right. I had to step over them. He texted me today. Tony Cruz congratulated me. Cruz is still there. And it was Van JD Vance who never wrote a script in his life that would run to the studio to anchor his sports cast with a notepad. And he would just ad libid and he would do a nod or a flexion in his voice to let the director know, roll the video. And I'm going to write. talk about the video, but he never, that director never had a script. Unbelievable. Van JD Vance was also the Ryan Seacrest of that era. He came to W.HAS in the 1950s and was he did a Saturday like records show playing music. Was it called high variety? Yes, high varieties. And he was like the DJ and I don't know if it was a countdown show, but it was the same sort of a premise. Because he was the cool, I guess, young, hip guy or whatever at the time. And you just interviewed him. How's he doing? He told me to tell you, happy anniversary, because I had gotten a text from your producer, Gus Allen yesterday, to come on over. And Van is 92. And he's still driving, and he's sharper than ever. He's still got that big voice. Yeah, I put him through some paces. I wanted him to add lips and play-by-play for me for a story I'm doing. And we just let him go. And it was just amazing. That's fantastic. How'd you get him to tell you his age? Well, I hope he's okay with me saying it, but I'm telling you, when you walk, I think he does a total seven miles a day. He does. Good for him. Because he's still in shape. I saw all your photos. And he breaks it up, two parts of the day. And you find him in Southern Indiana. And he's just amazing. Got a new truck, and he's proud of it and moving around and got right in our building. I was waiting outside for him. And they said, no, he's already in the front lobby. Um, let's hear band dance. I got something here. Let me see. Oh, got it. NCAA championship. Louisville cards reign for 1986. Coach Tenney Crumbs comes down to shake hands with Coach K. Louisville wins NCAA, 1986. There's Van Lawn right there. And he also was the voice of the Kentucky colonel's ABA team. So he would do.

Louisville games, ABA games. I mean, he was a busy guy. I should have asked him. I would love to get his thought on the great debate. Is it Louisville or Louisville? You know, because Van emphasizes as he did with us yesterday. He says it is Louis. You could hear it in that cut right there. He's a Kentucky boy. Where is he out? So am I. Southern Kentucky or somewhere. It's King Louis and V-I-L-L-E's not VOL. That's just lazy mouth. And we're professional announcers. It doesn't matter what the locals say. Does someone move to the biggest city in Louisiana? and start saying, today in Norwoods, no, they say New Orleans. You're a professional. I use you an example because people will ask me a lot, how do you say it? And I said, well, you're going to hear it all over the map. But I said, Terry Miner's from here has always said Louisville. He always emphasizes it as Louisville. And it's not Durham, North Carolina, Durham. That's a good point. It's not Missouri. Who in, does any professional broadcaster over there say, today in Missouri? No, that's just a local colloquial thing. Well, as you know, it's not Jessamine County. It's Jessamine County. It's Jererson County for some people here. But that's professional announcers should hold themselves to some kind of standard. But a lot of people go, ah, well, whatever. And we're just playing along with WLRS Radio had a big campaign in the 19. 70s, I think it was late 70s, where it's all about call it Walville, call it Walval. And so that kind of a hayseed thing. And then people around here say, I don't understand why people think we're hillbillies here in Wolvo. That's why. One question I've always wanted to ask you is because those were amazing rock stations. And they were known for the cutting edge. The bad boys getting in trouble, but very involved in the community. When was your, when did it come into your mind that you wanted to come to the stayed, WHS radio, the home of Wayne Perky and Milton Mets? Because I was 28 years old and I thought, well, it's time. You know, there's only so many times you can do. sixth grade humor or whatever. So you've had switched your mind to already a different format with a different station. It's just more grown up stuff. You know, he's got to do more adult things. And some people, you know, they like body humor and that's just they'll be that way their whole life. And there's nothing wrong with that. That's your choice. But for me, I just wanted to graduate my life. and not be stuck in a thing because some people will still write online, I liked you since you were with Ron Clay. It's like, well, that's great. That's the 1980s. That's a long time ago. So you made also the decision to go from two powerhouse FM stations to an AM station at the time. And at the time, FM was still the big roar. But there was another reason why I guess you wanted to come here. Yeah, but everybody's on. the same platform now, as long as you can be online. I mean, I've gotten emails from people in Korea, you know, South Korea. And they go, I'm listening to you online. Well, you're a network now more so than, well, this station always was. Yeah.

So it doesn't matter wherever you are. You can platform yourself to be available anywhere. It's just a matter of me. I like being involved in news. And, you know, today I have several people that are on this show. Some of them, they're newsworthy. Others happen to do with sports and some with community service. It's all good. That's what I do is that that's the package every day. And even though you're able to ask them some tough questions, people still do speak to you because I know you were pretty hard on the Bingham's or like to tease the Bingham's when they sold the stations. But they wrote you a nice email. That's true. But there are, you know, there's changes in the relationship with people. Some people who used to talk to them with me don't anymore because you ask them a thing or two, or it's more difficult to get them on. One of our senators used to be on me a lot. He's not anymore. I'm talking about the junior senator. But he was on recently, but it took a while. Right. And the governor's not very friendly. I saw him Saturday at the football game. Hey, how you doing? Just goes right by. But before, he was much more open to talking. But he's got people handling him now. And so they're trying to limit his exposure to somebody asking himself. When's the last time you interviewed Andy Beshear one-on-one? It's been a few years. Has it been? Yeah. I see him at things and we're pleasant with each other, but they don't want them on. Well, you're right. I mean, he's, we all think is going to run for president. And so that's probably going to come out next year. We would have to get that decision. They just don't want to leave anything open to chance that he missteps. Well, hasn't 40 years been a blur? Yeah, but it's also been a methodical learning session so that. You know, each day builds upon the next one. Life is a stack of pancakes. The bottom one, where it starts, it has to be there in order for the next one to be there. And then that and that you can't get to the top of the stack without going through each of the sessions that have happened there to build you to who you are at this moment. And that's true for everybody in life. Well, you've had great funny moments. Is there a favorite interview that's percolated to the top of your head? I know you've had to think about it over 40 years. I have a million of them. I mean, I have a good time with people because I like to see – I like people to tell their stories, but, you know, I like for them to have a moment to amplify it. I've got this. Like the comedian Tim Wilson said to me one time, I still laugh about it. He's been dead for a long time. He's hilarious. I used to watch him outside the window and he'd take his last big smoke. And then he'd exhale and then he'd run in and he'd go, I got eight minutes before the nicotine crave would drive him to go outside again. We came to the end of a segment one time and I said, hey, can you hang around to do another segment? He goes, Terry, you're my only friend with 50,000 watts. So yes, I will come back and do another segment. Of course. Well, you know, it was, I mean, just think about the days when they said Muhammad Ali would walk into the studios of the WHS and just plop down and say, hey, here's where my career is today. Right. He was hilarious and he was good to the crew. I understand, you know, Milton Mats would interview him. And, you know, we've had the rich history of this station. It's 103 years old now. And everybody's been here.

And a lot of people say, you know you've made it in life when you get interviewed on this station. So I love that. I love that legacy part of what this station is. And that's why it's different from playing rock records and making fart chokes on a film station. Well, one of my favorite stories that Milton ever told me was when... Hurricane Hugo wiped out the southeast and Charleston, South Carolina, and they lost all their power. And suddenly he was on his nighttime show getting calls from people down there. We can hear you in Louisville at WHS. Can you tell us the latest news? for what's happened down here. We don't know how big this is, and he was reading the AP stories and what was coming out of South Carolina. There's a bill in Congress. I've talked with Brett Guthrie about it multiple times. It has to do with keeping AM radio in cars. Some of the car manufacturers go, it's a nuisance for us because we have to have a wire in here because of this interference, whatever. Tesla started the issue. And now some manufacturers have said, well, we're changing the way the whole audio system because they all have paid apps that are on there. That's the whole thing. But we have a bill in Congress that's saying you've got to keep AM radio in cars. And just for the reason you cite it, there are times when certain things go down. 9-11 taught us again as well. Certain things go down. Communications die. But this... broadcast the methodology of amplitude, what's the word? I've forgotten it all of a sudden what AM stands for. Uses a different skywave to get to receivers. And so it is more abundantly available, universally available, these open signals like this one, it's modulation, that's the other word. They reach receivers in ways that other transmission levels can't. When other things are knocked out, this still comes through. That's why I always tell people you still ought to have a battery powered radio in your home just in case. Right. My wife and founder of father's old one. I mean, this was a little silver box. Put batteries in it and it could hear the AM radios. I have one. You just never know if you're going to be out of power and there's no way to, you know, the Wi-Fi's out, this, that, or whatever. It's like I've taught my kids. They're all such suckers. They're all hooked into just watching a GPS on their phone. And I'm like, well, what happens if the Wi-Fi is not available? What happens if you drop your phone down to sewer? What happens? How will you know how to get somewhere? I don't know. And I said, well, you need to learn. Yeah, you need to learn. Do you still have maps in your car? I do. No, but just teaching them basics of where is northeast, southwest and what all that means on a highway sign. They're not paying any attention to that. Their phone is everything. And when that is interrupted, and it does get interrupted.

then you're lost. I was asked a couple of days ago how to get to 7th in Kentucky, and the person was saying the GPS keeps telling me West Kentucky or whatever. I said, well, there's only one. Take 7th. It will cross. It will hit Kentucky. And then you will be there. I'm even asking kids, like the sun's going down, which way is west? I don't know. It's like, I think it's pretty easy to figure that out. If it goes down the other way, we've got a new lead story tonight, right? Indeed. All right, what are you going to feature your Van JD Vance interview? Monday after Monday night football, and then we're going to run it again the next day. Okay. Mr. Van JD Vance, age 92. There you've been out, Ed Van Lahn. Sorry about that, bud. Doug, great to see you. Happy anniversary, Terry, from all of us at WHS11. Your other home. That's right. Always. It's a dual home. Mr. Crusade. We love your community space. How many years on the Crusade now? I'm also the longest serving host of the Crusade. Very good. I'm the longest serving show host in Louisville history. being in the same time slot by a lot already with 40 years here. And also the longest serving crusade for children hosts. So that's kind of nice. Right. I remember when they had to make the transition after Wayne stepped away. Yeah. Ken Middleton was our general manager, WHS 11, who picked the hosts. And he said, oh, he said, going with Terry was a no-brainer. He said, I need somebody to be able to talk about the crusade every single day of his life. I did. And he said, I think he'll be doing that the rest of his life. Yeah, Bud Harvzmire was great to me there too in that transition. I greatly appreciate that. And I look forward to seeing you over in the other building soon enough. All right. Just like every other kid, I live in two homes. It's good to see you. I'm walking back. Back in a minute, Joe. Absolutely. Back at a minute here, we are on News Radio 840, WHAS.

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