|  Rick
Randall
Former WLCY ‘Swinging
Gentleman’ Rick Randall is still around the Bay area.”I've
been working off-air with Paxson Communications since then,
now in network operations at our satellite uplink for PaxTV
in Clearwater”.
Rick Randall was the first presenter to be
signed up for “Swinging” Radio England, having previously
worked on various stations in Montana, USA. Now based in Largo,
Florida, he has contacted The Pirate Radio Hall of Fame. He remembers: “I
was recruited by (station founder) Don Pierson to join Radio
England and Britain Radio while the ship was still anchored in
a harbor in Miami, Florida. Rick worked at LCY in the 1960s.
Rick Randall in front of the WLCY Newsroom
board (I believe it was a "Yard") and microphone with
an Ampex reel-to-reel in the background - Photo below was taken
in either 1966 or 1967. I did news in the evening shift opposite
one of the several Jack E. Rabbitts (Gene Pope) who worked there
(one of them whom you know - Ron O'Quinn), followed by Swingin'
Sweeney (Rick Morgan), and put on my  "Swingin' Gentleman" hat
on the weekends. As my first "major" break in radio
after returning from England, I was working there at first for
a buck and a quarter an hour, until I was put on the full time
payroll at $80 a week.
WFLA, where I was the mid-day personality
between 1969 and 1972, and 570 WHNZ where I was again in the
newsroom at what turned out to be my last on-air assignment ending
in 1992. Between these gigs I spent a couple of years at WGUL
when it was a New Port Richey AM/FM combo and 5 more years at
WTAN in Clearwater (also 96 Fever and Magic 96 FM with the late
Scott Robbins) where I worked with Dennis Crandall, and used
Rick Bruce as my own on-air name. I also spent time at Newsradio
1470 in the 80's when it was WWQT (with my current employer Bud
Paxson - where the Home Shopping Network was conceived), and
again as News Director when it was operated out of West Pasco
as WFNN.
I also got my first taste as a country jock
at its sister station we called "Your Country 106",
WVTY-FM. For the record, I also worked on-air in radio at various
other locations around Florida, and in Georgia, Pennsylvania,
Ohio, Colorado, California, Washington State, and Montana, where
it all began 40 years ago in 1964.
Rick is involved in an effort to get local
music talent played on radio again. Since deregulation in 1996,
it has been tough to break in new groups. He has an interest
in a group from Pienlas County called ‘Buffalo Strange’. www.buffalostrange.com
Rick can be reached at radiodude@paxemail.com |
