WSB Radio History

Mike McDougald is one of Georgia's top broadcast executives and a member of the Georgia Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame.  While he is known as one of the country's top broadcast executives, when talk turns to his early days at WSB, he does not hesitate to show his glee as he details his time at White Columns.

Mike updated us in March 2005 with the following note about working at WSB.  I enrolled at Emory University in Atlanta and wanted more than life itself to work for WSB.  I simply did not have the nerve to ask, because WSB represented to me a station bigger than life and I had only 2 years at 250 watts.  I inquired at WBGE, WGST, WATL, WAGA and WQXI, but no one was ‘hiring’, especially fledgling announcers.  However, after several weeks at Emory, a miracle happened.  I got a phone call at the dormitory from a man named Marcus Bartlett who said “he had heard I might want to go to work for WSB”.  I simply could not comprehend this happening to a ‘country boy’.  This was fall 1948. TV had just gone on the air on Channel 8 at the “new” location. Not much announcing at first---mostly courier duty in the WSB car between the Atlanta Journal-Constitution building, the Biltmore and TV.  Jerry Vandeventer and Bob Van Camp were most helpful in working some of the southern drawl out of my diction and on-air opportunities improved.  Simply working in and around the Biltmore and the new TV and the marvelous personalities involved was among the greatest experiences of my life.  By college graduation in 1952 I was “Morning Man” on WSB and the Korean War draft promptly took me into the army.  Returning in two years in the Counter-Intelligence Corps, I became involved with Elmo’s great efforts to ‘remove the rust from radio’, again as morning man and Farm Director. 
In a previous note, Mike noted for the record:   I had the honor and distinction of making the very first broadcast ever made from White Columns on Peachtree and shed real tears at the thought that the building was later erased from both Atlanta and from history.

Mike grew up in post depression southeast Georgia where as he writes to tell us - my family moved out five miles from Statesboro to a farm to better meet financial and economic needs.  Battery radio only gave us a few hours per week listening, but the family enjoyed WSB from 225 miles away, especially the “morning show” with Mrs. Smithgall’s Son Charlie and his cow, or musical selections from a man named Marcus Bartlett.  Radio brought great excitement and expansion into our lives in what was a pretty uneventful  small town childhood.  In post-war 1946  a real broadcast station came to our town, WWNS, 1490, 250 watts.  Prior to that time, we dialed between  WSB, WTOC (Savannah) or WGAC (Augusta), or the big nighttime clear-channels.  On  its opening day, as a high school sophomore, I applied for a “job” at WWNS.  No job was offered, but they said if I would serve as janitor (sweep and take out the trash) they’d let me talk.  My opportunity? 11:00 to 11:05 pm sign-off newscast and baseball scores from United Press.  They figured I couldn’t hurt the listening audience within minutes of sign-off.  With no car, it was walk 2 miles to work in the evening and home 2 miles after 11.  Though my father had been dead several years, the station’s call letters reflected a slogan he had developed for our town, Welcome Where Nature Smiles. [ Many years later my brothers Worth , Donald and Horace would buy that station and develop its FM, named for the family, WMCD.]
I enrolled at Emory University in Atlanta and wanted more than life itself to work for WSB.  But the offer came and I jumped at it. (See more above)

In 1957, with mixed emotions, I resigned to join fellow announcer/newsman Bob Peterson and former WSB alumni Charles “Chuck” McClure in a venture to put Canton, GA’s first station on the air, WCHK.  As an owner and GM,  Elmo’s discipline ideas on radio were put into practice and our little station was profitable from the day it began broadcasting.  We spun off some alumni, such as Jim Axel, Don McClellan and others.  I even helped Guy Sharpe get his first job, though he never worked at WCHK.
In 1961, in partnership with another WSB alum---the same Charlie Smithgall I heard as a child,  we owned WAAX and WQEN (FM) in Gadsden (AL).  Later I bought WRGA and WRGA-FM (now WQTU) from him and became sole owner.  There was even a brief venture with WVOV, Danville, VA.  It has been an honor to win two NAB Marconi Awards, one NAB Crystal, Broadcaster of the Year in both Alabama and Georgia, and be inducted in the Ga Broadcasting Hall of Fame where many WSB luminaries reside. I seved two terms on the NAB Radio & Television Board.  I pioneered digital mobile telephone in North Georgia and assisted my wife Leeta in establishing her Advertising Agency (ADI) in Rome.
There never was such an opportunity as “radio” provided in those golden years to allow a person to serve a community and a wealth of people, while having so much fun doing it.  Having been mentored by  Ellis, Bartlett, Gaither, Reinsch, Vandeventer, Van Camp, Ray Moore, Don Heald, Lee Jordan, Bob Watson, George Crumbley,  partnering in business with two very successful WSB alumni, and associated with dozens of other greats in the business has made for a rich and wonderful life.