Behind The Microphone- The Early Years

Over the instrumental strains of his musical theme "My Happiness" the mellow voice of J. Dawson Clarke greeted his audience from WBOC's Pocomoke City radio studio located on the northeast block of Willow Street. His Monday through Friday mid-morning program began in 1950 and aired for more than twenty years. If you're on the plus side of 60 and grew up in the Pocomoke area perhaps you were a member of Dawson's Saturday morning "Teen Town Record Club." Kids from about five years old through early teens crowded the small studio for the live program and a chance for prize giveaways such as candy and records.

In the late 1920's Dawson played the piano during silent movies at the Marva Theatre; in later years he became co-owner and then sole owner of the Marva. He also did professional photography. During the early days of local television Dawson accompanied Eastern Shore Of Virginia singer Brooks Russell on the piano on entertainment programs (Russell later started WESR radio in Tasley).

Dawson was a proud booster of Pocomoke City and was elected to numerous terms as mayor serving from 1968-1986.
Pocomoke's own radio station, WDVM at 540 on the AM dial, signed on the air in August of 1955 with Dave Welborne at the helm as station manager (the call letters later changed to WDMV, today it's WGOP) . Some other voices behind the microphone during the Pocomoke station's first decade included Larry Lambeth , Stan Burns, **"Mama's Country Youngin" Eddie Matherly, Curt "White" (Welborne), Ron Smith, Choppy Layton, Mal Pierce, Pierce Burgess, "Cousin" Toby Miller, Marlin Myers, Jack Gillen, Herb Harvey, Will Hall, Johnny Walker, Bob Sealy, John Ennis, Tom Marr, Carl Briggs, Wayne Powell. A studio in Crisfield in the late 1950's was manned by Eastern Shore musician "King" Sterling and then by Charles Dryden who was also Crisfield mayor. **(Search "Matherly" on this site for article Remembering An Eastern Shore Radio Legend .)


After their days on the airwaves from Pocomoke City..... Dave Welborne left in 1960 and later owned radio stations in Danville, Va. and Cumberland, Md. His brother Curt then held the reins as manager of the Pocomoke station. Curt later changed careers and went into the educational field. At last report he was still working, part-time, for a community college in Whitesville, NC. Stan Burns (real name Stanley Bernstein) and Mal Pierce (real name Malcolm Pierce Rosenburg) went into law, each becoming attorneys in the Philadelphia area. Choppy Layton went on to start up and operate a highly rated FM station in Ocean City for many years and today is back at his roots at Pocomoke's 540 where his career stated at age 15 as "Chop Chop The Disc-Jock!" Jack Gillen remained in radio at various area stations and is now an FM station owner operating from Snow Hill. John Ennis had a long career in television news in Norfolk where he specialized in military reporting.

Tom Marr became a radio talk show host in Baltimore and is still on the air there; he was also involved in Baltimore Orioles radio broadcasts for a number of years. Johnny Walker (not to be confused with a same name personality on Baltimore radio) was a seasoned veteran in broadcasting by the time he lent his voice to the Pocomoke airwaves. He later was dealt a harsh family situation when his son John Walker Jr. was convicted of spying for Russia.
In the late 1950's and in the 1960's area teens who dialed up Salisbury's WJDY on their transistor radios heard Top 40 rock and roll played by Dick Ireland, "RT" (Roland Twig), Jim King, Johnny Williams (John Psota), Bob Callahan, Bill Kline, Herb Kravitz, Bob Rogers, and Jerry Skislak. In later years Mike Seidel, a Salisbury youngster with an interest in weather, read weather forecasts on WJDY and was later a dj there. A summer job found him behind the microphone at Pocomoke's 540 every Sunday from sign-on to sign-off. He worked for Choppy Layton's Ocean
City station before starting a career as a television meteorologist. Today Seidel is a veteran television weather reporter at The Weather Channel.


If you tuned your radio dial to 960 in the 1950's and 60's some voices you heard on WBOC in Salisbury included Lanny Layton, George Hack, Tom Maguire, Ralph Pennewell, Phil "Curly" Adams(Adamo), Wayne Gruen, John Rahe, Dave Beuret, Jim Abbot, and Barry Patchet.


Hillbilly "Luke Simpkins" and old man "Caleb McAbee" (he pronounced it Macabee) were among several voice character creations of Lanny Layton. "Mr. McAbee's 12 Days Of Christmas" was a seasonal favorite of Lanny's radio audience. He also made appearances on WBOC-TV's "Club 16" as Mr. McAbee. A "tremendous talent" is how fellow radio voice George Hack described Lanny Layton.  And George commented: "Lanny Layton and I had a pretty good thing going on WBOC in the morning, so much so that we thought we'd give the Mutual Radio Network a shot. I went ahead and made arrangements with the network to interview us for a possible slot but alas Lanny opted out...it never happened." Little is known about Lanny's career after his days on the radio at WBOC and later at WICO. In the mid 1960's he made a weekly television appearance representing the sponsor of a local program. One recollection is that after radio Lanny worked for the state of Delaware.


The first radio voice heard on WBOC was that of John B. Greenberger who remained with the station for 35 years until his retirement in 1975. In the 1940's 15-year-old Don Messick began his entertainment career performing a live one-hour weekly program on the Salisbury station featuring voice characters he created. He went on to a five decade career as the voice behind some of the best known Hanna-Barbera television cartoon characters including "Scooby Doo". Early in his broadcasting career a young Jim Simpson, with family roots in Somerset County, spent some time in Salisbury behind the WBOC microphone before going on to national recognition as a sportscaster with NBC and later with ESPN. Lonnie Starr was a popular 1940's radio voice on WBOC before leaving the Eastern Shore for New York to announce professional wrestling on WNEW-TV. Art Ward of Salisbury was a WBOC announcer who later had a long career in the popular music field managing the nationally known singers "The Honey Dreamers" and "The Arbors."
Was there local radio on the Eastern Shore before WBOC signed on the air in 1940? Stay tuned.

Check out the old news paper clipping HERE>>



Contributed by Terry Kleger of Salisbury. terrykleger@yahoo.com

Lanny Layton newspaper ad source: newspaperarchives.com