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WRTI-FM Memorabilia

Except as noted, posted by Jerry Klein

Memories of WRTI from Merrill Reese's Autobiography!

Floor plan of the WRTI Studios in the basement of Thomas Hall

WRTI Student Station Managers 1948 through 1969 -- "The Plaque"

The program booklet from the January 22, 1948 dedication of the radio studios in Thomas Hall, which were the home of WRTI AM and FM until 1969. Courtesy of Mike Muderick, posted by Gerry Wilkinson. Mike has supplied, and Gerry has posted, numerous other items. Click here to view Mike's Memorabilia.)

The original FCC license for WRTI-FM issued in 1953. Posted by Gerry Wilkinson.

A WRTI Christmas card, apparently from the 1950s.

Click here for photos of Thomas Hall taken during a nostalgic visit back in April of 1998.

Listen to actual sound clips from WRTI programs!

The WRTI blazer patch (23 kb)(In color. Although it may look black, it was actually dark blue)

Mike Biel comments: I was going thru a carton of stuff that my mother had packed up from my room when they moved out of the Teaneck house. I found my WRTI patch--and discovered that there actually were TWO patches! They both had the same design, but one of them had thicker, fuzzier lines and was cut oversized round with scalloped edges. The other one seems to be screen printed with ink rather than with fuzz. The lines are much thinner, clearer, sharper and more legible. It is cut to shape about 1/8-inch outside the white border.

The WRTI "Newsgram" letterhead (18kb)

Footer from the The WRTI "Newsgram" letterhead (6kb)

The "strobe" disk label (26kb)

Remember the teletype machines with the big "United Press International" nameplates on them? Here's one of the nameplates. Courtesy of [name withheld by request].

1959 Program Guide - (Vol. III, #1) - This was a combination program guide for the radio station and course catalog for the Temple RTF program.

Front cover (33kb)

Photos from 1959 Program Guide:

Pages from 1959 Program Guide

Group photo - WRTI AM & FM Staff (54kb) - April 1964. This is a scan of an 8x10 glossy photo. I'm not sure where I got it, since I didn't arrive at Temple until 1966, but aren't you glad I have it?

1964 Annual Banquet program book cover (16kb) - Provided by Bill Stock, uploaded by Gerry Wilkinson.

WRTI-FM Program Schedule - Fall Semester 1964 - Copied from an original provided by Mike Biel.

WRTI Basketball Broadcasting Schedule - Fall Semester 1964 - Copied from an original provided by Mike Biel.

WRTI-FM Program Schedule - Spring Semester 1965 - Copied from an original provided by Mike Biel.

WRTI Baseball Broadcasting Schedule - Spring Semester 1965 - Copied from an original provided by Mike Biel.

WRTI-FM Program Schedule - Fall Semester 1965 - Copied from an original provided by Mike Biel.

WRTI-AM Program Schedule - Fall Semester 1965 - Copied from an original provided by Mike Biel.

Promotional Flyers circa 1965-1967 (provided by Mike Biel):

Promoting "The Best All Around" on WRTI-AM (drawing by Ron Wertheimer)

Promoting an appearance by Bill Wright Sr. of WIBG ("Wibbage") on "The Bob (Donze) & Jerry (DelColliano) Show" (with another drawing by Ron Wertheimer)

Another flyer promoting "The Bob & Jerry Show"

Program Synopses from "Some Call It Madness" (S.C.I.M.) - Nov. 1965 - May 1966. Well, not real synopses, but notes on the programs' content.

WRTI-FM Program Schedule - Spring Semester 1967 - This is a verbatim transcript of an actual, spirit duplicated, copy of the Spring 1967 program schedule from my archives.

Program Notes from "The Radio Show" - February to May, 1967, starring Ron Wertheimer. I was engineer for this program. I still have tapes of all of them... most of the are the master tapes. Remember the opening? "The following program is in COLOR! This an R [Ron Wertheimer] and M [Mickey Saperstone] production.... HONK!! [from a big brass horn]." And click here to hear RealAudio® clips from "The Radio Show."

Normalman for Mayor campaign poster (22kb) from "The Radio Show."

A clipping from the Temple News, October 24, 1967, on the start of the new semester at WRTI (provided by Mike Muderick, posted by Norm Childs).

Program titles, cast and crew names, and RealAudio® clips from Playhouse 90.1, "a weekly series of outstanding radio dramas." From the Spring and Fall of 1967.

1967 Annual Banquet program book cover (40kb) - Printed with a "spirit duplicator." Remember that purple ink? This program contained messages from John Roberts, Dr. Dusenbury, faculty advisor Laurence Blenheim, graduate assistants Rick Bayha and Rich Mayk, Bob Donze, Mike Biel, Ron Wertheimer, Marlene Patrick, Alvin Weiss, Fred Smith, Charles Liebman, Ed Sciaky, Mike Muderick, Leigh somebody (apparently AM music director, but everyone who mentioned him/her used only his/her first name!), Jane Lessner, Joe Ryan, Ed Harding, Fran Odyniec and Bob Backman.

1968 Annual Banquet program book cover (56kb) - Mimeographed! Black ink! Cover art by Kenn Honnen. With messages from Gordon Gray, Laurence Blenheim, John Roberts, Delwin Dusenbury, John B. Foerster, Rick Bayha, Mike Biel, Fred Smith, Kenn Honnen, Mike Muderick, Charles Liebman, Sandy Skalka, Joe Ryan, Florence Weiss, Jerry Klein, Ed Cunningham, Sue Ellis, Ben Selisker, Bob Zuckerman, Gary Torresani, Joe Regelski and Elliot Paul.

A feature on WRTI-FM from the Temple News - October 11, 1968. This article previews the station's plans for the new semester, the first for WRTI-FM in Annenberg Hall. (Interestingly, the article makes only a passing reference to WRTI-AM, which reads as if it no longer existed. WRTI-AM was in fact shut down just two months later.) Click here to see the photos which accompanied the article.

Clipping from the Temple News listing the WRTI-FM program schedule for Election Day, November 5, 1968. (11kb)

A feature on WRTI from the Temple News - January 21, 1969. Unfortunately, it is not particularly well written and it contains a number of factual inaccuracies. But it is an interesting glimpse at the state of the station just a few months before it was changed to the all-jazz format. Click here to see the photos which accompanied the article.

1969 Annual Banquet program book cover (50kb) - Spirit duplicator again. Not everything in the "new building" was new! Interestingly, the introduction warned about the possibility of "a computer replacing us as broadcasters." With messages from Gordon Gray, Dr. Dusenbury, John Roberts, Ernest Rose, Kenneth Adams (a visiting professor of communications), graduate assistants Galen Longwell and Cliff Pence, Ellie Menna, Sheryl Nathans (organizer of a nascent RTF Student Organization), station manager Robert Kassi, Jerry Klein, Bill Koshelnyk, Ben Selisker, Ken Medd, Joe Regelski, Fred Woskoff, Dena Shuman, Steve Medoff, Florence Weiss, and Lois Farber.

Listings for WRTI-FM from Broadcasting Yearbook - From Mike Muderick's scrapbook

Mike comments: Note that in 1966, and probably for years before that, there was scant information. The CE 6-4000 phone number I think was gone by 1966 but 787-7000 was never submitted. Then, in 1967, someone submitted the payphone number as the station's number but nothing else. Finally, in 1968 some staff appeared, (what happened to Biel?) and the phone number had been changed to all-digit. I don't know who submitted it. I had a recollection that I did, but I wouldn't have sent in Bayha instead of Biel unless he had taken studio time from me that day. Who knows?

1969 Program Guide - Dated March 1, 1969 (Vol. 1, No. 1). First program guide following move to Annenberg Hall (and the last before the fateful change to all jazz). Written mostly by Jerry Klein.

Front cover (92kb)

Program Schedule chart (139kb) - This was the centerfold of the booklet. (This page is saved in Adobe Acrobat format, which was needed to maintain legibility. If you do not have Acrobat in your system, you can download it from http://www.adobe.com/acrobat/readstep.html).

Page 1 - Listings of the Executive and Operations staffs. (15kb)

Page 2 - Letter from faculty Station Manager Bob Kassi, and masthead. (19kb)

Daily Program Listings 1 (Monday-Tuesday) (17kb)

Daily Program Listings 2 (Tuesday-Thursday) (26kb)

Daily Program Listings 3 (Thursday-Sunday) (27kb)

Matinee - Chart on the back cover listing the Broadway shows cast albums featured on each edition of "Matinee," hosted by Mary Beth Regan (Monday, Wednesday & Friday), Anne McNulty (Tuesday) and Dena Shuman (Thursday) at 1:05pm. (At some point, Patrick Quinn also became of the "Matinee Ladies.") (19kb)

WRTI (1948-68)
WRTI-FM (1953-69)
R.I.P.

Clipping from the Temple News announcing the closing of WRTI-AM - December 5, 1968. (The clipping has been digitally rearranged to minimize its size) (106kb)

Jerry Klein's WRTI-FM identification card from March 1969, during the last semester that the station was run students. It was introduced and is signed by Robert Kassi, the faculty advisor who had permanently shut down WRTI-AM and a few months later would turn WRTI-FM into an all-jazz station "serving the community," rather than the student learning laboratory that it had been established as.

Clipping from the Philadelphia Daily News announcing WRTI-FM changing to all-jazz - June 5, 1969. (16kb)

Clipping from the Philadelphia Inquirer noting WRTI-FM's new jazz format - June 13, 1969. (11kb)

How WRTI-FM Went Jazz - Professor Roberts recounted to Gerry Wilkinson just how it all happened.

WRTI-FM Program Schedule from Summer 1969 - Provided by Mike Biel. The bulk of the programming was now jazz, although Kassi left in just enough classical and oldies programming to make the transition not so obvious (According to Professor Roberts, many of the professors didn't realize what was happening. See How WRTI-FM Went Jazz.)

A letter from Professor Laurence Blenheim to Jerry Klein, reminiscing about the "good old days" and the "marvelous young people at WRTI." (91kb)

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