Woody Windham Blog

My acceptance speech:

They said to do this in three minutes.  I can’t even do a commercial in three minutes.  Ladies and gentlemen, let me start by thanking the South Carolina Broadcasters association for this very meaningful award.  This is what I have been working for for 50 years.  Then I would like to thank my wife Jean for being with me the whole time and supporting me.  And I do mean supporting me.  I’ve been fired a few times and she always had a career as a nurse and believe me she supported me.  So has the rest of my family.  My three daughters, Wendy, Jennifer, and Mackenzie and my grand daughter Sharon who just presented us with our first great grand daughter.  I have three brothers here, Jim, Leo and Paul.  Thanks to Leo for that fine introduction and for being right by my side for over half of my career.  I  did The  Windham Brothers Show with Leo on three different radio stations.  We had record ratings mainly because when we got off the air each day our cheeks would be aching from laughing so hard.  I have always felt like if I had a good time doing the show, then the audience would, too.  If it’s the last thing I do, The Windham Brothers Show will happen again.  In fact I would like to make it the last thing I do.  I’ve got to thank Bob Fulton, The voice of the Gamecocks and my mentor.  My first job in Columbia was to run the board for The Bob Fulton Show on WCOS-AM.  The first week I was working with Bob, he came into the studio where I was working and said, “You know Dad, you should call yourself Woody With The Goodies.”  I’m still doing it 50 years later.  Bob Fulton also taught me something that has carried me throughout my career.  He taught me to respect the sponsors.  He used to adlib every word of a commercial and he had a relationship with all the sponsors.  When ever Bob was traveling with the Gamecocks, and it was a lot, I would have to do his show by myself.  He always left me a big reel of his live adlibbed commercials.  Every time I punched in one of his spots, he made 5 dollars.  I made up my mind that, one day, I was going to get me some of that.  Thanks to Bob, this room is full of my sponsors.  Starting with Antonina and Mario Stuppiello from Antoninia’s Italian Restaurant They are celebrating their 60 wedding anniversary and her 79th birthday, Darrell Hudson from the Hudson Brothers auto brokers, Steve Campell from Carolina Liquid Ceramic, Steven and Renee Foulis from Steven W’s Bistro in Newberry, Dr. Paul Hahn from Smile Columbia, Ken Johns from Midland Hearing Associates, Randy Spears from Ambush Pest Control, Renee Kilburn from Home Instead Senior Care, Lou and Fern Frost from Overhead Door Company, Calvin and Charlene Meetze from Meetze Plumbing, Dave Lee from World Vision Home Entertainment, and Wayne Kirby from Carpet one.  I have a lot more advertisers who couldn’t make it here tonight, like Carolette Cromer Turner who is out of town but she wrote me a poem about this award.  I don’t have time to read it here but you can see it on my website, woodywindham.com.  The people I’m working with right now are the best ever.  My partner in the morning is Ray Allen Lewis, I call him Sugar Ray because he is so sweet and naive he makes me sound smart.  Captain Telegram who works tirelessly to keep the traffic flowing on my show.  Mike Steinhelper, the best sales manager i have ever worked with and Janice Shull, the world’s greatest sales person.  I have to mention my favorite engineer, Ed Noyes.  I figured If I mention him, I would finally get that third microphone.  And last  but definitely not least, Bill McElveen.  He has been my boss three different times at three different stations.  Two of those times it didn’t work out so well, if you know what I mean.  But I think he is the best radio guy I know.  He is a past president of the South Carolina Broadcasters Association and he and his father are both in the hall of fame.  And rightfully so. Bill is the one who nominated me for this award and letters of support were written by Columbia Mayor Bob Coble and radio legend, Harold, Catdaddy, Miller.  When I found out I was receiving the Masters Award, I started writing a brief history of my career and I realized that I really have done a lot of cool stuff and it has gotten me more excited that ever about radio.  So, I feel like I just finished my first fifty years and I can’t wait to get started on the second half of my career.  This is the biggest night of my life.  My wife would say, “Woody what about our wedding night!”  and I would have to say, ” No baby, this is it. “  Finally, I want to thank my mother, Sarah.  She passed away a couple of months ago.  She’s the one that got me started in radio.  I remember her saying, “Get out of this house and get you a job!  You’ve always wanted to be a disc jockey.  Get out there on the highway and hitchhike into Darlington and walk into WDAR and tell them you’ve done it before.  You’ve always been a good liar.”  And that’s exactly what I did.  They hired me at noon that day and I was on the air right by myself at 3 o’clock for 3 hours until sign-off.  When I got back home I ran in the house and said, “Mother, did you hear me?  I was on the air for three hours this afternoon.  It was just like you said.  Didn’t you hear me?”  She said, “No, I don’t like that station.”

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