WHAM has been known as Rochester's News Leader. And the News Leader's "news leader" is the News Director. Randy Gorbman held that title twice - once in the mid 90's and again in the late 90's through the early 2010's. With a voracious appetite for consuming and reporting, calling Randy a "news junkie" is a vast understatement.

Game shows have been part of WHAM's programming since the very early days. The last, regularly scheduled game show, done before a live audience, was The WHAM Sports Trivia Challenge. The show aired during football season and was the lead up to coverage of Monday Night Football. The show was originally called THE SPORTS NUTS. This show is from October of 1990.

Even though he was never "officially" part of the regular lineup, Gary Smith's reporting, sportscasting and hosting were woven into the fabric of WHAM. With a career that started in the late 1950's, Gary has been a part of Rochester's radio landscape for over 60 years.

From the WHAM Archives: August, 1952. Club 86 in Geneva was, in its day, a hot spot for some of the best jazz musicians in the country. Innovative jazz pianist, composer and band leader, Stan Kenton, brought his weekly NBC radio show - A Concert in Miniature - to the club on August 5th, 1952. Sharing an excerpt from that show as well as an interview with Stan, and vocalist Kay Brown, that aired the following day.

One thing WHAM has always had is an incredible depth of talent. Especially in the newsroom. With stories to cover and deadlines to meet, it's all too easy to gloss over the levels of experience some of our staff members had. So on this episode, we take a deeper dive into the careers of Brad Cupples and Brad Smith - two examples of WHAM's commitment to hiring the best in the business.

Comedian Gilbert Gottfried passed away on April 12th after a long illness. A small tribute to the voice that made him famous.

WHAM has been fortunate to have had several outstanding journalists in our newsroom. In this episode, we feature 2 of them. Shari Smith spent nearly 25 years with WHAM. Shelly Tripp only 3. Both of them made lasting contributions to the WHAM team. Both wanted to be journalists. And both got drawn in to the medium of radio as a place they wanted to be and to tell stories.

A little of this and a little of that. What would listeners in the mid to late 1940's have heard when they turned on WHAM? Programs like the samples shared in this week's bonus episode.

In our most recent BONUS episode we heard a sample of one of the many programs WHAM's Director of Women's Programming, Ann Rogers, did for the station. Today, with the help of Jeff Rolick, we hear from Ann herself - detailing her start in radio and some of her memories about working for WHAM radio and television.

Jeff recorded this interview in the fall of 1970 when he was a student at SUNY Geneseo and my sincere thanks to him for sharing the sound.

From the archives in 1951, WHAM's Director of Women's Programming, Ann Rogers, hosts a show for the League of Women Voters