Chuck Johnson Biography

Growing up I was in love with broadcasting. My Uncle was "Cracker Jim Brooker", a Miami radio and television personality for 30 years, and he invited me to tag along as his apprentice summers. This was 1963 and 1964. He was on morning drive and again in afternoon drive on 50,000 watt WMIE (later WQBA). FM was fairly new then and he was on the sister station WEDR-FM for an extra few hours in the afternoon. He sold his own advertising and often needed to be out on sales calls later than the FM show permitted, so at age 14 and 15 I was in heaven doing a few hours most every afternoon in a major market. Uncle Jim him would arrive in time for the AM simulcast. In those days he had a studio at home, or we would do the show from the studio on 36th Street. He had done live broadcasts for years from Shell's City, an early big box grocery, drug, bakery, butcher, barber and beauty shop all in one before anyone else was combining everything. His broadcast booth was behind glass above the pharmacy. During this same time 1963 - 1965, while attending Mainland High School in Daytona I was taking a radio broadcasting class one evening a week at the DBCC's Vocational Division taught by Ken Lueck from WNDB-AM 1150, WNDB-FM 94.5. So with my uncle in Miami and Ken as teachers and mentors I was ready to work. As it happened, the chief engineer at WNDB had a motorcycle accident and could not fill in for the staff to take summer vacations. Ken suggested me and I was hired for two months as the vacation replacement. I went to work the day after high school graduation. The staff at WNDB that summer included Ken Lueck, Frank Webb, Bob Smith and Harry Johnson on the air. We had ABC News including Paul Harvey and local news live each hour from the Daytona Beach News Journal City Desk as the newspaper owned the stations. When that summer ended I began attending DBCC and worked with the college Communication's Director Bob Troup. I was producer and announcer for "Education Beat" a five minute recorded program of campus activities, interviews with faculty, student leaders, visiting lecturers and performers. It was heard twice weekly on many Daytona, Deland and Sanford stations. I occasionally did another DBCC program "Faculty Forum". In the summer of 1966 I was called by Murray Pendleton at WSBB-AM 1230 offering me a job replacing Frank Northrup who was leaving their staff. Frank was also band director at Seabreeze Junior High School and needed more time for his family. I accepted the job and found at WSBB a great broadcast family. Al Pruitt, general manager, was a kind boss. Several times he asked me to pull an all-day shift while Murray was working at the speedway for race week. Al brought meals to the studio for me and always expressed appreciation for everything his staff did. We added Braves Baseball with the team's first season in Atlanta. WSBB salesman Gary Faulkner had pushed hard for the Braves network affiliation. Over the years I represented WSBB on the field at Fulton County Stadium for "Network Day" if Al couldn't attend. That first season the Braves' announcers were Milo Hamilton and Ernie Johnson, Sr.
When I graduated from DBCC, it was time to move on to Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton. There I quickly went to work at WWOG-FM. It was an all instrumental, good music station with a powerful 100,000 watt signal from a 330 ft tower on the west side of Glades Road and the Sunshine State Turnpike in Boca. We transmitted horizontally and vertically and also had a subcarrier with a commercial music service. The station ID said "serving all of South Florida and the Bahamas... this is WWOG-FM, Boca Raton." I returned to WSBB in 1970 and then to WROD-AM 1340 in 1972. At WROD I did a mid-day show, afternoon drive news, and our talk show "Open Phone Forum". Lynn Younger, Bob Edwards and Richard Cox were among the staff. Winnie Brown was traffic director and wrote copy. John Stearns was chief engineer. In March of 1973 I moved to Atlanta as it was defrosting from a big ice storm. I worked at WLTA-FM through the end of 1974. It was 100,000 watts on the 1,00 ft TV 17 tower on Spring and West Peachtree. Then with mixed emotions, I abandoned my first love-broadcasting and became the Public Information Officer, or spokesman for DeKalb County Public Safety. It gave me a chance to work with all the media, write press releases, plan public relations campaigns and also get beeped and called out because of fires, murders, etc. at all hours. I enjoyed about 23 years working with some of the greatest cops, detectives, firefighters and paramedics in the country and retired in 1998.

Ken Lueck Obituary from the Daytona Beach News Journal
courtesy of Chuck Johnson

Ken Lueck, WNDB Radio Personality, Dies
by Cora Huckins

DAYTONA BEACH NEWS-JOURNAL - Monday, March 6, 1989
Kenneth Arthur Lueck, 73, widely known for his early-morning broadcasts from an "air-conditioned broom closet" at radio station WNDB(-AM 1150) when it was owned by the Daytona Beach News-Journal, died Sunday at Halifax Medical Center. He was retired from broadcasting in the mid-1970's, sold his home in Ormond Beach and he and his wife, Dorothy (known to her friends as Dottie), moved to 524 S. Beach St., where he took great pleasure watching the comings and goings on the Halifax River from his apartment window. Mr. Lueck was born in Irma, Wis., described in an article written by the late News-Journal columnist Phil deBeaubien in 1970, as "down the road from Tomahawk Lake and the village of Bearskin." With his gravelly voice, Ken, as he was known affectionately by his thousands of his listeners, was one of the least likely persons to take up radio announcing as a career. He once described himself as "possessed of the worst voice since Marconi invented wireless, but they listen - perhaps suffering a little, but they listen." After a stretch as a Merchant Seaman on the Great Lakes, he spent time during World War II as a radio operator in the Air Force when he also play with the Army-Air Force Band. He had a checkered career which included a stint as a cowboy out in Bozeman, Mont., and playing his saxophone with big bands in Milwaukee. Finally, he started as an engineer at a radio station in Elk City, Okla. One day the regular morning announcer, who had a taste for sour mash bourbon, didn't turn up for work, having indulged the night before. Ken pushed the button 6 a.m. and was on the air playing a 33 1/3 record on a 78 rpm turntable. After this fast start, Ken polished his act and Elk City had a new "electronic hero." Ken first came here in 1949. He started work for WNDB and featured a teen club on his morning show when he built up a loyal following. He left in 1952 for Warsaw, Va., where he became program director and chief engineer of WNNT and organized "Ken's Kousins" a talent show that toured Eastern Virginia. While in "colonial Virginia," as he called it, he married Dorothy Thompson, a former Chicago model who was managing a charm and model school in Cincinnati. He then moved to Cincinnati where he became WZIP morning man. The Luecks' daughter, Sally, was born there in 1954. One night in 1955, according to guest Chatterbox columnist, Ann Hicks (Marsh), when Ken was taking off his shoes, "sand fell out all over Dottie's nice clean vacuumed rug, and before they could yell 'Daytona Beach!' Ken was back in his favorite broom closet". A son, Michael, was born soon after they arrived here. Ken returned to WNDB, but this time he was the night man, and his legion of loyal fans joined him. His irreverent style included awarding the station manager and chief engineer to listeners as prizes in "contests" and slugging his listeners from time to time with outrageously raucous records. After a few months broadcasting during the late night, he returned to the morning show, playing favorites from the 1940s to the 1970s. He loved to accompany his special favorites such as "Heartaches" and "Stardust" on a wooden whistle, or he would just whistle along himself. He and Dottie enjoyed dancing and were frequently seen at dances and parties throughout the area. In 1961, while looking for a piano that would take a beating by his youngsters, he stumbled on a "monstrosity." It was a big square "bulky piece of junk." While refinishing it, he found markings underneath and made out the words "Solano Grove." It turned out the piano had quite a history. Ken traced its history to Jacksonville of the 1880's history when British born composer Frederick Delius, who absorbed Florida moods and atmosphere on the St. Johns River in 1884-85. Delius divided his time between orange tree planting at Solano Grove on the St. Johns, and writing and studying musical composition with a friend and teacher, Thomas Ward of Jacksonville. Ken later sold the piano to the University of Jacksonville Music Dept., where it has been placed in Delius' home, which had been moved from Solano Grove to the university campus. Ken was also a speech and radio teacher at the Mary Karl Vocational School, a division of Daytona Beach Junior College (now Daytona Beach Community College) for 14 years. In 1972 he joined the real estate firm of Austin Combs and Associates, selling real estate afternoons, evenings and weekends, and continuing with the "Ken Lueck Show" in the early mornings. Besides his wife, survivors include son Michael of Dallas, and daughter, Sally Lueck, Fort Lauderdale. Woodward, Holly Hill is in charge.


(1964) Ken Lueck and Chuck (seated) in the DBCC Vocational Division studio for the radio broadcasting class	Christmas card with a note from Al Pruitt about WSBB's new equipment and control room. circa 1975 courtesy of Chuck Johnson