Jack Steck & Larry Ferrari, Broadcast Pioneers

Jack Steck & Larry Ferrari

In March of 2005, we stumbled across a cassette tape recorded at the studios of WFLN Radio. The date on the tape said June 1991. However, during this recording, Broadcast Pioneers member Jack Steck referred to Harry Haas as "our new President, but Haas served from July 1990 to June 1991.

It seemed kind of strange that Jack would refer to an outgoing leader as "our new president." So, for awhile, we thought that this tape may have been mis-marked. However, we now know that June 1991 is correct and Steck just mis-spoke. (It was mentioned in our June 1991 newsletter).

In this historic recording, 94 year old Broadcast Pioneers member (and our 4th President, 1965-1966) Jack Steck talked with Broadcast Pioneers member Larry Ferrari about Larry's career.

Jack Steck was inducted into our Hall of Fame in 1992 and Ferrari in 2000. In 1974, Steck was honored as our "Person of the Year."

It's interesting that the recording has an audio slate at the beginning. Even more so that the tape had been stopped down for a time and restarted with another slate and Steck picked up where he left off. We left it exactly as it existed on the cassette, slates and all.

About 10:40 into this recording, Larry and Jack spoke about Mary Vogt, the long-time organist for the John Wanamaker Department Store. Larry said, "she was quite a gal!" Read more about the Wanamaker organ and see a photo of Mary. What they don't mention is that Mary regularly played the Wanamaker organ over WOO Radio. She was first heard in 1922, the year that radio broadcasting started here in Philadelphia.

The tape was played at our Wednesday, June 19, 1991 luncheon at Williamson's Restaurant. In January of 2013, we reduced the tape hiss in this recording and at that time, also started offering the recording in the Windows Media format. Previously, it was only available in the Real Audio system.

Listen in Real Audio!
Listen in Windows Media!

The e-mail address of the Broadcast Pioneers of Philadelphia is pioneers@broadcastpioneers.com