FROM “HELLO CHATTANOOGA” BOOK
“Hello Chattanooga” features stories and information about the most famous acts ever to play Chattanooga’s many stages and venues.
Charley Pride with Chris and David Carroll at Memorial Auditorium in Chattanooga, 2017
The annual JET-FLI radio spectaculars (1965-1971) brought pop music’s biggest acts to the stage of Memorial Auditorium before packed houses of screaming teens.
Johnny Cash poses with Walker County Sheriff Ralph Jones, who Cash credited with turning his life around in the 1960s, while Cash was in a Walker County jail cell on drug charges. Cash returned to Walker County to thank the sheriff, and to perform a benefit concert at Lafayette High School.
President Ronald Reagan with Red Bank High valedictorian Deanna Duncan at the UTC Arena, May 1987
Pres. Theodore Roosevelt (left) on Lookout Mountain in 1902
Farol Seretean and former Channel 3 employee Jim Nabors at a Chattanooga party in 1978 (State of Florida Photo Archives)
The UTC Arena hosted dozens of sold-out shows after opening in October 1982.
Chattanooga native Dennis Haskins (Mr. Belding on NBC’s “Saved By The Bell” graduated from UTC in 2015.
Blake Shelton visits US-101 personalities David Earl Hughes and “Dex” Poindexter in 2002.
FROM “CHATTANOOGA RADIO AND TELEVISION” BOOK
The longest running broadcaster in the history of the world. “The Man With Sunshine In His Voice.” Luther Masingill, the only Chattanoogan in the Tennessee Radio Hall of Fame and the National Radio Hall of Fame. Luther began his career with WDEF on December 31, 1940, and remained with the station until his death on October 20, 2014 at the age of 92.
“The Fastest Jett in the Air” is Tommy Jett, who started his career in 1961 on WFLI, and is still rocking at TommyJett.com today. He’s a 2013 inductee into the Tennessee Radio Hall of Fame.
From the earliest days of Chattanooga television in the 1950s, to the full-color days of the 1970s, Mort Lloyd delivered the local news, and John Gray predicted the weather each evening, proving to be an unbeatable team, first on WRCB, and later on WDEF.
Before kindergarten and Headstart, there was Miss Marcia. In the 1960s and 1970s, Channel 9’s Marcia Kling taught preschool children about manners, letters and numbers. She was with WTVC for more than fifty years until her retirement in 2013.
Chattanooga’s TV cowboy, Bob Brandy, along with his wife Ingrid and their horse Rebel, provided clean entertainment, prizes and cartoons each afternoon on WTVC in the 1960s and 1970s.