THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, March 10, 1996 TAG: 9603080242
SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER PAGE: 08 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ERIC FEBER, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 116 lines
For as long as WFOS, the radio station of the Chesapeake public school system, beams out quality radio fare, the memory of Jack Garrison will live on.
Garrison, a lifelong Portsmouth resident and broadcast engineer extraordinaire, passed away at his Churchland home last Monday evening at the age of 71. But his spirit, energy, ideas and legacy live on in the people who knew him and through the radio station he helped create.
``There would be no student radio program, and quite frankly, no WFOS, if it weren't for Jack,'' said Dennis McCurdy, station program director and broadcast instructor. ``Jack established a high standard at the station that's kept up to this day. He set standards here we still try to emulate. Even though he was working with a student-run program, he still felt the need to keep it as professional as it could be. But that's the only way Jack operated: to make something as good and professional as it could possibly be. That was Jack in a nutshell.''
``He was involved with his students,'' said Richard ``Richie'' Babb, a former student of Garrison and now telecommunications coordinator with Chesapeake Public Schools. ``And if you didn't maintain his high standards, you weren't on the air.''
By the late '70s, WFOS, then housed at the old Oscar F. Smith High School on Rodgers Street, had fallen into disuse, McCurdy said. In fact, the station hadn't even renewed its required Federal Communications Commission broadcast license for three years.
Garrison, who was a Chesapeake public school employee and a radio engineer at the time, saw the station's steady decline.
He had already worked in radio for many years, honing his skills at stations like WBOF and WYFI. By the time he got to WFOS he was ready to leave radio altogether.
``Jack was tired of radio,'' McCurdy said. ``He was ready to get out.''
That is until then school superintendent Kenneth R. Fulp made Garrison an offer he didn't refuse.
``One day Fulp casually asked Jack how much money it would take for him to revive the station,'' McCurdy said. ``And Jack casually answered back, `About $25,000.' Fulp said, `Well, here's the money. Go do it.' ''
And Garrison did it.
``You needed someone of Jack's experience and caliber to re-start a station,'' McCurdy said.
He helped breathe new life into WFOS. It was transformed from a station with a weak signal and a tepid top-40 format into one that today beams out over 15,000 watts of power engaging a wide range of listeners from the Peninsula to eastern North Carolina.
First Garrison, taking a chance and trying to save the school system money, renewed the much needed FCC license, thereby preserving its valuable assigned frequency. He simply sent the license renewal request in and, lo and behold, it came promptly back, approved and valid.
``Doing that he saved our frequency and saved the station, and the taxpayers, a heck of a lot of money,'' McCurdy said.
After WFOS was again up and running, Garrison ran the station by himself for a few years until Raymond Jones, now director of WHRO/WHRV public radio, McCurdy and David Desler came on board to help initiate new ideas and directions.
Saving money was one of Garrison's biggest skills.
``Jack ran the station very cheaply,'' McCurdy said. ``He never asked for anything. He would simply build it, rebuild it or repair it.''
That same ideal of doing it cheaply and making do with next to nothing rubbed off on WFOS's current engineer, David Desler.
Desler is of the old school of broadcast engineering: skilled enough to make do with the materials on hand. Around the station he's known for keeping the place running with baling wire and spit. And he said he learned it all from Garrison.
``I owe him a lot,'' Desler said. ``We've been friends for 36 years and for all those years I've always called him the Great Sage. He was my mentor.''
Desler began his long association with Garrison when the two worked as cameraman and television engineer, respectively, at the old WVEC stations in Hampton, doing the news, and in Norfolk, where the two worked on the Bungles the Clown show.
``There was chemistry between us,'' Desler said. ``We hit it off right off the bat. We created some of the first special effects on local television here. We went through a lot.''
McCurdy said his radio experience prior to arriving at WFOS was learned on a part-time basis, working on weekends at stations such as WGH-FM and WMPH. But under Garrison, he said his experience and knowledge grew and flourished.
``Jack was an old-fashioned broadcaster. I'm glad I got to learn under him,'' he said. ``From him I got a taste of what real radio was like and what real radio should be.''
Both Desler and McCurdy said Garrison could be stubborn, opinionated and gruff like a drill sergeant. But he was also kind and generous to a fault and he loved his students.
``He demanded high standards from his students but he gave them independence and never breathed down their necks,'' McCurdy said. ``He loved having students around. And when he came back from time to time to visit the station he was surprised and thrilled at how the program had grown and how many students we have.''
``You learned a great work ethic from him,'' Babb said. ``All students he touched benefited from his life experiences. And you never got bored being around him. He was a master storyteller.''
Besides his engineering and teaching skills, Garrison was also an expert musician, having played string bass with trumpeter/bandleader Billy Butterfield; he was a weather freak and learned all there was to meteorology and forecasting; he loved to make his own wine; he founded the Society of Broadcast Engineers for Hampton Roads; and he was passionate about his Elizabeth River Power Squadron, teaching boating safety to many, many area residents.
``In an article written about him by Raymond (Jones) a few years ago,'' Desler recalled, ``he called Jack a renaissance man at the helm of 20th century technology. Amen to that. I loved him, and I will miss him.''
``Radio now is totally automated with targeted formats and no personality,'' McCurdy said. ``But here at WFOS we're still live. Jack would be proud of that.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo
Engineer Jack Garrison helped create radio station WFOS.
by CNB