Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 5, 1995                   TAG: 9504060037
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: MATT CHITTUM STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

COMMUNITY ACTIVIST AND RADIO PIONEER BURTON LEVINE DIES

He is remembered as a man devoted to his family and community first, and his business after that.

"He was a person that believed in the rights and dignities of all people. That's the best way to describe Burt Levine," said the Rev. Alfred Prunty of Salem, who served with Levine on Roanoke's Community Relations Task Force.

Levine bought WROV in 1955 and not long afterward hired ``Jivin' Jackson," Roanoke's first rock 'n' roll disc jockey. Because Levine saw rock 'n' roll as the future of radio, his 1,000-watt AM station soon was No.1 in the Roanoke Valley.

While raising six children, Levine and his wife, Muriel, operated the station together, she from an office at home, and he from an office at the station.

"We always looked on this as a family business and a business family," Levine said in 1988. Nearly all of Levine's children worked at the station at one time or another.

Robert Kennedy, known as "Rob O'Brady" when he was a disc jockey at the station, said the secret to Levine's success in radio was his ability to surround himself with creative on-air talent, such as Bart Prater and Larry Bly, and turn them loose.

"He let the creative side be creative," said Kennedy, now a salesman for the station.

The result was a mix of popular music, wacky sketches such as the daily installment of "Chicken Man," and lots of live, remote broadcasting.

Levine also used his radio station to serve the community. Kennedy said he always admired Levine for allowing him to devote part of his 40-hour work week to serving charities.

WROV was the king of radio in Roanoke until the early 1980s, when WXLK-FM burst onto the scene, taking a large cut of WROV's listeners and advertising revenues.

The rest of the 1980s were similarly distressing for Levine. In 1983, his wife suffered a ruptured cerebral aneurysm that left her in a coma until she died last December. In 1985, the station's studios and offices were flooded.

Levine finally sold the station in 1988 to Tom Joyner, owner of several other radio stations in North Carolina. Joyner added an FM sister station with the WROV name.

Levine stayed on as a consultant for two years, but began devoting more and more time to community affairs.

During his retirement, he was active in fund-raising for public radio station WVTF.

He was an executive committee member of Roanoke Valley Together, an organization promoting good racial and religious relations.

In 1991, he was named to Roanoke's Community Relations Task Force to study racial tensions and social problems in the city. Levine emerged as a spokesman for the group.

The task force focused on the Roanoke Police Department's hiring and promotion practices. It called for more black officers on the police force, and it got results.

Levine also spoke on behalf of the task force when it supported Sgt. David Clayton, who filed a complaint that he was not being promoted because he was black. Clayton eventually was promoted.

Prunty, a fellow task force member, said Levine will be greatly missed in the Roanoke Valley.

"It's so hard to find people with that depth of understanding to serve the community," Prunty said. "People with that much feeling for humanity."

Levine's funeral will be at 2 p.m. Thursday at Beth Israel Synagogue.