WAKY Showcase Studios

[Travis]

How depressing to see what was once the front of the big 79 showcase studios as a *gulp* nail salon. During the early '70s the front desk receptionist was a young woman by the name of Marsha Lane. She was constantly doing her nails as she took phone calls and bellowed into a PA mic, "Johnny Randolph line one, Johnny Randolph line one." I guess I was seeing a bit of the building's future as I watched her. ;D

By the way, as I looked at the image of the rear of the building I couldn't help but wonder if they ever got the Grundy plate-reverb system out of there. It had become inadvertently walled-in during one construction phase and was rumored to still be there to this day.

[Mike Griffin]

Marsha burned her bra
she said she meant no harm

the fire department put it out
and called it a falsie alarm

---Gary Burbank on-air poem about Marsha

Despite Gary's poem Marsha was adequate and one of the most attractive of the receptionists. Gary and Marsha were good friends and she was often mentioned by him.

[Travis]

I liked Marsha. She was very nice, and very patient, to those of us who were always hanging around wanting to know about the radio biz.

She didn't appear to have a whole lot to do other than answer those never ending calls to the switchboard and page Randolph, Meyers and whoever. She did do some typing from time to time on an IBM Selectric which was a state-of-the-art typewriter of that day.

Somewhere, I have a letter sent to me by Johnny Randolph, inviting me to come down to the station to meet with him on how to get into broadcasting. This was a reply to a letter I had sent sometime in 1970 and it was before I had ever been inside the studios and before I had ever met him and Marsha Lane.

At the bottom of the letter are the initials: JR/ml

John had dictated the letter and Marsha had typed it. It's here somewhere and I'll find it (I hope).