Many local residents have been long-time listeners of WFOS, but perhaps none more than Raymond Jones. As an eighth grader at Oscar Smith High School, he began working at the school-operated station. “I had my study hall arranged, so we'd sign on the station toward the end of the school day, and I'd carry on into the afternoon until about five o'clock,” Raymond said.

The station played both classical and popular music, and they would occasionally also broadcast the school’s basketball games. He and other students participated in their fair share of stunts also. He remembers playing with the PA system and a sounds effects record, and once accidentally setting the Venetian blinds in the studio on fire.

“But we were serious about the broadcasting,” he said. “Everybody had to learn the equipment, pass the test to get their FCC license, the whole bit. We wouldn't let you on the air unless you were qualified and ready. We had our fun moments but it was serious broadcasting, and it taught me to be a serious broadcaster, and those lessons stay with me to this day.”

He also experienced some serious moments on the air as a young broadcaster. One day, while in class, the principal interrupted his teacher and asked to see Raymond in the hall.

“I went out in the hallway and Mr. Eaves, our principal, said, ‘The president has been shot. You've got to put the station on right away and we'll give you information as it comes in,'” Raymond recalled. “They put a television out in the hallway outside of the station and had another student copying information, I guess off Walter Cronkite or somebody. They fed it in to me, and I played solemn music, and read announcements about the president being shot, and that the president was dead.”

In addition to announcing President Kennedy’s death, he also covered the funeral of General Douglas MacArthur. “I anchored that one over in Norfolk,” Raymond said. “ABC was next to me and they looked down, asked who I was and what I was doing, and when I told them high school radio they went, ‘Wow!’ and they gave me an audio feed of the whole service there at St. Paul's church.”

Besides his personal connection with WFOS, Raymond also had a family connection. His cousin married Oscar Frommel Smith, who was a local fertilizer magnate and civic leader, and she was the one who donated money to begin the station. He said working there through high school prepared him well for when he began his career in commercial radio.

“That's what got me started,” he said,” and 61 years later I'm still doing it, so I must have done something right.”

He is excited to once again be connected to WFOS now that it is the Time Machine Radio Network. “I'm like the proud grandfather looking at it and going, 'Yeah, that's my station,' Raymond explained. “I'm really tickled that it's part of the WHRO family. When I end my broadcasting days, I will end up pretty much where I started.”

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Visit timemachineradio.org to learn more about the Time Machine Radio Network.

Learn more about Raymond Jones' career.

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