Bad news travels fast. Word that the radio industry had lost a legend hustled around NE PA in a big hurry.
George Gilbert died Saturday night at home, surrounded by family. George was 76. George Gilbert was a great guy.
Really wanting to post pictures of George caused me to raid two other blogs.
I'm sure my pals(and fellow bloggers) Kevin Jordan and David Yonki won't mind me borrowing their photos.
When I first met George in late 1978, his hair had completely grayed, and he'd acquired that distinguished look which many seem fortunate enough to have come upon them in their 40s and 50s.
To say that WARM owned radio hereabouts for years may be understatement. WARM was radio hereabouts. There was WARM........then there was everyone else.
WARM wannabes were all over the place, not one of them ever breathed the same rarefied air. The Mighty 590 had the summit all to itself.
Monster ratings, air personalities known by everyone - known by name and voice, the best radio news department between here and Philly, here and NYC, and probably here and Syracuse.
People in that time didn't live in Nanticoke, or Laceyville, or Dunmore, they lived in WARMland. If you think that's nuts, just ask around, ask folks in their late 40s, in their 50s, and beyond. We all lived in WARMland. WARMland was a very real place to many people, it was wherever you could listen to WARM, and WARM was everywhere.
People in that time didn't live in Nanticoke, or Laceyville, or Dunmore, they lived in WARMland. If you think that's nuts, just ask around, ask folks in their late 40s, in their 50s, and beyond. We all lived in WARMland. WARMland was a very real place to many people, it was wherever you could listen to WARM, and WARM was everywhere.
That unprecedented and verifiable success was pretty much the doing of one man. That man was George Gilbert Schumacher.
George created, crafted, babied, coaxed, and shaped into existence the sound that made WARM a household word. It wasn't just a radio station, it was literally a way of life. WARM was an enormous component of each and every day in NE PA for decades. George could have easily taken full credit for all of that...but he never seemed to be interested in doing so.
In accomplishing so much, George launched a lot of broadcasting careers. Mine included. More accurately, George Gilbert redirected the course of my career, such as it was. If not for George, the strong likelihood is that my life would have been spent somewhere west, far west. My immediate goal in 1978 was a job in Dallas, Texas, a job "promised" me by a radio group programming chief the second it became open. If it ever became open, I don't know. If my phone in Williamsport did ring with news of that job, no one was there answer it.
In 1978 my phone had already rung. On the other end, George Gilbert.
The mention of the name both stunned and numbed me. George was a devotee of economy when it came to words. If he had nothing worthwhile to say, he didn't. Unlike most of us blabbermouths who stumble into broadcasting, George was in reality a quiet guy. However, don't mistake the man's quiet for a lack of presence, for George was a very powerful presence. He possessed a presence that could fill a room.
He called because he had this job that I might be interested in pursuing. Thinking back on it, I can tell you with complete certainty that he told me the job was mine, if I wanted it. Before that phone call, I had never met George Gilbert, but knew him well, and had known him well since I was a kid, by name, by reputation, and by that fine baritone voice of his. He was The Mighty 590, he was WARM, he was Double-G.
Taking up George on his offer and accepting the early mid-day shift on WARM literally set the course my life would follow up until this very day. Although I spent seven years at WARM, George's time there was coming to an end as mine began. My guess is that we spent just about a year working together, during which I came to really like George Gilbert. From that first minute through the door at WARM it was clear that this guy was well-liked, beloved may have been more like it. Getting to know and like George was a package deal; you got to feel the same way about his family, too. What a genuinely nice, friendly, and sincere bunch of folks.
GG needed a challenge and a change. He went to Williamsport, where he would take a stodgy, block-programmed, simulcasting AM/FM combo and morph it into something magnificent, not to mention highly successful. I always thought it amusing that George went there after bringing me from there to here. As an aside to other dear friends Gary Chrisman and Ken Sawyer, I do hope they realize that they likewise share George's legacy as so many of us do.
GG needed a challenge and a change. He went to Williamsport, where he would take a stodgy, block-programmed, simulcasting AM/FM combo and morph it into something magnificent, not to mention highly successful. I always thought it amusing that George went there after bringing me from there to here. As an aside to other dear friends Gary Chrisman and Ken Sawyer, I do hope they realize that they likewise share George's legacy as so many of us do.
Now, he's gone.
My life is better for having known George Gilbert Schumacher. No doubt countless others can and will say the same. I hope that brings comfort to his wife and kids, they deserve no less. I honestly believe that's about all George would have wanted.
