Listen to a podcast discussion about this article.
If you grew up in Beaver County anytime in the last seventy-five years, your childhood probably had a soundtrack. Not from New York, Los Angeles, or some algorithm in a hoodie, but from a modest room above a restaurant, a tire shop, or a converted house on a street you’ve driven past without noticing.
Before satellites and streaming playlists began doing our listening for us, Beaver County had two steady companions on the dial: WBVP (1230 AM) in Beaver Falls and WMBA (1460 AM) in Ambridge. They were not glamorous. They were not especially powerful. But they were ours.
And in Beaver County, that has always mattered.
Radio arrived here in earnest on May 25, 1948, when WBVP signed on the air. Its founders—Frank Smith of Pittsburgh’s WWSW, Thomas Price, and Charles Onderka—pooled roughly $25,000 to launch a 250-watt station at 1230 on the AM dial. That was enough power to reach a good share of the county and perhaps rattle a saucepan in Koppel if the atmosphere was feeling cooperative.
The first studio was on the third floor above the Rio Grill on Seventh Avenue in Beaver Falls, a location that practically guaranteed authenticity. It’s hard to sound pretentious when the smell of dinner is rising through the floorboards.
The first voice belonged to announcer Chuck Wilson: “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. WBVP now takes to the air.”
And just like that, Beaver County had a voice—and, as it turned out, a motto. WBVP liked to say its call letters stood for “We Boost Valley Progress,” which in Beaver County was less a slogan than a job description. The station wasn’t just reporting on the community; it was rooting for it.
What followed was not simply broadcasting. It was civic conversation. WBVP carried news, music, sports, community announcements, and local talk. You might hear about a church supper, a school board quarrel, a high school football score, and the weather before anyone had thought to brand rain as “Storm Team Coverage.”
The early staff included Arnold Felsher, George Allen, Gerry Goff, Don Kennedy, Alan Boal, Ernie Kline, and Gertrude Trobe, one of the country’s pioneering full-time Women’s Directors. Trobe’s program, “You and Your Home,” spoke to an audience the larger broadcasting industry often treated as background scenery, despite the fact that women were running most of the households, budgets, meals, calendars, and emotional traffic control systems in America.
Kline, meanwhile, would later carry his microphone training into public life, becoming Pennsylvania’s lieutenant governor. In Beaver County, this seems about right. A man could go from radio to politics without changing professions entirely. In both, you talked into a microphone and hoped somebody believed you.
For a brief moment, the county had a third station, WRYO at 1050 AM, which signed on in 1949 from Rochester Township. It struggled, moved to Butler, and became WBUT, departing like a guest who realized he had walked into the wrong wedding reception.
By 1957, Beaver County was ready for a second lasting voice. WMBA signed on in Ambridge, operated by Miners Broadcasting Service. It began as a 500-watt daytime-only station at 1460 AM, with studios above Action Tire on Duss Avenue and towers in Bell Acres.
This, too, was perfect. Only in local radio could a county’s public square be located above a tire shop.
WMBA brought its own sound and personality. Early figures included Ken Maguire, Roy Angst, Dave Denniston, Dudley “Woody” Lester, and engineer Walter “Red” McCoy. Over time, especially under later owner John Bride, WMBA leaned into a more contemporary mix of talk and Top 40 music. WBVP and WMBA became friendly rivals, the sort of stations listeners moved between depending on whether they wanted the steady narrator or the livelier neighbor.
By the 1960s and 1970s, both stations were growing up along with the county. WBVP added an FM sister station in 1960 at 106.7 MHz. In 1967, Hall Communications bought WBVP-AM/FM, bringing studio moves and technical upgrades. A 517-foot tower went up in Pulaski Township in 1975, WBVP increased power to 1,000 watts, and the FM eventually became WWKS, “Kiss FM.”
WMBA changed hands in 1970 when John Bride bought the station and introduced a more contemporary format. In the 1980s, Ambridge native Donn Wuycik bought WMBA and helped bring it into 24-hour operation with new towers and directional patterns. No longer did the station have to go quiet at sunset, like a child told to come inside before dark.
Then came the day Beaver Falls briefly became a point on the national communications map.
In April 1981, only weeks after surviving an assassination attempt, President Ronald Reagan made a surprise call to WBVP during a morning talk show hosted by Dave Felts. Reagan was trying to reach Congressman Eugene “Gene” Atkinson, who happened to be a guest on the program. The call first came through the business line, because even presidents occasionally have to navigate local switchboards.
During a commercial break, Reagan spoke privately with Atkinson. Then, at the suggestion of station personnel, Atkinson asked whether the president would go live. Reagan agreed.
For roughly two minutes, WBVP was no longer merely a Beaver Falls station. It was a national stage. Reagan reassured listeners that he was “just fine,” thanked Americans for their prayers and good wishes, and gave the station one of the most famous moments in Beaver County broadcasting history. The BBC noticed. Reporters called. WBVP won a Spot News Award from the Pennsylvania Association of Broadcasters.
Not bad for a station whose founding mission was to “boost valley progress.”
The deeper legacy, though, lies in the talent these stations produced. WBVP and WMBA became a kind of farm system for Pittsburgh and beyond. Bob Pompeani began doing high school sports on WMBA before becoming one of Pittsburgh’s most familiar television sportscasters. Chris Shovlin built a career that eventually landed him in the Pennsylvania Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame. Guy Junker went from WMBA to a long run in Pittsburgh television. Jim Merkel moved from local radio into a national voice career.
And Rob Pratte—another Beaver County radio alumnus—still broadcasts on KDKA Radio, proof that the old local-radio apprenticeship could produce voices durable enough to survive every technological revolution short of the toaster becoming a podcast host.
The list goes on: Julie Bologna, Bob Barrickman, Don Kennedy, Eddy Crow, Mike Romigh, Sam Nicotero, John Poister, Tim Herrera, Barb Trehar, and many others. Some became famous. Some simply became very good. Local radio demanded versatility. You might read the news, sell an ad, call a basketball game, interview a county commissioner, cue a record, and fix a balky machine before lunch.
By the 1990s and 2000s, the business changed. Ownership shifted. In 2000, Frank Iorio Jr., owner of WBVP, acquired WMBA and consolidated operations in Beaver Falls. Former competitors became partners, sharing programming while preserving pieces of their identities.
In 2014, Mark and Cynthia Peterson bought the stations and rebranded them as Beaver County Radio, adding FM translators, streaming, and a digital presence that extended far beyond the reach of a 1,000-watt signal. In 2021, the stations were sold to St. Barnabas Broadcasting. In 2023, WMBA shifted to a country-rock format as “The Beaver 95.7,” while WBVP continued its news and talk tradition.
It would be easy now to declare the golden age of local radio over. But that would miss the point.
The value of Beaver County radio was never simply the signal. It was the connection. These stations told us what was happening not just in the world, but down the street. They announced the fish fry, covered the school board meeting, aired the obituaries, carried the ballgame, and made a county of mills, bridges, churches, and stubborn opinions feel like one place.
They gave Beaver County something every community needs and fewer now possess: a common voice.
And it all began with one sentence, spoken from a room above a Beaver Falls restaurant:
“WBVP now takes to the air.”
