Stenger

File photo | The Herald-Dispatch.  

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For years, Pete Stenger, host of “Wake Up and Sing,” his popular early
 morning  radio show on WSAZ, delighted in placing phone calls to his
 listeners. If the recipient would answer Stenger’s call by saying
“You always do better at Fetter’s,” he or she would win $10.

Stenger was born in Williamsport, Maryland, where the 1930
U.S. Census showed him as a 17-year-old worker at a local
tannery, still living in his parents’ home.

How Stenger got his start in broadcasting isn’t known,
 but he worked as program director at an Illinois radio
station before he came to Huntington in the mid-
1950s to become a radio announcer for WSAZ.

Assigned to air a morning shift at WSAZ, he quickly turned his
 program into the No. 1 morning show in the Huntington market.

He interspersed the records he played with corny jokes.
 His audience loved them. He delivered his commercials
live most of the time and his sponsors made
 it clear they wanted it that way.

In 1963, the popular DJ got a big birthday surprise when,
 after completing his show for the day, he exited the WSAZ
 studio to find a Baltimore & Ohio Railroad locomotive
waiting for him on the B&O track that paralleled the
studio. To the cheers of well-wishers, Stenger was
beckoned aboard the engine, was presented
a B&O engineer’s cap and then treated to
a four-mile train trip to his home.

In 1964, Stenger left Huntington for Florida but returned
 four years later to briefly work for two other Huntington
 stations, WVQM-FM and WWHY. He then moved
 back to Florida, where he died in 1981.

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Note:  This Article and picture appeared in the Herald-Dispatch Newspaper on April 9, 2024.

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