Remembering Miz Liz ...

In 1981 I became the PD/OM at WRNL/AM910 in Richmond VA.  GM Greg Pearson hired me to bring his AM up to speed; the FM was a Burkhart/Abrams Superstars client and was doing just fine against the competition, Top 40 WRVQ/Q94FM.

Greg felt that bringing the station up in tempo as an AC and making an extra effort in news might make the station a better competitor to 50kw WRVA.  It was clear to me that that was a battle that we weren't really prepared to fight and I considered a new way to go.  Eventually we'd go country and we did okay.

In the meantime, I started looking around at my resources.  The station was owned by Bill Rust, in a 1950's concrete and brick structure at the base of the antenna field at Bethlehem Road and Broad Streets in West Richmond.  The back office staff was all solid.  Then I discovered the music library, a huge room in the exact middle of the building, with shelf after shelf, floor to ceiling, filled with LP's and all managed and curated by one little tiny wig-wearing lady in her early seventies named Liz Underwood.

Liz had been the "station musician" who played the organ for music and religious programs (the organ was a Hammond B3 with Leslie Rotator speakers; more on that later) back when WRNL had such shows and then, when there was no longer a need for a full-time keyboard player, was "promoted" to "station music librarian."

Ms. Underwood poured her aged and still considerable energy into filing albums and reconciling tracks. All music that came into the station, for the AM or the FM, first went to her.  She logged it into a notebook, labeled the LP jacket, and noted any hits.  As you can imagine, this was a great dodge for format PD's.

If you wanted a record to use on the air or to review for a playlist add, you just asked Liz.  In minutes she'd be walking down the hallways between the AM and FM PD's offices with the appropriate album.

Eventually, the station's PD's had their record mail delivered to their offices and this pretty much broke Liz' heart, when she could no longer file new music into her filing system, which she once told me "began at number one."

Bill Rust sold the stations to Jim Goodmon's Capitol Broadcasting and Jim gave Liz a full and complete retirement package, including medical coverage.  The Rust family insisted on it.  But I think that Goodmon would have done it nonetheless.

Liz Underwood passed away a couple years after I left Richmond in 1985.