Early years WCGC was started by Robert Richard Hilker, signing on the air on December 11, 1954. The 5,000-watt radio station was put on the air with a transmitter Hilker built from a Heathkit model. He applied to the
Federal Communications Commission for a radio station
construction permit. Hilker also built the Suburban Radio Group which owned and operated 11 AM and FM radio stations and also put on two television stations,
WJZY-TV in Charlotte and another in Morehead City. At the time of Hilker's death, the radio station was still using the transmitter he built as a backup for the now computerized WCGC main system. Born in
Winston-Salem, he served in the
U.S. Navy and established Cablevision Companies in Gaston County and the Lake Norman area as well at Charlotte television station WJZY-TV. He was past Chairman of the National Association of Broadcasters Radio Board, served on the boards of numerous national broadcasting associations and civic organizations and was inducted into the N.C. Broadcasters Hall of Fame.
WCGC personalities Ebb Gantt had played
football for Belmont High School and
Belmont Abbey College. He later became the radio voice for both teams as well as
Davidson College. (The high school later consolidated with
Cramerton High to form
South Point High School.) Gantt served as a WCGC sportscaster, beginning in the late 1950s. Gantt later became the station's general manager and retired in 1980. Screenwriter and filmmaker
Richard O'Sullivan worked as an on-air personality at WCGC in the late eighties. Jack LaFaivre, who went on to jobs at
WXII and
WSJS in
Winston-Salem, North Carolina, worked at WCGC after graduating from Belmont Abbey. Other local broadcasters spent time at WCGC including Joe McLaney, who went on to
WBT 1110 as Production Director, and Bob Brandon, formerly of WSOC-FM and Clear Channel Charlotte.
Baseball In 1986, the
Atlanta Braves of
Major League Baseball were dropped by
WSOC 930 AM. To bring professional baseball games back to the Charlotte market, WCGC picked up the
Baltimore Orioles. WJZY-TV, a TV station which shared a building with WCGC in its early days, also aired the Orioles. WCGC also broadcast all games of the
minor league baseball Gastonia Rangers. Some of the games were to be tape-delayed if they conflicted with South Point High School football, but WCGC agreed to carry the baseball games live if the team made the playoffs.
WGNC in
Gastonia took over the broadcasts in 1990 In 1993, WCGC decided to carry
Cleveland Indians games. Rev. Charles Beasley had a Sunday morning show on WCGC until general manager Jim Mintzer found out he was grand dragon of the Christian Knights of the
Ku Klux Klan. Protestors from four states showed up at city hall and the radio station. They protested without incident, though law enforcement officers stood by just in case anything happened. WCGC had been on the air 35 years in June 1989 when Suburban Radio Group, owner of 11 radio stations, sold its flagship station in
Belmont to Mintzer. The radio group remained in the building with WCGC, and no major format changes were planned. WCGC played
country music except on Sundays, when the station aired
religious programming.
Change to Talk In January 1994, WCGC made the switch to
talk radio, with shows such as
G. Gordon Liddy,
Larry King and
Pat Buchanan. Locally, Chris Vaughn began a 30-minute talk show with a
conservative focus, which expanded to 90 minutes in June. Another local host was John Sullivan, who moved to WNMX 1480 AM (now
WGFY) in 1996. In August 1995, newspaper
parenting columnist
John Rosemond began a talk show on
WSIC in
Statesville, which WCGC also aired. In 1996, WCGC carried
West Mecklenburg High School Friday night football games on Saturday mornings. In 1997, WCGC became the Charlotte-area
affiliate for the
National Hockey League Carolina Hurricanes Radio Network. It was the team's first season playing in North Carolina. In July 1998, Mintzer sold WCGC to the owners of
WHVN 1240 AM. However, WCGC continued to make news for an incident on the "Wakin' Up with Java John" morning show. John Wall, a Gastonia city employee, sued talk show host John Hunsucker and Mintzer. He claimed
derogatory comments were made by an anonymous caller known as "Slim Jim" during a five-month period while Mintzer owned the station. Mintzer said WCGC broadcast
disclaimers telling listeners that callers' opinions were not those of the station. A jury awarded $10,500 to Wall, leading
Penn State journalism professor Robert Richards, also director of the
Pennsylvania Center for the First Amendment, to regard this case as yet another potential limit on
freedom of speech. WCGC began
simulcasting WHVN's programming most of the time but continued to carry separate sports programs, as well as
Metropolitan Opera radio broadcasts.
Catholic programming On February 1, 2019, The Carolina Catholic Radio Network entered into a
Local Marketing Agreement (LMA) with GHB Broadcasting to operate WCGC. The majority of the programming would come from the national Catholic network,
EWTN. The building on Wilkinson Boulevard was sold in November 2018 and the station moved to
Belmont Abbey College. Despite the changes, WCGC continued to air South Point football games as well as football games from
Appalachian State University. In 2020, WCGC was
off the air for a short time when Carolina Catholic Radio Network filed to purchase the station for $210,000 from GHB. ==References==