Unlike the other exhibits in this Collection, this one was not contributed by Dave Hedrick. It is, however, a (scoped) composite featuring Brother Dave Hedrick, Casey Jones and Rich Wood on Super 7 WZOO in Asheboro, N.C., in the Fall of 1972. This is an excerpt from a published feature in Volume I, Issue 8 of Programmer’s Digest, November 20, 1972.
Dave was WZOO Program Director at this time, and was involved in putting this station (710 Khz) on the air. The “ZOO” call letters were in anticipation of a plan to locate the North Carolina State Zoo in Asheboro, but Dave moved to Providence R.I. as P.D. of WJAR, consulted by WBT’s Tom McMurray, before the State Zoo opened in 1976.
As of 2008, WZOO-AM in Asheboro is a Christian Format. WZOO-FM is in Ohio.
This is a good old-fashioned highly-compressed, clean ‘scoped composite right off the air monitor – but this copy came from the Programmer’s Digest vinyl, so it’s not really high fidelity. It is a Top 40 radio station in the classic east coast tradition. Call Letters are no longer very important, but this “ZOO” was a great idea for a community-specific radio station, long before “The Zoo” in New York took on a completely different meaning.