SIDNEY — There’s been a changing of the guard — make that voice — at the radio stations in Sidney and Piqua.
Long-time Sidney disc jockey Joe Laber left WMVR 105.5 TAM FM, Friday, and is already hosting a morning show for WPTW in Piqua. Former Tuesday/Thursday afternoon DJ at WMVR Kyle Winner has taken over the morning slot in Sidney.
Residents in Miami and Shelby counties can receive both stations. The two DJs live in Troy.
“It was time to be closer to home,” Laber said, Tuesday, about his defection to Piqua. “And I felt I’d taken WMVR to the next level and it was time for someone else to take the reins.”
He’s now ready to take WPTW to the next level.
“You’ve done everything you can to make change and make something successful, and then it’s time to move on and do it somewhere else. I always enjoy a challenge,” Laber said.
For his part, Winner looks forward to “building relationships with my audience and bringing myself to the station. I don’t view radio as a challenge,” he said.
His job at WMVR is Winner’s first commercial radio position. Self-taught by using You Tube videos and researching the Internet, the 20-year-old began dabbling with recording podcasts when he was 12. He began his on-air career at a low-frequency station in Rockford three years ago.
Laber graduated from Troy High School in 1990 and from the International College of Broadcasting in 1991. His first job was in the very studio where he is now, at WPTW, 26 years ago.
“I was working overnights, changing reels, cleaning carts, sweeping. Keeping FM and AM on the air was the No. 1 goal,” he said. The radio business changed as Laber changed along with it, talking into microphones at stations in Greenville, Middletown and Dayton, as well as Sidney. For awhile, he was the station manager of a Christian music station in Dayton.
“I’m not a very good manager,” he admitted. In Piqua, he’s learning another new system. When, during his interview with the Sidney Daily News in his second day on the job, he couldn’t fade from local to network content, he didn’t bat an eye. The veteran radioman stayed cool, calm and collected and continued to program songs locally until he got instructions to fix the problem. His listeners never knew anything was amiss.
Laber’s new morning show is titled “A Cup of Joe.” WMVR listeners will tune into “The Morning Mile with Kyle.”
“The morning mile is four hours of getting through waking up and getting to work,” Winner said. “We want to be a part of that. We want to entertain (listeners).”
He plans to continue the on-air visits with local community leaders, a programming idea that Laber wants to enhance in Piqua. Fans of both stations are likely to hear some changes as the two men get settled into their new positions.
“It’s an exciting horizon for me and the listeners. Changes will come,” Winner said.
“Kyle’s very fresh,” said WMVR General Manager Loretta Kinney. “He has ideas and knowledge that we needed. He is a go-getter. We needed someone to help us get his age group (to tune in).”
Kinney was adamant that the station’s involvement in promoting and supporting local nonprofit and charity efforts would continue.
“Stuff the Bus, Free to Be a Kid Day (both are Sidney-based events sponsored by WMVR) — we’re not giving them up. We want to help communities with things they’re failing at, like the heroin epidemic,” Kinney said. “When we get thank-you cards from people we helped with a special event, that’s when we know we’ve made a difference.”
When Laber announced on social media that he was changing stations, “it blew up on Facebook,” he said. “The biggest question I get is, ‘Are you leaving SCARF?’” Laber and his wife, Nicole, helped to found the Shelby County Animal Rescue Foundation and have been very active in SCARF’s current capital campaign drive to build a new animal shelter in Sidney.
“My wife and I are on the SCARF board and we will stay on the board. I want to see us get all the money we need and build that animal shelter,” he said. He also noted that WPTW broadcasts in Shelby and Darke, as well as Miami, counties, so “you’ll still see Joe Laber out and about in Shelby County and Sidney, just not every day.”
While Winner credits the Internet with teaching him what he knows, Laber tips his hat to a Dayton DJ known as Wild Willy.
“I listened to him. I wanted to be him. And then I got to work with him,” Laber said of Mike Schneider. He’s not done learning.
“I listen to radio for a creative standpoint. I stream music from stations all across the country. I’m always listening to radio just to learn,” he said.
Millennial that he is, Winner returns to Internet for instruction and inspiration. He goes over new music ideas with fellow WMVR DJ Derek Olding. They decide together if the music will fit TAM’s variety format.
Laber hopes to establish for his new listeners some of the programming ideas he instituted in Sidney, including a Best Furry Friend segment to promote pet adoption and on-air discussions with community leaders. Winner wants to continue those traditions and expand on them.
“Joe was great,” said Kinney. “We’re looking forward to everybody’s getting to know Kyle. With change, there’s always a shock. Once everyone is calmed from the shock of the transition, they’re going to really like him.”
