Sports Voice from the Past- Listen

In 1976, Bill Singer and Phil Allen opened the doors of a broadcasting school that with a desire that individuals who wanted to pursue a career in radio broadcasting could come and learn the professional way  and right way to be broadcaster.

While many schools have popped up and colleges offering course and degrees in broadcasting, Phil and Bill felt something was missing.

"Your style is your ticket," Bill said in an interview with Arnold Ropek of the Trenton Times.

The school which began on Calhoun Street in Trenton moved to 5th street in the 1980's. The philosophy of the school was to keep classes to no more than four students at a time while working with each individual one on one at the end of the session.

Whether a student wanted to learn news, disc-jockey or voice over work, a tailor-made schedule was created to fit a students needs both for desire in a certain radio job as well as working around a regular 40-hour a week job.

The moment you walked into the "studios" something magical happened. There were two sides so that a group of four students could be split up and interchange between a disc-jockey show and delivering news.

Bill was stickler for proper pronunciation. A first time a student would read the intro on the news heading, he or she would always pronounce the call letter double-ya A-S-B-.  Of course, we ere politely corrected that the correct way was double-u- A-S-B-.   Of course, we could not for get that the word radio, was stretched out to sound like ray-dee-o.   And so from the first lesson of radio announcing to graduation day, the gentle, positive manor of Bill filled both studios, that simulated a real radio station.

Each studio was equipped with turn tables, cassette decks, reel-to-reel recorders and the "board" itself.  Bill would hand a student a "log" of the commercials, both live and on cart (they look like 8-tracks that you can see through) and a weather forecast.

Depending on the students taste, they picked out their own music and that was fitted into the format for the night.  Each session was recorded so that Bill could go over the log with the student and critique the performance.

As often was the norm, Bill made students strive to do better the next session and always left the student with a positive word of encouragement at the end of a class.

There are three times, Bill would say, during the 50-class session that a student turned a corner and he always marked that day with a star next to it in his log book.

Bill's laid back style made it a natural that students would hang out with him long after the class was over and even come back after they graduate.

There are many faces of those individuals who became Bill's extended family that will continue to carry on the legacy of the man. Those voice faces continue today what they shared the microphone at 95 Radio, WASB... to bring what radio will always be known as, "The Theater of the Mind," the right way and professional way to millions of listeners.