Riley always kew what he wanted to do. A child of the ‘40s, there wasn’t any Rock & Roll music, so he grew up appreciating all types of music – big band, mostly. When not selling insurance, his dad’s greatest fun was playing sax and clarinet with local dance bands on weekends. There was always music in the house.
While attending high school in northeastern Illinois, Ron swung his life plan into action when WKRS-Waukegan had a contest to get a student reporter to do high school news. Ron won that contest, and got to do it once a week.
During a stint at the University of Wisconsin Ron snagged a shift at the WHA campus station, playing classical music. He arrived there with his high voice, and mispronounced all of the classical names. All the professors who loved classical music called the station and told them how awful he was!
Another one of Ron's early radio jobs was at WLBK, in DeKalb, Illinois. It was March of 1954, and based on $1.00 an hour for 40 hours a week, along with up to 16 hours of overtime, Ron could rake in a cool $277.33 per month.
WLBK tried to please all the people all the time, but no Rock & Roll. The station did everything, but not much in music. The commodities reports at noon, corn report, and a polka show at night. Adding insult to injury, Ron migrated back home to work for WKRS/Waukegan, where he was known as “Polka Ron” for their afternoon show.
With Nancy Sinatra 1967.
Dave Crosby & Jim McGuinn of the Byrds
The Blues Magoos
The Hollies
Chad & JeremyAnd that was his first real morning show/disc jockey job. They had different names for everyone on the air, and the sales manager had just come back from a fishing trip on Lake Riley and he gave Ron the name Smiley Riley. Riley found Appleton okay, but the whole time he was there, he wanted to go to Milwaukee. Ron was so excited when they finally offered him a stint as the all-night guy there. They paid him $90!
Riley was doing the all night show in Milwaukee, but he was in the Reserves and they called him up for active duty. He spent the next two years in the Navy. When he came back from the service, he landed a job at KXOK in St. Louis. It was a rock station, and those stations were on the move at the time. But shortly after he started KXOK hired a new program director, and Ron was fired in three months.
Riley was doing the all night show in Milwaukee, but he was in the Reserves and they called him up for active duty. He spent the next two years in the Navy. When he came back from the service, he landed a job at KXOK in St. Louis. It was a rock station, and those stations were on the move at the time. But shortly after he started KXOK hired a new program director, and Ron was fired in three months.
Ron went to WJJD in Chicago on a part time basis. They were doing country music at the time. According to Riley this is what happened next. “I knew Gene Taylor at WLS, and so I called him to ask about a job. He said he didn’t have anything for me. I got a part time offer in Cleveland, but it wasn’t set to start for awhile, so I called Milwaukee, and they asked me if I could do a few weeks of afternoon drive, as a fill-in. Afternoon drive? Really? Sure. I was living in Lincolnshire at the time, so it was a no-brainer. I had no sooner set the phone down when Gene Taylor called again, and asked me to fill in on the all-night show on WLS!”
So Ron did both jobs for awhile. He would drive up to Milwaukee, do the afternoon show, drive back to Lincolnshire, sleep a few hours, and then go downtown and do the overnight show on WLS. Luckily, that only lasted a few weeks.
Here's Ron behind the WLS microphone on October 11, 1968. [ LISTEN ]
It's a cold snowy Tuesday night as this scoped aircheck finds Ron playing the hits. Classic commercials are included as Ron is living the life of Riley...
Ron at WLS on August 25-26, 1967.September 1, 1967
Ron ended up going to Cleveland, and was enjoying his time there with a great team, and suddenly the Biondi thing at WLS blew up. He got blown out for getting into a fight about the number of commercials on his show. In no time, Clark Weber called to say that WLS management wanted to add some talent, and had already narrowed down the list to two people, and Ron was one of them.
WLS offered Ron the job soon after. He knew this was his big break. Out of the gate Art Roberts and Ron were tuned into the younger demos at night. The people that ran the station had the insight to leave them alone and let them do what they thought was right.
They developed their own characters within the format. If they saw a trend, they jumped on it, and management would back them. The Beatles came on the scene, and the station got the record company to back them.
The competition between WLS and cross town rival WCFL was fierce, and the boys at WLS weren’t used to sharing the audience. The kids started switching back and forth between the stations, and that changed what it was like behind the scenes at WLS.
A very memorable thing from Riley's time at WLS was his connection to the show “Batman.” He gave updates on the air to people listening on the radio. The PR department came up with The Batman Club, and got a Batman suit from Hollywood, and the station did a promo at Channel 7. They made up a fan club card, buttons, and bumper stickers - and it was way bigger than anyone thought it would be. Someone sent Ron a picture of a tank in Vietnam with his bumper sticker on it. When the club started, about 5000 stickers were printed up, but it ended up 100,000!
Ron even got a cameo on the show. The title of the episode was called “Ice Spy.” He flew out to Hollywood with his brother, where he found he had his own trailer, a costume, and seven words in the script. He was playing an usher in an ice rink, where he spoke his line...“Mr. Wayne you have a phone call.”
With Clark Weberat WLSRon couldn’t change. He tried, but he didn’t like it. And eventually they found a reason to let him go.
Ron left WLS in 1969. After a short stay at WCFL, he moved to Baltimore to program WCAO-AM and WXYV-FM. In Baltimore, Ron got into TV hosting "Bowling for Dollars", as he exited radio and became a full time TV weatherman. Ron also worked in the tourism business for the city of Baltimore as well as the Philadelphia Convention and Visitors Bureau. Ron now does the morning weather at NewsChannel 8 in Washington DC, where he has been since 1994.
