WINTER HAVEN – The entire on-air staff at WGTO 540-AM said Friday that they will be leaving the station now that it has been sold and will change it’s country sound to religious programing.
     With the sale this week of the popular country station in Winter Haven, the end of a national award-winning country music area will come to an end.
     On Dec. 16, the station – now owned by Hubbard Broadcasting – will cease to play country music and sign off the air. It will sign back on again at 6a.m. as a gospel music station owned by Cypress Broadcasting Ltd.
     Some of the WGTO radio personalities have been at the station for as long as eight years in what is normally a transient business. The average time a radio personality spends at one station is about 18 months, according to broadcast officials.
The employees at WGTO on Friday talked about the change.
     “We were told they wanted to cut the staff and that means we’re out of work,” said Harry Sharp, 45, the station’s morning news man.
     “For the first time in seven years, I can take Christmas off without having to go to work,” said Jack Robson, 42, WGTO’s morning personality.
     Robson, who works from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. and has been with the station for three years, said he plans to visit his family in Pittsburgh during the holidays and then return to Central Florida to look for another job.
     “I could understand why the new owners want to change the format. Business is business. But it still hurts,” Robson said.
     Sharp, who does the news and character voices, said he wasn’t surprised by the format change, but was angry at the timing of the change.
“I’m upset with the timing. It could have been a little better,” Sharp said. Sharp said the change and his subsequent loss of a job could have been postponed by the new owners until after the holidays.
     He said he plans to move back to Fort Lauderdale and try to get a job as a consulting engineer.
     Jackie West, who does the station’s mid-day show from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. has been at the station for nearly 8 years.
     She said she will spend the first Christmas in 12 years off the air. She said the she will spend the day with her 4-year-old son. “It will be the first time we can spend a full Christmas together without me having to rush off to work,” she said.
     West said she is “burned out” on radio and will try to move into another career.
In 1981, West won national recognition for her talents.
     She received Country Music Association’s Small Market Disc Jockey of the Year award; one of the industries most prestigious honors.
     In 1976, when the sation switched from rock n’ roll to country, it won the CMA’s Small Market Radio Station of the Year award.
     Former disc jockey Terry Slaine in 1979 also won the CMA’s Disc Jockey of the Year award for small market stations, according the Program Director Henry Jay.
     Jay said this Christmas will be the first in 13 years that he won’t be going to work.
“Business is business. It was expected,” Jay said of the change. “There is no such thing as a 20-year job in radio.”
     He said he may land a job in Nashville, Tenn. with a record company.
     Station Manager Dick Bennick, who is also known as Dr. Paul Bearer on Channel 44, said he had been with the station for almost 15 years.
     Bennick, who started as the station’s morning man, said he doesn’t have any specific plans. He said he intends to continue playing Dr. Paul Bearer on television.
     The station will sign off the air at midnight the night of Dec. 15, according to Bennick.
     “We’ll play ‘Long Hard Ride’ by the Marshall Tucker Band as our last song,” Jay said. “It’s fitting because it’s the first song we played when we switched to country music,” he said.