March 5, 2007
 
Charleston's Jerry Waters Radio Show: Rest in Peace
 
By HNN Staff
 
Charleston's last remaining anti-establishment talk radio show, "The Jerry Waters Show," has been quietly put to sleep by Bristol Broadcasting, owners of such FM powerhouses as Electric 102 and WQBE. The nationally-syndicated "Glenn Beck Program" will fill the late morning slot Waters held for three years on WVTS-AM, Newstalk 950.
 
As has been noted by HNN before, Jerry Waters blended a lifelong local knowledge of Charleston with a contempt for those who would lecture its natives sons and daughters on tax increases, fee hikes, and the latest outrages from the statehouse.
 
However, Waters knew that attacking the status quo required a certain deft hand at humor, in order to make for an enjoyable radio programming. Thus, his listeners were treated to spoofs like Governor Joe Manchin and his lovely wife, Gayle, sprucing up the Governor's Mansion in "Fantasy Island" outfits. Manchin made a great Ricardo Montalban, but who knew that little Gayle would be a dead ringer for Herve Villachaise's cuddly "Tattoo?"
 
Or who could forget Waters teasing the Kanawha County Schools teachers who came back from an expensive (taxpayer-paid) seminar out west. They returned, enthusiastically preaching the need for "hydrating" the elementary school students, plying them with large bottles of water to help their brains work better throughout the day.
 
As always, Waters saw the obvious problem with this, and ran an audio parody of one of the teachers having to deal with their "hydrated" students needing to go to the bathroom constantly, preventing her from teaching.
 
But perhaps Waters' finest moment was in capturing the public's imagination on his website (www.mywvhome.com) with the outrageous spending and sales practices at Tamarack along I-77 near Beckley. "The Nation of Tamarack," he called it, detailing the extravagance for a poor state's arts and crafts center, one where the state has to pay upfront for the privilege of selling these artists' wares.
 
Waters made everyone who read his internet parody aware of the supreme lack of accountability of the West Virginia Turnpike Authority. It is not exaggeration to say that Waters' internet parody, sent all over the state via e-mails among friends, will bring the West Virginia Turnpike Authority to heel yet.
 
No state more than West Virginia and no town more than Charleston need independent voices in their media. For that reason alone, the end of the Jerry Waters Show is a significant loss. No other talk radio hosts in West Virginia currently have Waters' boldness to tell the truth about state and local happenings.
 
However, if the callers and listeners take what they've learned from Waters' example, they can stand up to the establishment, whether at the ballot box, with letters to the editor, or in meeting together to decide an appropriate plan of action.
 
The laughing ghost of Jerry Waters will be there among them...and approve.
 
Then he will forget all about it and go skydiving or ride his little green Miata somewhere with the top down. For Jerry Waters knows what all grounded talk radio hosts know: he was only the match, the spark--not the whole revolution.
 
The revolution is up to the people. If they want change, they will have it. If they don't, they won't.