Knowledge Bank

David Sonner describes his roughly four-year career at WOSU-Radio in the early 1960s, starting with how he obtained the position in September 1960 and the circumstances of his leaving the station in August or September of 1964. Sonner then discusses the various personnel who worked at the station and some of the programming that aired on the station at the time. He also discusses his trip to interview P.D. East, then publisher and editor of The Petal Paper, an anti-segregation newspaper in Petal, Mississippi. He describes how things were done at the station, and offers a number of anecdotal examples. He describes as well his recollections of A.V. Shirk’s departure from the station, and an experience he had covering a presidential campaign stop in Columbus by John Kennedy in 1960. The interview also includes an exchange of memories from Sonner and Shirk of then-music programming director Fred Calland.