Radio Icon Was Avid John Battle Baseball Fan, Players’ Friend

He was a radio icon in the Tri-Cities region, but many people in Bristol remember Bill Blake as the announcer for John Battle High School baseball games and a friend to the ballplayers.

“Not only was he a fan, he became part of our team and was like a surrogate father to some of our boys,” said Jimmy King, who coached the team for seven years.

“He was an avid fan of baseball and he became attached to some of the kids his wife (an art teacher at John Battle) had in class,” King said. “He started attending our games and never missed. “

Blake, the leader of the “Morning Air Show” on WXBQ 96.9 from 1992 until his retirement in 2004, died Friday at his home in Abingdon. He is survived by his wife, Thelma Vannoy Blake; his son, William F. Blake II, daughter-in-law Vicki Blake, and grandson William Alan Blake of Plano, Texas; and, his sister Mary Alice Casebolt of Mount Hope, West Virginia.

Per his request, his remains will be cremated and scattered among the towers in the field behind the WXBQ studios. And his family requests that in lieu of flowers, donations should be made to the Bill Blake Scholarship Fund for high school baseball players that will be established at Highland Unions Bank.

During his radio show, Blake created and gave voice to several characters, most notably “Jim Nasium,” which evolved as a local cultural icon. 

Blake’s leadership of the morning show consistently earned the highest ratings in the Tri-Cities market and, more than once, he received recognition from Arbitron Radio Ratings and Media Research as the highest-rated country music morning show in the nation.

He also served many years announcing those baseball games.

King said during his tenure as coach, Blake missed only one game, and blamed it on the newspaper, because it had the wrong field listed, after a last-minute change was made.

Blake’s radio career began when he was a teenager working for a small station near Grundy. He attended Bluefield College for a while, but wanted to continue working in radio. In 1962, he teamed with Pete Nininger to bring rock & roll radio to the Tri-Cities on WFHG-AM.  Their success earned Blake a 1963 industry award from Billboard Magazine as the “#1 Program Director of the Year.”

In 1967, Blake and Nininger founded a new radio station, WKAZ-AM in Charleston, W.Va., the promotion of which included Blake’s 1968 candidacy for the West Virginia governorship with the slogan, “Put a Swinger in the State House.”

During the next two decades, Blake operated radio stations in West Virginia, Florida, Louisiana, Texas and Georgia. He also served in leadership roles with the Cincinnati Reds Broadcasting Network and national, state, and local broadcasting associations. 

In Midland, Texas, in 1987, Blake led a fundraising effort to rebuild a Christian radio station destroyed by arsonists. Ultimately, however, the professional accomplishment he cherished the most was his return to his Bristol origins, his friends said.

Blake married Damascus native Thelma Vannoy in October, 1967. The following September, Blake broadcast the birth of his son, William, live on the radio.

His contributions to community included service as a sergeant and engineer in the Army National Guard of Virginia, membership in hospital and public boards, as a lay minister in the United Methodist Church, and fundraising efforts with numerous charities.  He delighted in working with local young people, particularly in the counseling of John S. Battle High School baseball players and in guiding them in preparations to take the Scholastic Aptitude Test.

King said he’d have study sessions for the players at his house.

“The parents were as close to him as the players, so he was somewhat special,” King said. “You never shook Bill’s hand, you gave him a hug. That’s how he interacted with our players and they just thought the world of him.”