Howie Chizek Collection

Howie Chizek
(1947 – 2012)

When people think of the Greats of Radio they think of Cousin Brucie, Wolfman Jack, Don Imus, Rush Limbaugh, and Howard Stern. But, for 38 years tucked away in a little family owned radio station in Kent, Ohio, listeners of WKNT and later WNIR were listening Monday through Friday from 10AM to 3PM and Saturdays from 9AM to noon live on remote from Klaben Auto Group in Kent to Howie Chizek.

Born in Cleveland Heights, Ohio in 1947, Howie Chizek loved to perform. In high school, he was in the choir and even helped found a local Rock and Roll band. When he and his classmates went to Cle-town Records to record a song that Howie wrote called I'm a Runaway, where he was also lead guitar and lead vocals, the record producer asked what the group's name was. They looked at the title of the song and said, the Runaways. The B Side was It Can't Be Long. The Runaways broke up in 1965 when Howie left for college at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio.

In 1974, Howie was traveling from Cleveland to Youngstown to work at station WBBW when the owner of MediaCom, who had bought WKNT in Kent, Ohio lured Howie to his station. At the time, WKNT was a mix of talk and adult contemporary music. Howie would be hosting a five day a week five hour talk show from 10AM to 3PM. By 1979, WKNT became WNIR dubbed "Winner Radio" and went all talk by then with Stan Piatt in the mornings, Howie Chizek midday, a swap and shop program in the afternoons, and at night; Jim Albright hosted Dial a Date. WNIR was unique in that there were no call screeners to screen the callers before going on the air. The on air personalities answered their own phones not knowing what to expect. Howie was there from June 3, 1974 until June 16, 2012.

Howie was continuously number one in the Akron/Cleveland media market for the genre that he was a part of because he would do no guest talk radio. Howie felt that the real stars of his show were the callers and he had his cast of regulars from Mr. Stow, Couchburner, Mr. Youngstown, the Old Prospector, the Senator, and the Booshman. Howie liked to think of his show as over the fence conversation between neighbors. Where else would you hear someone call in and talk about having to pay child support or alimony? Howie's quick response would be, "All of my alimony and child support was tied up in mutual funds." Howie Chizek never married and never had children, but acted like the foremost expert on raising children.

Every morning after the 10AM News from CBS and the local news, Howie, first with Janet DiaGiacomo and later, Maggie Fuller would spend 20 minutes or so with a banter (monologue) of the news topics of the day. Then, without a call screener to field calls, the switchboard would be open with the ten open lines taking calls on his own not knowing who to expect on the other end.

Politically, Howie liked to say that he was a registered Democrat who voted Republican. In his earlier days at Mediacom, Howie was more conservative compared to the more liberal afternoon host right after him; Joe Finan. But, as the years went on, Howie became more moderate and even voted for Barack Obama in 2008. Callers used to say that they agreed with 99 percent of what he said where Howie would quip, "That is nice, I only believe 81 percent of what I say."

In addition to his 23 hours of live and local talk radio each week, Howie was also the voice of the Cleveland Force soccer team, the Cleveland Barons and Cleveland Crusaders hockey teams, and of course, the Cleveland Cavaliers at the old Richfield Coliseum from the 1970s to about 1995. In one such game that the Cavaliers played the Boston Celtics, Larry Bird threw to ball to make a basket. Howie, while the ball was going into the basket said, "Larry Bird just throws the ball and Gawd (God) puts the basket right under it."

What made Howie Chizek special was that he did not take himself too seriously. He would always say that while he was sharing news, he was also an entertainer. Some of the vocabulary he would come up with to get past the FCC were legendary like "fnorkel".  A listener from Massillon, Ohio took some of Howie's most common words and phrases and made what was called Howie's Crap Rap in 2002.

Howie used his local celebrity to become a great philanthropist. He started what was called Howie's Helping Hand which was a charity around the holidays where he leant his name for local businesses and listeners could donate money where 100 percent of the funds went to buying $20 gift cards at the local Acme Grocery Store for needy families locally. Howie coached little league and youth football at Saint Ann's School in Cleveland Heights, Ohio. He also umpired at South Euclid.

But the one big charity that Howie Chizek had was New Adventures. This was a group that Howie spent his time and money mentoring poor young boys in the Cleveland area to become leaders in the community. This was also the same group that he would pay 100 percent of the cost for these boys and chaperones to fly down to Walt Disney World every June for a week.

On June 16, 2012, exactly one week after his 65th birthday, Howie Chizek and the New Adventures group left from the Akron Canton Airport to Orlando for the weeklong Disney World trip. When they arrived at Orlando International Airport, Howie needed to rest when they got off of the plane. He sat at a terminal bench and told the group to go ahead and that he would catch up with them in a few minutes. Moments later, Howie was found unresponsive and rushed to Florida Hospital East where at 7:40PM, June 16, 2012, the day before Fathers' Day, Howie Chizek was pronounced dead. He had suffered from atherosclerotic and hypertensive heart disease per the Orlando Medical Examiners Office. Howie Chizek had just turned 65 on June 9, 2012.

The news of Howie's death came around 9PM that night while Bob Earley was doing his weekend program on WNIR. His show went off the air at 10PM on Saturdays and Sundays, but that evening, he kept the tributes from callers go on until 2AM on June 17, 2012. For next week, WNIR for all of their programming was nothing but call after call about Howie Chizek and the memories he helped make for a Midwest town. Howie used to say, "No names please", but for that week, no one was anonymous with their tributes.

One thing that Howie would say a lot at the end of each call, whether he agreed with you or not was, "Take care, my friend." And for the past ten years, Akron, Ohio has been trying to do just that.

This collection is for those who remembered listening to Howie Chizek, and for those who are experiencing him for the first time.

• Airchecks of the 1960s
• Airchecks of the 1970s
• Airchecks of the 1980s and 1990s
• Airchecks of Great Radio Stations
• DJ Madness
• Howie Chizek
• Wolfman Jack
• Alan Freed Show