By Clint McElroy
HQ 115 | AUTUMN 2021
I strive mightily to come up with topics for this column that tie in with the content of the magazine or current events. It’s not always easy. Despite my wide and varied experience with this amazing community, it is sometimes difficult to find a connection. But I think it is important to the quality of the publication and its wonderful readers.
Besides, the publisher tells me I have to.
This time around I am proud to announce that I have three, count ’em, three connections!
We’ll start with a current event. When the aforementioned publisher of this magazine was recently inducted into the Marshall University School of Journalism Hall of Fame, it brought back some fond memories. I actually matriculated my own way through the W. Page Pitt School of Journalism in the 1970s where I proudly served as a reporter for The Parthenon — the school’s student newspaper. My first beat was intramural flag football, but it wasn’t long before esteemed professors like George Arnold and Ralph Turner saw the potential in my writing and gave me the prestigious assignment of covering student government. However, it wasn’t long before the powers-that-be at The Parthenon came to their senses and realized, “We have got to get this guy as far away from serious journalism as we can!”
I finished my illustrious career at The Parthenon writing a humor column. My column actually increased the readership of the paper because whatever I wrote about inevitably offended somebody or got tongues wagging on campus. Angry letters to the editor poured in and added more lively debate to the otherwise dull Opinion page.
I don’t think anyone ever properly thanked me for that.
This edition’s cover story about alumnus Brad Smith returning to Marshall to serve as the school’s 38th president reminded me of my own love affair with MU. There were the rowdy basketball games at the Memorial Field House, football games at Fairfield Stadium and my own athletic career where I was an intramural gridiron great. And Marshall is where I first met one of the great loves of my life. It happened my first night on campus when me, Lee “Doc Rock” Bryant, Mark “Harv” Harvey and the twins, aka Tim and Tom Neal, went to the Student Union. We shot a little pool, looked at girls, bowled, looked at girls and went to the little cafe in the basement to, you guessed it, look at girls. That’s where it happened. Love at first sight.
I had my first bagel with cream cheese.
It was a delectable combination of crunchy and soft, buttery and satisfying, that I had never experienced before in my callow youth. So, thank you Marshall for bagels and, of course, my degree.
Finally, the article in this edition about the renovations to the Mountain Health Arena plaza stirred up a plethora of tales. There were many pre-concert radio remotes where Judy Eaton and I would drive onto that plaza and broadcast right up until showtime. One time, I was offered $500 for a pair of Jason Aldean tickets we were giving away, but I was an honorable man and refused. Plus, there were too many witnesses! There was the time I allegedly backed the WTCR van into a large concrete planter, thus destroying it. And then there was the time I camped out in a pup tent on the roof of the Civic as a radio stunt to encourage people to volunteer for Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Tri-State (it’s hard for me to explain the logic behind that). About four hours in, I became deathly ill with food poisoning and had to be evacuated by EMTs from the roof.
Speaking of the plaza, it will always be known as the Soupy Sales Plaza to me. Back in 1995, Jack Houvouras and I co-authored a cover story about the comedy legend. After it was published, we approached the mayor’s office about naming a street after Huntington’s most famous son. They couldn’t pull that off at the time but offered to name the Civic Center plaza in his honor. I loved Soupy Sales. And I think he had a small affection for me, too. He would always ask for me to co-host with him whenever he came back to town to do a guest radio show. Best of all, he bestowed upon me the great honor of smacking me in the face with a pie. In doing so, I joined a legion of celebrity legends who have been “pie’d” by Soupy Sales including Frank Sinatra, Mickey Rooney and Burt Lancaster. How many people can say that?
