WGVE Memories

I was a freshman in 1969 when WGVE made the move to the Gary Technical Career Center that was attended by all Gary high school students who were juniors and seniors. Lew Wallace did offer a first year broadcasting class when I was a sophomore, basically the same education you would receive if you were a first year student at the Gary Tech Career Center.

I’ve always loved the broadcast media even through grammar school and I knew this is what I wanted to possibly do as a career. As a sophomore I learned the basics of broadcasting specifically NEWS writing and if you did attend the CC as a junior and had the opportunity as a sophomore to take the Lew Wallace broadcasting course you were considered a second year student both your junior and senior years. I enjoyed the broadcast media so much I hung around WLTH radio all the time and finally landed a job as a Sunday morning board engineer for the foreign language programs when I was only 15.

Following graduation I was offed a full time position at WLTH radio from then station manager and area broadcaster Warren Friedberg and continued there for 3 more years. Unfortunately in the media business the money is not always there and I left to work at AMOCO Oil Company for 32 years. But there I used the skills to produce training videos for AMOCO.

When I retired from AMOCO/BP 6 years ago I knew I wanted to continue in the media business and with the digital age and the internet I decided to start a High School Sports website featuring NWI high school athletes since the coverage in the region is not at the same level as the rest of the state. New Concept Video Sports.com was started and it has been well received. There have also been high school athletes in NWI that have received scholarships from our videos and that in itself is very gratifying. I’m basically a one man show producing videos working the camera, editing, writing, voice over basically everything to produce a professional video for the kids. But it was Mr. Dakich my sophomore year at Lew Wallace and Mr. Ventura at the Career Center that sold me on the broadcast media, something I love as much today as when I was in school. I also want to give credit to a few Wallace graduates who I also learned a lot from, Rich Halstead, Jerry Wilkerson and Glen Busby. All three were inspirational.

When the tour of Lew Wallace was announced I took my camera to produce a quick video of our school and I made it a point to accent the positives because the positives are something I will always remember. It was a great school at the time and even though it is no more the memories will always be there. I only wish I could have gotten that On Air sign that hung above the door in the hall.

- Bob Guerrero
- Photo: Bud Lugar

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