When it comes to radio, there are two Kentucky broadcasters who cannot be accused of jumping from one job to another. Don Neagle in Russellville and Joel Utley in Owensboro found their niche more than 60 years ago and, for the love and enjoyment of it, haven’t found anything they would rather do.
Neagle is as much of a legend in Russellville as the James-Younger Gang bank robbery back in 1865. The biggest difference is the gang is long gone, and Neagle is still going strong. When a man is described as an institution, it usually means he has been around for a long time. Since 1958, Neagle has kept Logan County radio listeners not only informed on local, national and world issues, but also entertained.
Professionally, radio has been pretty much all Neagle has known. As a small child, he thought about being an announcer and played make-believe, talking into a headset from an old radio in his Greensburg home.
“I worked in a local grocery store in Greensburg,” he recalled. “But that really didn’t work out. So when I was 16, I got a job with WLCK-AM.”
The station actually was out of Campbellsville with a Greensburg studio, and the job Neagle had was more in the “gofer” category than as an on-air personality. Nevertheless, he decided to shorten his name from Donald to Don. He thought that would help.
“I thought it was a requirement to have a short name if you worked in radio,” he said with a chuckle. “It seemed like everybody else did.”
Neagle’s loyalty as an unpaid employee eventually earned him an opportunity to read the news on the air, and he never looked back. Soon, he was getting paid, and, following high school graduation, he worked for a short time in Harrodsburg at WHBN.
“When I went there, I got a $5-a-week raise,” he said. “I was really raking it in.”
In the fall of 1956, Neagle moved over to WKAY in Glasgow, working for Clovis Saddler. “I sold advertising, also,” he recalled. “That’s what radio people did then. If you were on the air, there was a good chance you sold advertising.”
Neagle decided in the fall of 1957 that, if he was going to make something of himself, he needed to go to college. He enrolled at Western State Teachers College in Bowling Green, majoring in English. While a student there, he came down with a serious case of diphtheria that caused him to drop out of school.
While in Bowling Green, he had worked part time at WKCT, making contact with Hank Brosche, who tipped Neagle off to a possible radio job opening in Russellville. Since Neagle’s arrival in 1958, neither Neagle nor Russellville has been the same.
WRUS general manager and owner Woodrow “Winky” Sosh had been involved with the Russellville station since 1955. The locally-owned and -operated station is the county’s only radio outlet, and there, Neagle was able to project his forward-thinking personality that resonated with his listeners.
Neagle, in partnership with Bill McGinnis and McGinnis’ son Chris, purchased WRUS in 2002. When hearing Neagle talk about the station, one gets the impression that he is more of a caretaker than an owner.
“I think the town feels like the station is theirs,” he said. “That’s OK with me, because if it weren’t for our listeners, where would we be?”
Neagle’s day begins at 2:45 a.m. each weekday. “I check in on the computer at home and see what’s out there,” he said. “And I get in the station about 4:30 a.m. to get prepared to go on the air at 6.”
Neagle can talk about any subject, including sports, with a certain degree of knowledge. “I was never really a sports guy,” he admitted. “Even though I helped out with a few high school games along the way, they weren’t really my thing. A number of years ago, I did the commercials for Lon Sash when he was doing play-by-play at the Western games.”
In 1984, Neagle decided to get his listeners more involved by having them on the air, starting an hour-long program each morning called “Feedback.” Often, he invites an in-studio guest to share the microphone and interact with listeners who call in.
William Fuqua, a former Logan Circuit Court and Kentucky Supreme Court judge, appears as guest host on many of the “Feedback” shows. Judge Fuqua is a Russellville native, and his vast knowledge of local history fits nicely with Neagle’s ability to talk about almost any subject.
Neagle’s path crossed with another Logan County legend, Al Smith, the well-known journalist who furthered his reputation as an on-air personality for years with KET. “Al arrived in Russellville in the spring of 1958 with the newspaper, and I came here in the fall of that year,” Neagle recalled. “We became good friends, often covering for each other even though we were perceived as competitors.”
Small stations such as WRUS and a handful of others across Kentucky are rapidly becoming relics. The steamrolling efforts by larger corporate-owned stations are all about the bottom line, neglecting to localize their newscasts or opinions on community issues.
Over the years, Neagle’s efforts have been recognized. In 2005, he received the highest honor by the Kentucky Broadcasters Association, the Kentucky Mic Award, and then in 2006, he was selected to the Kentucky Journalism Hall of Fame.
Politically, Neagle admits to “voting all over the place,” and “being around any of the extremists makes me nervous.”
Having worked in radio in one capacity or another for more than 60 years, Neagle found his professional home. “If it hadn’t been for radio, I’d have starved to death,” he said. “I had absolutely no marketable skills whatsoever.”
Joel Utley never considered joining his dad in the furniture business in Madisonville. “I never wanted to do anything else than be a radio broadcaster,” he said in somewhat of an understatement.
His childhood radio studio consisted of a cardboard microphone his dad had cut out for him, a shoebox with dials that Joel had drawn with crayons, and cold-weather earmuffs for his headphones. “I used it to broadcast to fantasy listeners and describe what was happening on a baseball board game I had as a child,” he recalled.
Being a St. Louis Cardinals baseball fan as long as he could remember, he listened to legendary announcers Harry Carey and Jack Buck, hoping that someday … just maybe.
“I did a few baseball games early on, and I found out quickly there is a lot of downtime—time to fill,” Utley said. “I did some football, too, and it’s easier to keep up with 10 guys on a court than 22 on a field. Basketball is my game.”
Graduating from high school in 1959, Utley was more or less a sports junkie. Knowing all about area stars like Frank Ramsey and Tom Rodgers from Madisonville, Harry Todd from Earlington, and Owensboro legends Cliff Hagan, Bobby Watson and Bobby Rascoe, Utley was ready to head out in search of his career.
After studying at Murray State University for a while, he transferred to the University of Kentucky, where he was able to pick up a job here and there with a radio station. Soon after, a door opened in Owensboro that would change his life forever. Even though it meant dropping out of college, Utley felt it was part of the dream he was chasing.
“WVJS offered, and I accepted,” he said. “As a new employee, I did it all—news director, DJ, high school football and basketball, and even a few college games.”
Utley’s memories would flashback to those make-believe games. His fascination with it all never went away. To him, his childhood studio had not been a toy but a learning process preparing him for something he would do for the rest of his life. Utley never lost sight of the proverbial ball.
It helped that the Utley family was sports-minded, adding to the exposure Joel had to pursue his dream. Soon after getting to Owensboro, he had to pinch himself when he was approached about becoming the play-by-play man for the Kentucky Wesleyan Panthers.
More than 1,600 games later, the 2020-21 season marked Utley’s 60th year of describing what his beloved Panthers were doing on the hardwood.
In December 1961, Utley called his first game at the Owensboro Sportscenter. A couple of years earlier, T.L. Plain had replaced Bullet Wilson as the head coach. “I just missed King Kelly Coleman by a year,” Utley said. “But I sure did hear the stories and then some. I did meet Kelly later on and found him fascinating and delightful.”
Roy Pickerill, the recently retired sports information director at Kentucky Wesleyan, spent 44 years working with Utley and marvels at how his friend maintained the highest level of his profession. “He’s old school, and that’s what his listeners like about him,” Pickerill said. “When he gives the starting lineup of the visiting teams, he will often spell out the player’s last name. That’s part of what makes him the legend he is.”
To further add to the old-school image, Utley has never used a color analyst in all his years of broadcasting.
In addition to Plain, Utley has worked closely with coaches Guy Strong, Bob Daniels, Wayne Chapman, Mike Pollio, Bob Jones and Ray Harper. It was Daniels who encouraged Utley to go back to college and get his degree in 1974.
Utley’s tenure as a play-by-play announcer at one school is among the lengthiest in the nation. “There might be a fellow that was at Kansas University that had 60 seasons a few years ago,” Pickerill said. Yes, Max Falkenstein’s career at KU spanned 1,750 games from 1946-2006.
Utley has the distinction as the only broadcaster in the nation to call 12 NCAA championships, including eight NCAA Division II titles.
If it’s a Kentucky Hall of Fame that deals with sports or broadcasting, Utley is a member of it. One of the most prestigious is the Kentucky Sports Hall of Fame headquartered in Louisville. In 2016, Utley was inducted into this elite membership to further prove the accomplishments of a kid who spent a time in his childhood talking to himself.
Utley never set out to establish any records. He wasn’t sure where the broadcasting job would go, and certainly not where it would end. “I’m 81, and I do think about calling it quits. I’ve been blessed. But to be honest, I’m not as good as I think I am,” he said with a laugh.