Mourning a mentor

My friend Ron Moore (pictured above) died at his home in Cross Hill, South Carolina this past Saturday (his 66th birthday.) My mother called me from South Carolina to let me know this morning that his name was listed in the obituaries of the Greenville News today without any other details. The obituary section of the Greenwood Index-Journal had a similar listing from over the weekend.

Blyth Funeral Home had the following obituary (along with a guestbook):

Ronald Martin “Ron” Moore, 66, resident of 3101 County Line Road, died April 5, 2008 at his home.

Born April 5, 1942 in Richland County, he was a son of the late Perry M. and Wilma McCraken Moore. He was a graduate of Clinton High School and the University of South Carolina. Mr. Moore was the owner and operator of 1350 WLMA Radio Station in Greenwood.

Surviving are [sic] a brother, Milton P. Moore of Columbia.

A memorial service will be conducted Friday, April 11, 2008 at 1:00 PM at the Blyth Funeral Home Chapel.

I’m making this non-Baltimore post because Ron was a major factor in my experiences involving politics, news, talk radio and the media and I want to pay homage to somebody who had a major impact on my life.

I first met Ron in 1994. I was working for the congressional primary campaign of Ed Allgood (who lost to Lindsey Graham in a primary that also included Bob Cantrell.) I was press secretary for the Allgood campaign but I specifically showed up at an event in Laurens County because that was where I still lived at the time. It was a county party meeting and Ron was there because he was running for the South Carolina House in District 14, a seat held by Marion Carnell for decades. I talked a while with him after the meeting and mentioned an interest in talk radio that I’d had since middle school (when I stayed up late to listen to 750 AM out of Atlanta) but I honestly wasn’t sure I’d ever talk to him again.

My grandfather died in July of that year and because of the approval process of the redistricting maps in SC that year the primary wasn’t until August. I was pretty much on autopilot the month of July and Graham ended things without a runoff in the Congressional primary. I was taking about 12-15 hours at Presbyterian College that fall and I hadn’t really thought much about joining any other campaigns for the fall.

I wound up making my way over to Ron’s then-studio on Montague Avenue in Greenwood (I had been there once or twice related to the Allgood campaign) and then wound up almost instantaneously helping him out with his campaign. I was the de facto campaign manager since he really didn’t have much of a staff. I wrote press releases, put up signs, stuffed envelopes, went to events, drove him around to do targeted door-to-door, and almost anything else campaign-related you can think of. It was really the most comprehensive experience I had with any campaign and also the highest level I was involved in one to that point.

I met a lot of good people during that process in the district and in Columbia, the state capital. The House GOP Caucus was heavily involved in the race, among other groups. Despite a surge that saw both houses of Congress and the South Carolina House become majority Republican, Ron lost by 4% to Carnell. Some of the highlights for me from that campaign was Ron’s decision to base his position on the Confederate flag on the Statehouse dome on whatever the voters of his district said in the advisory referendum in the primary that year. Despite that, he did have a compromise proposal that he called a garden of flags with historical flags that had flown over South Carolina all throughout its history. He also ran on abolishing the property tax completely, calling it a non-consensual mortgage with the government on a home since non-payment would result in a Courthouse auction just like a foreclosure.

I stayed on at the radio station and tried various types of work related to that field. I ran the board occasionally during Sunday NFL games and other sporting events. I tried my hand at sales for the first time (and realized it really wasn’t for me.) I even appeared on-air to discuss politics and other news items. I had met some of the regulars who were on Ron’s afternoon drive show at the station and made friends with them. They included ACLU attorney Rauch Wise, broker Phil Biffle, and for a while Ken (whose last name I was never sure of the spelling of) who used to own Blazer’s on Lake Greenwood but sold it back to the original owners and moved back to his native New Jersey.

Through working at the station, I got to meet celebrities including Ludlow Porch, various state political figures, and I even got free tickets to a James Brown show on New Year’s Eve at the Greenwood Civic Center. I covered the 1996 Republican National Convention in San Diego for the station which involved me placing early morning or mid-afternoon phone calls from the west coast for the week I was there. I recorded some promos for the station to run during breaks and I messed around with some spot writing as well. I learned a vital lesson from Ron that I noticed the first time I ever heard him on-air. The stereotypical faked big radio voice isn’t a necessity to be an effective communicator or to have a strong personality on-air.

I’ve loaded up to go help Ron broadcast high school football games as a spotter/gopher and stopped along the way at great area burger joints like the Dixie, the Ranch House and the Panorama. I worked as an on-again off-again board operator as late as 2002 for Braves games after I had moved back to the Upstate from Columbia. We also wound up working together in radio again at a syndicated show in Columbia, SC for a few months in 1998.

Ron was the person who put me in touch with the National Guard recruiter that resulted in my enlistment in 1996. He had been a Signal Officer in the Guard himself in the past. He was also a Freemason. Ron was also a Gamecock from his time at the University of South Carolina. I think he was on the football team there after transferring from Western Carolina. I grew up a Clemson fan but we never really talked smack to each other even in a friendly manner. He was the one person I could always get an honest opinion from about either team in the rivalry.

I was still able to call Ron anytime and ask for his advice on any subject (personal or professional) or trade radio gossip with him. At a time in my early twenties when a lot of things were fluid and unstable for me, Ron was somebody I could always talk to. I never had a bad relationship with my father, but we never had a very communicative relationship until the past 5-6 years. Back then I talked to Ron about a lot of things that parents and children talk about because he was that much of a mentor in my life.

I know Ron had a strained relationship with his brother at one point and I was glad to hear they had patched things up over the past couple of years. I also know that Ron is in a better place now. I know his good friend Cynthia Craven, who herself passed away last year, had encouraged Ron while he was fighting cancer and had made signs for him that said Expect a Miracle based on a thought she had while watching a minister on television that she watched. Ron still had signs she had made in the studio and in his car bearing this statement. Well, Ron, a miracle did happen that we celebrated a few weeks ago at Easter and it’s the reason now that despite my own sadness and tears that I know you’re in a better place now than you had been in the past couple of years.

I hadn’t talked to Ron much lately in the past couple of months but I had seen him in December and I’m glad I got to see him again even though I had to force myself not to acted too shocked at his appearance. He wasn’t the big guy like in the above picture that I was used to seeing. He had lost 60 pounds he said and all of his hair from the cancer treatments but he still had the same distinctive voice. I’m glad he got to meet my wife and that she got to meet him. I’m really glad that we got to spend that time together when we were down there for Christmas.

I even thought about Ron last week when I did an April Fools Joke on this blog. His favorite one was the old dihydrogen monoxide in the water supply one, that he used on the air in Greenwood one year, much to the consternation of the local CPW (his power was mysteriously cut off not long after that.)

Ron had worked in radio, television, and who knows what other fields. He had many friends in the industry and in other fields. The people in radio that I know personally and that I’ve always looked up to include him, John Wrisley (who acted in a play with Ron at Town Theatre in Columbia), and Michael Graham.

I will miss talking to Ron, but I will always remember all the lessons I learned from him - not just about radio, but about life. Ron was a true gentleman in an era when radio and society at large both started coarsening. He will be missed.

UPDATE
Tuesday’s Index-Journal reported on Ron’s passing:

The Lakelands lost its unofficial “Morning Mayor” on Saturday with the death of radio personality Ronald Martin “Ron” Moore.

Moore, 66, a resident of 3101 County Line Road, died at his home following a lengthy battle with cancer. Ironically, he was born on the same day — April 5 — in 1942.

He was the former owner of Greenwood radio station WLMA AM 1350, where he interviewed celebrities near and far for years. Moore was particularly revered for his friendly yet heated political debates with local attorney Rauch Wise and investor Phil Biffle, Jeff Eller said Monday.

Eller and his wife, Ann, bought WLMA last year.

“Ron is one of these people that’s kind of an anachronism in today’s world,” Jeff Eller said of his friend of 17 years. “He knew a lot about a lot of different things, … everything from husbandry to electronics. He had a sense of humor and also a sense of wit.

“Ron had a 140 IQ. He was one of those people who could read a book and then do something.”

Word of Moore’s death was broadcast Monday afternoon on WLMA.

“He’s been sick for several years. He had lung cancer,” station manager Taylor Stone said. “His passion was his radio station. A lot of people have called expressing their condolences.”

[…]

Moore’s morning show routinely featured calls from politicos and religious figures. A Google Internet search of his name reveals partial transcripts of interviews ranging from candidates for national office to major authors.

“He was a big guy who made a big splash in life. He had everyday callers, … a pretty diverse group ranging from local politicians to black ministers,” Eller said.

Moore also had a background of setting up small, independent TV stations back in the pre-cable, pre-satellite era of the 1970s.

“In Atlanta, he was literally a television personality,” Eller said. “I don’t think Ron ever saved a nickel or ever had one, though. If he had money, he had a place to go. He enjoyed living as much as anyone else I’ve known.

A diehard South Carolina Gamecocks fan, Moore “had a great repartee with everyone he met,” Eller said. “He died on his birthday. There was nothing normal about Ron Moore. He always did things with flair.”

[…]

Blyth Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements.

Stone said visitation will be noon Friday, followed by a 1 p.m. memorial service at Blyth Funeral Home Chapel.