Wahl: “Tell My Radio Family That I Miss Them”
April 24, 2024
Roger Wahl, in an undated photo, during a meeting of the Somerset County Commissioners
Roger Wahl loved radio. Unfortunately, the feeling wasn’t always mutual.
Told early in his career that his voice wasn’t strong enough for the microphone, Wahl turned to other means of supporting himself and his young family. A turning point came almost a decade after he moved his family back to his native Meyersdale to care for his ailing father. By this time, Wahl had been through a series of non-radio jobs, from truck driving to sales for a beer distributor in Maryland. The latter presented him with an unexpected opportunity.
One of Wahl’s customers on his sales route owned a radio station, and the pair would often engage in radio “shop talk” when Wahl would make a sales call. One day the customer informed Wahl that the FCC had dropped in a frequency assignment to Meyersdale, and encouraged Wahl to apply for it.
Wahl did exactly that. After raising the capital, hiring a staff, and successfully navigating around a competing applicant, Wahl signed the brand-new WQZS (QZ-93.3) on October 26, 1992.
From that day forward, until April 4, 2024, residents of southern Somerset County, western Maryland, and the eastern panhandle of West Virginia were awakened daily by “The Commander”, Wahl’s on-air handle that endeared him to hundreds of listeners each weekday morning.
Despite a shrinking retail economy, the sign-on of an adjacent frequency station that shortened his signal reach, consolidation of competitor ownership, and the internet, Wahl still managed to keep the lights on and keep his listeners informed.
Whether it was the Quecreek mining disaster, Flight 93, or severe weather ripping through the area, Wahl was there to bring it to his listeners, receiving recognition for his efforts.
And they didn’t forget it, even after his arrest in 2019 for placing a trail camera in the bathroom of a home of a former girlfriend, and setting up an online dating profile intended to lure potential male suitors to sexually assault her.
Under the terms of a deal with prosecutors, Wahl pleaded guilty the following year to a single felony charge of Criminal Use of a Communications Facility, which allowed him to forego jail time. But his problems didn’t end there.
Wahl then found himself before the FCC, pleading with the commission to not revoke the broadcast license he had held for more than three decades, stating that his criminal acts should be kept separate from WQZS so that it could continue to serve the community.
Wahl continued to fight to save his license, even through a series of serious health problems that resulted in several hospitalizations, one of which culminated in the amputation of one of his legs in December. He’s now facing an upcoming procedure to have the second amputated.
On Thursday, April 4, it was all over. The revocation ruling was ordered upheld, and Wahl signed WQZS off for the last time that afternoon. He explained in a post on the station’s Facebook page, its lone online presence:
Dear Patrons
WQZS Radio would like to thank you for all the years of support an advertisement. It has truly been an honor to serve you and the community. We are saddened to announce that WQZS Radio will no longer broadcast. Thank you for your patronage an support.
“This is totally wrong,” posted Debra Williams, of Meyersdale. “People need to be protesting this. So much other people get more chances in our area.”
“That radio station was the best,” posted Allyson Horner of Somerset. “Roger had more news that the Daily American.”
Many other such sentiments followed.
“I’m part of history,” Wahl said in his first interview by telephone from his hospital room. “No matter how much people hate or love me, they can’t take that away from me.”
While Wahl recovers, plans are moving forward with the expansion project for Route 219. The project calls for widening the highway to four lanes, which also calls for the demolition of the building at 128 Hunsrick Road, south of Meyersdale, which has housed WQZS’ studios since its inception.
Wahl had plans in the works to move the WQZS studios to another location before the proceedings with the FCC began.
Though presently confined to a wheelchair, Wahl plans to walk again with the use of prosthetics once he heals from his second operation. From there, he hopes to support a community nonprofit project in an effort to give back to his community.
“I still can do more,” said Wahl.
On that note, “The Commander” has a final order for his radio listeners: “Tell my radio family that I miss them.”
Judy Ellich of the Daily American contributed to this report.
I left town shortly after April 4 and figured that a serious technical issue had occurred and WQZS would back on the air when I returned a few weeks later. After I found 93.3 still with no signal, I went here to PBRTV and found the reason. It is like the FCC to take around 5 years to arrive at a decision and kick someone when they are down while, at the same time, ignoring the public interest. WQZS was the best station on the dial and one of the buttons on my car radio. Their studio originated music and satellite feed was the best variety not heard on any other broadcast station in the area. Very sad to see WQZS go dark.
In my view the FCC could not allow a man who had pled guilty to a crime of this nature continue to hold a broadcast license. But the station was a valued resource in the community. They did not commit a crime against anyone yet they are being punished. I think the FCC blew it by not allowing the sale to Wahl’s daughter. That would have taken care of both problems.
I find the level of coverage given to a convicted felon who did a despicable act coming out of Somerset County, Pa., shocking and disturbing. As a journalist who has covered this story fairly and extensively for five years, there are many facts that are being underplayed or dismissed. First and foremost, Roger Wahl was directly involved in a graphic and insidious action. And, even with a plea bargain designed to allow him to sell WQZS to Wendy for a token $10, he was a convicted felon. In the eyes of the FCC, one cannot serve as a license in the public interest after becoming a convicted felon. Then came Pastor Tim, and all of his supporters, somehow rallying around saving a radio station that indeed served a community in a way no other media outlet did. There’s just one problem: Roger Wahl failed to take the Administrative Law Judge’s hearing at the FCC seriously, and used his health as an excuse and a crutch to cloud the key matters at hand: he was going to lose his license unless he proved that shouldn’t happen. It took four long years, with stalling and other tactics, before the inevitable. Yes, it is horrible that Roger had a leg amputated. Yes, it is sad that WQZS is done. But, one cannot understate the reasons why all of this happened. Roger Wahl did a bad, bad, thing. The FCC did the right, right thing.