A few years ago when I was thinking about Howie and Bonnie back in my Penn State and State College days, I tried to remember the name of another DJ who worked at WQWK-FM (QWK radio), the same station where Howie did his show.

For the life of me, I could not recall that DJ’s name. The only thing I was sure of is that his last name began with a “G”.

Well, in the past few days I’ve started thinking about doing another series of blog posts about that time in my life, and that particular DJ plays a small part in it, and so once again I’ve been trying to recall his name.

But this time I have the advantage of the newspaper archives of the Centre Daily Times. To be sure, I know a few folks who attended Penn State back around that same period that I did, but it didn’t occur to me to ask them. Then again, if I didn’t remember his name, and I was briefly acquainted with him, then they probably wouldn’t recall his name either.

Anyway, I’ve been looking up a few things in the newspaper archives in the last few days and it’s been bringing back a lot of memories, including the names of a bunch of folks that I knew then.

Well, earlier today, I realized if I was going to tell the story of those days, then that DJ was going to be featured in one or more of the chapters, so it would be nice to have his name.

Before searching for it, I decided to give my memory banks one last effort to recall it. So I started pacing and all of a sudden the name “Jay” popped into my head. I was certain that his first name was Jay. Jay with a last name that started with a “G”.

He worked at QWK radio. Perhaps the newspaper printed the radio schedule and would have the DJs’ names. 

So I browsed a sample edition of the newspaper from 1972 but didn’t come across a radio schedule.

Then I did a search on “WQWK” for the year 1972 and found half a dozen hits, but none of them were radio schedules; they were news articles and none of them listed any of the DJs’ names.

But before I could expand my search, I got a flash. The name “Gilbert” just popped my head like a bolt of lightning.

Jay Gilbert!

That’s it!

Jay Gilbert!

I was positive.

So I did a QWK search, widening the year range, on “Jay Gilbert”, and sure enough his name popped up several times in ads for QWK radio.

So why did I manage to retrieve his name this time, but I hadn’t in the several years previously?

I don’t really know, but my guess is that because memory is an associative function, by putting my mind into a State College frame of mind and seeing all those articles from that time in my life and seeing all the names of other people that I knew from that time, it got my subconscious mind working and retrieving other bits of data that were associated with that time in my life.

Hey, you got a better explanation?

Meanwhile, armed with his name, I was able to track him down. He’s been in Cincinnati since 1974 and just retired in 2022.

Sounds like he’s had a pretty good career, all told. Other than for a bit of unpleasantness from Clear Channel (now iHeartMedia) in 2012. But we all know about the nasty Clear Channel, don’t we?

Would he remember me after all these years? I’d say the odds are 50/50. Maybe somewhat less, given all the people he’s probably met since then. I’m finding that when I try to locate people from that era of my life they’re either dead or they’ve forgotten me or both.