[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 147 (2001), Part 12]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages 17987-17988]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                       IN MEMORY OF STAN MATLOCK

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. ROB PORTMAN

                                of ohio

                    in the house of representatives

                      Tuesday, September 25, 2001

  Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. Speaker, I rise to honor the memory of Stan Matlock, 
a friend and Cincinnati broadcasting legend, who passed away on 
September 16, 2001.
  Stan's WKRC-AM morning radio program, ``Magazine of the Air,'' was a 
Cincinnati area institution for 27 years. It was a simple concept--he 
would tell human interest stories, then play a record, then tell 
another vignette--but he did it better than anyone. The popularity of 
his program was extraordinary; at times fully 50 percent of radio 
listeners in the Cincinnati area tuned in to Stan Matlock's Magazine of 
the Air.
  And he was more than a great storyteller. He loved research and 
writing and always considered himself first a writer. It's not 
surprising that his poignant stories were commentaries on our times. 
Impeccably organized, it was said that he had his vignettes cross-filed 
by subject and appropriateness for a particular time of day or national 
holiday or event. He was said to have over 30,000 ``Magazine of the 
Air'' scripts on file. Thankfully, some of his stories can still be 
heard on Saturday mornings in Cincinnati on WVXU-FM.
  Stan grew up in Pleasant Ridge in Cincinnati, was a graduate of 
Withrow High School, and began his career as a newswriter in 1945 at 
WKRC-FM while a student at the University of Cincinnati. He switched to 
WKRC-AM in 1946. He retired from WKRC-AM 29 years later in 1975, but 
returned to broadcasting with stints at WLQA-AM (now WRRM-AM) in 1976, 
and again with WKRC-AM in 1993.
  Stan's influence on broadcasting in Cincinnati was summed up by John 
Soller Sr., former general manager of WKRC-AM, who said, ``He set the 
standard for excellence in radio here.''

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  Stan was devoted to his family, and is survived by his wife, Louise, 
and daughter, Anna. All of us in Cincinnati have suffered a great loss 
with Stan's passing, just as we so benefitted from his full life.

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