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‘Alias Emperor Rodgers’

City native Paul Rothfuss writes about journey from Williamsport to radio

PHOTOS PROVIDED Paul Rothfuss, also known as Emperor Rodgers, returned to the airwaves in Williamsport with WBZD’s Jake Michaels, DJ. Rothfuss grew up in Williamsport and got his first radio at 12-years-old, coming across WCAO Baltimore. Rothfuss took on the alias Emperor Rodgers. While in Williamsport in June, Rothfuss visited Otto’s bookstore for a signing and received the key to the city from Mayor Gabriel J. Campana.

Growing up in Williamsport, Emperor Rodgers, also known as Paul H. D. Rothfuss, got his start in radio at 17-years-old in his hometown for a quarter an hour. Rothfuss wrote, “Alias Emperor Rodgers: A Majestic Memoir by Baltimore’s Emperor of Insanity in The Crazy Daze of ’60s Top 40 Radio,” about his career, the community, growing up and his start in the radio industry, he said.

When Rothfuss was 12-years-old, he received his first radio — a Philco purple AM radio with two knobs. His hobby was DXing, which is “dialing around a radio band, hoping to find distant radio stations,” such as stations from St. Louis, Missouri, Cincinnati and others, Rothfuss shared. During this time, Williamsport didn’t play rock ‘n’ roll or R&B music.

Listeners could hear the radio through skywaves at night and they would try to pick it up, some being early Top 40 format adapters. He was fascinated with rock ‘n’ roll and R&B because it wasn’t music that was heard in the region, he said.

Williamsport “was the best place to grow up in during the 1950s and ’60s. It was teenage heaven,” Rothfuss said.

He graduated high school in 1957 and went on to Gettysburg College, where he discovered the Top 40 station, WCAO Baltimore, he said. On June 4, 1958, a friend of Rothfuss’s discovered a new AM radio station 1450, called The Nifty Fourteen Fifty that played rock ‘n’ roll and R&B with Chuck Berry, Johnny B. Goode and Kerby Confer located in South Williamsport.

Rothfuss auditioned as an announcer after speaking with Galen D. Castlebury, who had built the South Williamsport facility, he said. For his audition, Castlebury gave him a copy of the Sun-Gazette to read and was hired on the spot starting the same day for .85 cents an hour.

As he grew through radio in different Pennsylvania cities, he was offered a job at WSBA in York — “the flagship of the Susquehanna Broadcasting Company” — after Al Saunders had heard him on WHGB Harrisburg, he said. During his initial meeting with Saunders, Saunders said to Rothfuss he needed a better-suited radio name, wanting to keep with Paul and a last name starting with the letter R — something like Roberts or Rodgers.

In January 1963, Rothfuss applied to be the program director at WCAO in Baltimore, Maryland. Two months later, he was offered a position at WCAO and went with the alias Paul Rodgers, his second radio name, and was working in Baltimore by April. The station was voted number one in Baltimore, and by December, Rothfuss was working the morning show, the most important time slot.

“I just happened to be in Baltimore and the stuff going on in the city, they had a Top 40 Radio and they were doing crazy stuff,” he said.

While there, Confer, a good friend, also was working at WCAO where he introduced The Liverpool Hour, where the station played an hour of English music, Rothfuss said. Trying to convince Confer to grow his hair out, like The Beatles, from his buzzcut, Rothfuss said if he got thousands of signatures on petitions, Confer would have to grow his hair out and Rothfuss would buzz his.

After Confer grew his hair out, the show went on, and the two staged an argument about the length of Confer’s hair and the hair that remained on Rothfuss’s head — it was a slapstick joke where Rothfuss ended up with a chocolate pie in his face, he said.

In 1964, Emperor Rodgers took reign in Baltimore, inspired by Emperor Hudson of Los Angeles. Emperors came with costumes, jingles, membership cards, ads, promos and creativity, Rothfuss shared. They would have faux events, such as the Gladiator Games where Royal Commandos would “compete” against the Colts football team.

He went on to pitch at an Orioles game, he walked in downtown Baltimore with girls and a lion, played basketball in his purple tunic on a donkey and much more, he said. At 24-years-old, Emperor Rodgers rode an elephant down Maryland Avenue in Baltimore during the circus parade in freezing-cold weather.

“Alias Emperor Rodgers” was Rothfuss’s first book, and he is writing a sequel expected to be ready in October, he said. Rothfuss described it as a follow-up about Confer and their relationship and company they built together.

Rothfuss frequently has been told he should write a book, he said. With his great-grandchildren being born, he wanted to write a book so when “they are going to be going through a file of wrinkled, old photographs and they will come across a photo of me and they will wonder what that old kook was up to” and the book can answer that.

Throughout the writing process, Rothfuss had the opportunity to con

nect with people he hasn’t spoken with in 40 years, many who went on to have successful broadcasting careers, he said. He began writing June 2017 and finished it in January 2018 and the book was fun and exciting to write.

In the beginning of June, for First Friday, Rothfuss came back to his hometown for a book signing at Otto’s, 107 W. Fourth St. While at the book signing, he received the key to the city from Mayor Gabriel J. Campana.

“I had a lot of people I had gone to school with and people I use to work with at radio stations come up to say hi, and I was humbled,” he said.

People can buy “Alias Emperor Rodgers” online on Amazon and locally at Otto Bookstore. It is sold in print, on e-book and also as an audio book, which Rothfuss narrated himself, he said.

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