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By DEBORA SHAULIS
ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR
YELLOW SUIT WITH BLACK buttons can distinguish a man from the pack. So can a love of music, a commitment to community activism and an appreciation for local talent.
Calvin Penny of Youngstown was a young man the first time he laid eyes on Frankie Halfacre. A disc jockey with WNIO-AM Radio, Halfacre was broadcasting from a record store on Belmont Avenue, Penny recalls.
Penny heard Halfacre's low, silken voice, saw his bright ensemble and knew then that he'd follow Halfacre into the radio business.
"It was something that was really awesome, to put the face to the voice. It was something that really excited me," Penny said.
Halfacre is known for much more than his mellifluous tones and fancy wardrobe. His 50-year career in broadcasting will be celebrated during Tom Joyner Sky Show Weekend activities in the city.
Friday also will be the start of a celebration for WRBP-FM 101.9, the local urban music radio that signed on 10 years ago. Halfacre is chairman of WRBP's parent company, Stop 26-Riverbend.
WRBP is one of 100 stations nationwide to broadcast "Tom Joyner Morning Show," a syndicated music, sports and comedy program with an audience of about 5 million. This will be the second consecutive summer that Joyner will broadcast live from Youngstown.
Besides radio, Joyner and Halfacre have community involvement in common. Joyner uses his Sky Shows to support education, health care and voter registration drives.
Influence
Halfacre also has advocated voter registration as well as awareness of local politics and ethnic pride during his time on the airwaves.
"His slogan about doing 'a little good in the neighborhood' -- he's always been that way," said Penny, a broadcaster himself for more than 20 years.
On a recent day, Halfacre -- who politely declined to disclose his age -- reminisced in a conference room in WRBP's office. His trademark snowy white hair spilled out from under a black ball cap with a Bob Marley logo and brushed the collar of a pale-yellow polo shirt that a local artist had embellished with his caricature.
Halfacre was introduced to radio while he was a patient in an Army hospital. He was recovering from facial wounds when he struck up a friendship with another man who worked as an announcer.
"When I got out, I said, 'Let me get on the air,'" Halfacre recalled.
It took 13 years for him to get his first broadcasting job.
Meanwhile, Halfacre was a caretaker with the city parks department. He received his nickname, Mr. Lucky, from a co-worker who marveled at his ability to find four-leaf clovers, he said.
The founders of WHOT-AM of Youngstown hired him to work at their station in Conneaut. Halfacre's park shift ended at 4 p.m., and he had to be on the air at 5 p.m. Every day, he drove "straight up Belmont Avenue, before they put in Route 11," he said.
Halfacre played mostly adult contemporary music. Sometimes, when he was assigned to work nights, he'd play some jazz music and get good feedback from listeners who hadn't heard those tunes before, he said.
Controversy
His next career move brought him closer to home, and to controversy. Halfacre bought an hour of air time at WNIO-AM of Niles and, as he sold his own advertising, expanded his show to 4 1/2 hours. After Halfacre played James Brown's 1968 hit "Say It Loud -- I'm Black and I'm Proud," he returned to work to find the 45 rpm record had been broken and left for him to see. When he replaced the record, that copy also was damaged. "I couldn't take it anymore. I quit," Halfacre said.
Halfacre worked for WHOT, where he was a part-time community affairs director; WYTV Channel 33 as a camera operator; and WMJO Radio of Cleveland, where he met a number of performers, including R & amp;B group The O'Jays, he said.
For about four months, he also worked for James Brown as a record promoter. If Brown was due in Cleveland one week, Halfacre would arrive a week earlier to ask disc jockeys to play the Godfather of Soul's records, he said.
That job ended after Halfacre was injured in a car accident. It would have ended, anyway: "I was away from my family a lot," he noted.
Halfacre went back to school to study communications at Youngstown State University. "They say I majored in Boots Bell," he said, referring to the late, legendary personality who worked at WHOT when it was the dominant radio station in Youngstown. Bell was "a great teacher and friend. I took all of his classes."
Halfacre "just dibbled and dabbled in radio," he said, until Atty. Percy Squire asked him to help get WRBP on the air as a voice for the black community. In the last decade, Halfacre believes WRBP has been influential in the election of black Youngstown city council and school board members.
Still hosting
Besides his administrative duties, Halfacre still hosts a show every weekday afternoon. "I'd rather do a show five days a week instead of one ... someone local should be on," he said.
WRBP's independent status clashes with diverse entertainment corporations that not only have control of radio stations, but some of the music product, too. The fewer copies of major-label records he receives, the more he plays from independent companies. "To me, the music sounds just as good," he said. "I play lyrics that reach the people."
Penny, who's host of a syndicated gospel program on five radio stations, appreciates Halfacre's enthusiasm for homegrown musicians.
"He's the only one who would bring in local talent and interview them. I think that's a plus. There's so much talent here who do not have the opportunity to be exposed to the public. It's really letting the city know who's around and what they're doing locally," Penny said.
Halfacre still has hopes for the establishment of a national Afro-American Music Hall of Fame and Museum for R & amp;B, jazz and gospel performers in Youngstown. That was a project he led in 1976 and for which he tried to secure government funding. He says he brought it up again recently with city leaders, as discussion continue about revitalizing the downtown district.
"I'd love to see it happen," Halfacre said. "We need to pay homage, especially for musicians who have passed on" or are ill.
Halfacre's wife, Mary, works for the Area Agency on Aging. Their daughter, Madelyn, works with him at WRBP. "I'm not lucky in money, but I'm lucky in love," he said.
If Halfacre has any more luck, he'll never retire.
"Tell the truth, I'm just gonna go out. When I go out, I want to be danced off ... like they do in New Orleans," he said with a hearty laugh.
shaulis@vindy.com