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HIGH POINT — A radio morning show host who has spent 52 years getting up at 3:30 a.m. for a 5:30 a.m. radio program should be able to grab a few more snoozes and take the New Year’s holiday off.

Not so for Max Meeks at WMFR in High Point. He will be on the air on New Year’s Day 2010. Never mind that he will retire this week and end his distinction, at nearly 85, as the oldest radio morning show announcer in the nation.

“I could have been off, but I wanted to work on New Year’s Day. They told me I could be off and retire on Dec. 31. I asked to work on New Year’s,” Meeks said. “I wanted to announce the High Point citizen of the year award one more time. I’ve done it for 52 years.”

That’s vintage Max Meeks, always wanting to take the lead in promoting good news in the community.

“I stop and buy a newspaper on the way to work, and I get the name of the citizen of the year from 'The (High Point) Enterprise.’ I’m the first to tell it at 5:30 (a.m.) if people haven’t already read their newspaper,” he said.

Early on New Year’s Day 2003, Meeks found himself in a quandary about announcing the top citizen’s award. “I opened the paper and there was my picture. I didn’t know anything about it, but they had picked me. I didn’t know what to do. You can’t go on the air and start talking about yourself.

“Someone called in to congratulate me on the award. So, he announced it, not me. I thanked him,” Meeks said.

He has given away thousands of cakes — five per week for 52 years from The Sweet Shoppe — played the hymn of the day an equal number of times; read the news and the sports information; and diced the mix with several weather reports more times than he can remember. And played some music, too.

That’s just the warmup for “Max in the Morning.” He’s still had the community service announcements, something he never regarded as a routine chore. He relished promoting church, civic and other community events. “I talked about what I wanted to talk about. I’ve always tried to be positive and uplifting,” he said.

Meeks and his wife, Nancy, can be seen at many of those community events — if the event doesn’t run past his 9:30 p.m. bedtime. Their participation in High Point civic life and their acquaintance with people from all social sectors is well known.
He’s known throughout the WMFR listening area, not by his face, but by his voice. Even a checkout girl at Walmart knows that voice. No other identification is required for Mr. Meeks to get a check cashed.

That voice — warm, distinctive, friendly — wasn’t created in a broadcast school or elsewhere, Meeks said. Nobody ever told him to breathe from his diaphragm or to announce his words with certain tones.

“What you hear just comes naturally,” he said. “My voice is still good: I could do this until I was 100. One of my early temptations was to try to sound like one of the famous announcers — like Paul Harvey, my favorite. I found the only way I could operate comfortably was just to be me.”

Meeks does recall that he was with the Tower Players drama group at High Point College when he got his first shot as a radio announcer. It wasn’t something he wanted to do for a living but a way to make some money while in school.

His ambition was to teach in a small college after he completed a double major in history and English at High Point College. Meeks was a mature student by the time he entered High Point College, having dropped out of Pfeiffer College after one year to spend three years in the Navy during World War II.

Meeks came home from military service to find Nancy, the love of his life, waiting for him. They met at Pfeiffer. “Nancy had finished college and was teaching school,” he said of his bride of 63 years. They have four children.

Born April 3, 1925, Meeks grew up in the mill village of Leaksville in Rockingham County. Meeks learned to work hard from his mother, Sadie, who started working in the mill at age 9. His father, Tom, was a policeman for the mill.

It was after he resumed his college education that he was discovered by WMFR owner Frank Lambeth. “I fell into radio. I had no interest in it,” Meeks said. “Frank Lambeth asked me to fill in for a week for one of his announcers, which I did. A week later, he called me into his office and asked, 'How would you like a radio job?’ While I was in college, I worked the Driving Home program from 3 to 7 in the evenings,” Meeks said.

“I later took the morning show when Gary Davis left to become manager at WHPE. After I had worked for about 10 years, the government began investigating radio. Record companies were giving people at radio stations money or gifts to play their songs. It was a big scandal called payola. I got disenchanted working in a business that was accused of being unethical — although they weren’t investigating our station.

“The only thing I ever remember anybody giving me was a set of cuff links,” Meeks said.

He turned his back on radio and became a sales representative for a High Point furniture company. He was based in Houston, and later in Jackson, Miss.

Meeks returned to High Point to become a trainee under Furniture Market director Leo Herr, who wanted to retire. “It didn’t take me long to realize that administration was not my calling. I was miserable in that job,” he said.

Then WMFR owner Lambeth called again, asking Meeks to help him for a week because the station’s morning man was leaving. “I’ve been in the job ever since,” Meeks said.

Many radio formats have come and gone, but Meeks has continued programming his way. “None of the seven managers that I’ve worked under have ever told me what to promote,” he said. “'Just keep on doing what you are doing,’ they would say.”

And he was not asked to retire. “I always felt that when the time came to call it quits, I would know. I had that feeling back in November and decided it was time to go,” Meeks said.

Meeks has won many awards for his broadcasting, including being named the state’s broadcaster of the year and being inducted into the N.C. Broadcasters Hall of Fame.

Lee Kinard, a friend, fellow member of the Hall of Fame and former stalwart at WFMY (Channel 2), said, “I sincerely hope that Max Meeks is not the last of the iconic community-minded broadcasters who made local radio a major part of our state’s culture.

“His listeners are his family,” Kinard said. “His fellow broadcasters are his greatest admirers.”

Not only has Meeks had pleasure and great satisfaction as a broadcaster, he said he also found peace about the job he never sought.

“When I had been back in High Point about a year, I knew I was where God wanted me to be,” he said.

Contact Bob Burchette at bburchette@triad.rr.com