Send us your stories about where you were when the 9/11 tragedy struck

Our news reporters are working on stories for the 20th anniversary of 9/11. They will appear in next week’s edition of the News Journal. They are asking for your input. You can send information about where you were and how it affected you to: jperkins@corbinnewsjournal.com.

Don Estep is publisher of the News Journal.

To get a jump start on this I am writing my column this week about that horrific time. I remember it as if it was yesterday.

It was a Tuesday and all of us were working hard to get the paper to the printing plant. My phone rings and it is my wife. She says, “Turn on your television, a plane has just crashed into the World Trade Center.”

At that time I had a 13 inch television in my office that I used as part of the equipment for televising our Homes Guide video.

I immediately turned my chair around and turned on the TV. I alerted all the staff as to what was happening and they gathered in my office to watch. Just moments later the second plane hit the other building.

It was one of those shocking moments that you never forget. It was similar to when I heard about President Kennedy being shot. At that time I had just pulled in to Baldy McNeil’s Gulf station on Main Street in Corbin for gas while heading back for my one o’clock shift at WCTT radio station.

I had my radio on and before I cut off the engine I heard the news on the radio. Immediately I headed back to the radio station.

Not knowing what to do we decided to play soft music and cut all commercial programming.

We had a feed from Southern Cable for TV programming and Jack McCoy, a disc jockey on our staff, had the bright idea to call

NBC and ask for permission to pick up their audio.

With permission granted we stayed with their audio for three days. For each of us during our shift we watched and only announced our station identification once every 30 minutes.

That and the 9/11 attack are the two most memorable incidents I remember. They never leave you.

While reminiscing, 60 years ago this week was the first football game I announced on WCTT covering the Corbin Redhounds.

I had broadcast some basketball games for the station while I was a student at the University of Kentucky, but this was my first football game.

As a student at UK, WCTT’s station manager would call on me at times to do away games. The first time it happened was in a game against Breathitt County. Glenn Parks drove to Lexington and picked me up and we went from there to the game with the Bobcats.

I’ll never forget that game. Fairce Woods was the coach of the Bobcat team, a very colorful coach at that, and he stood right in front of me during the broadcast and made comments on the microphone.

We had to run an AC power cord down the sideline to an area on the stage. During the broadcast somebody unplugged the cord and Glenn had to stand by it to keep us on the air.

That first football game is very memorable. It featured the great Rodger Bird. I idolized his older brother Calvin who was a classmate of mine and whom I had the pleasure of broadcasting several of the games he played in at UK.

From the time I was a 10 year old kid listening to the UK basketball games with my dad on the table model radio in our kitchen, I wanted to be a play-by-play broadcaster.

For 30 years, I broadcast Corbin’s games along with Cumberland College and just about any game that was happening. We did them all.

I was determined to be a sports announcer and when I got to college I got that chance because of Leonard Press who was head of the Radio/TV department at UK.

Broadcasting games was never a job, but instead pure enjoyment.

Thanks for the memories!