CNO 2.0 Venue and Details
The venue for tonight’s CNO 2.0 meeting was Chappys Social House at 880 Washington Village Drive. Thank you to the team at Chappys for hosting us.
Greg Fay, chair of CNO 2.0, said he was so thankful for all the guests and members that came to tonight’s meeting. He also gave a recap of what our club is all about and that information is at the bottom of this article.
John “B-Man” Beaulieu, Radio Personality
John “B-Man” Beaulieu (62) started working at WTUE Radio 40 years ago. His employer is now iHeartRadio, which owns 104.7 WTUE. Beaulieu was inducted into the Dayton Broadcasters Hall of Fame in 2013.
Beaulieu was born in Dayton and moved to Chicago at 6. His family moved back to Centerville when he was 16. He was adopted and he met his birth mother 15 years ago. His parents died 25 years ago and he is very grateful to have a second family with his birth mother. Sadly, he buried his birth mother very recently.
B-Man has always loved radio. He still has great memories of his first transistor radio and his father claims his first word was “radio.”
To his wife of 26 years, he is John, not B-Man. Any arguments he and his wife have had were usually caused when he forgot to leave the B-Man personality at work.
High School
Beaulieu started High School in Chicago where he was a pretty good symphonic clarinet player. When his family moved back to Ohio, they ended up in Centerville. He kept playing the clarinet at CHS but he was not interested in the marching band; he preferred listening to Benny Goodman records. A great thing about ending up at CHS is the high school had just started a radio station. CHS still has a station today. During his junior year while helping the school radio station, John also learned a lot about radio.
His parents looked at living in other towns in the Dayton area, but John is very happy to have ended up in Centerville and it is where he has lived most of his life.
College
Beaulieu earned a degree in broadcasting from the University of Cincinnati. Their program was well regarded, so UC was an easy choice. During college he worked at WSCH radio in Aurora, Indiana from 2pm to 10 pm on Sundays spinning country music. The station is still country format and serves the Cincinnati area. He said radio was a lot different than it is now when you had to keep those 45’s spinning one right after the other. For those under 30 reading this, a 45 is a 2-song vinyl record with one song on each side that rotates at 45 revolutions per minute.
With 3 months of college left, B-Man found out WTUE wanted to offer him a job when his mother drove down to Sharonville to tell him while he was working as a DJ at a skating rink. During an all skate his mother said that WTUE station manager Chuck Browning had called and wanted to offer him a job. He wondered what the heck his mother was doing at the skating rink. She was very excited that her son was going to have a good job.
For his final 3 months at UC, Beaulieu drove back and forth from Cincinnati to the WTUE studios, crashing at his parents’ house.
Radio Career
Except for a short stint in Oklahoma City, Beaulieu has been with 104.7 WTUE for 40 years. It was not a difficult decision to accept the offer to return to 104.7 WTUE. Beaulieu remembers working in Oklahoma City spinning records while watching cows graze.
When he started at WTUE, he worked for a short time in the mornings, but quickly was promoted to afternoons.
John is thankful for all the great experiences he has had because of radio. He has a great relationship with musician Stevie Ray Vaughn and Charlie Daniels has made an impression on him. He has been able to race cars, go up in hot air balloons and be the PA announcer for years for hockey.
He really likes that part of his job is to be involved in the community. Just like CNO, he said it is all about helping the youth in our community. He was very happy to talk to CNO tonight since they are a “Friend of Youth.”
The last several years Beaulieu has worked for iHeart Radio. He is live on the radio for 4 hours each weekday afternoon. He also spends about 45 to 60 minutes at the end of his workday recording a show that is broadcast late at night for 5 hours by iHeart Radio in 38 markets nationwide. He said iHeart Radio is the largest media company in the world and radio now is a lot about social media.
WTUE currently has just 4 on-air talents. The station was located at 11 South Wilkinson since 1965. Very recently, it moved downtown to the Dayton Arcade.
Thank You B-Man
Thank you, John “B-Man” Beaulieu, for speaking at tonight’s CNO 2.0 meeting and telling us some stories about your life and career.
About CNO 2.0
CNO 2.0 is a club within a club of the Centerville Noon Optimist Club. CNO (and CNO 2.0) is a world class service organization. Being a member of either club allows their members all the same opportunities to participate in fundraising and club activities. CNO 2.0 was created about 5 years ago and is very much a part of the 53-year-old Centerville Noon Optimist Club. CNO has given away over $2 million during its history. CNO is a group of like-minded members that are passionate about helping youth and having fun in the process.
The speaker at each 2.0 meeting is someone with a local business success story.
Annual Fundraisers
- Christmas Tree Lot
- Avenue of Flags
- Golf Outing
Major Activities for the youth in our community
- Build-a-Bear at Children’s Hospital, 3 times a year
- Fishing Derby in June
- Kid’s day in the park in August
- Easter Egg Hunt