A recent NBC News piece about a small town of under 1,000 people having a hometown radio station serving the rural community reminded us of when Elkton had a full-service outlet, WSER. With the station providing original daily programming for Cecil County, the broadcasters talked to the community. DJs played the hits and chatted up area happenings, a reporter had local news, and programming highlighted local people, things, and sports.
Elkton’s radio station, took to the airwaves on Thursday, Aug. 22, 1963, at noon. As the transmitter came to life with regular programming for Cecil County, listeners heard a special opening ceremony. County and town officials were on hand, and the Rev. Howard O. Van Sice, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Elkton, gave the invocation.
For some 40 years from the studio on Maloney Road, it was Cecil County’s daytime spot on the dial, the airwaves filled with conversation about Cecil County in between the hits of the day. The station was a central part of the county.
On snowy days, families immediately turned on WSER to hear if the schools were closed. And the all too eager students jammed the phone lines at the station, calling to ask if the overworked morning crew had heard anything yet. On those snowy sunrises, the early morning announcer knew he had his work cut out for him as he would often remind students not to jam the lines so the Board of Education could reach the station. The announcement would hit the airwaves as soon as it was received, he assured young listeners.
Sometimes news bulletins interrupted the daily routine. For many here, the first they head that President Kennedy had been shot down in Dallas came from the network flash on WSER. On that November 22, 1963, the mid-day disc jockey worked the turntable playing the hits of ’63 when the network flash interrupted his entertaining routine. Once the first flash got everyone’s attention, listeners huddled near receivers at home, work, and in cars to hear the latest. As the hours unfolded, the network kept up a steady stream of bulletins and flashes. Soon afterward, the station informed its advertisers that all commercial spots were
A few weeks later on Dec. 8, 1963, Pan American Airlines Flight 214 crashed in Elkton, 81-people perishing when the big jet exploded high in the sky over the town. The tragedy occurred around 9 p.m. on Sunday night. When the station signed on the air at sunrise Monday morning Elkton’s radio station kept local listeners informed as the painful recovery process got underway with the first light of day, the work continuing over several days.
On October 31, 1965, Chief Edgar Slaughter of the Singerly Fire Company ordered an urgent, mandatory evacuation of parts of western Elkton, after a train carrying hazardous material wrecked in town. The announcer working the Sunday morning shift at WSER interrupted the regular church programming which aired in that time slot, taking to the airwaves to broadcast emergency information to residents of west Elkton as National Guardsmen, police officers and firefighters went door-to-door to make sure people dearted immediately.
For many Cecil Countians, it was their spot on the dial in the daytime and It was all focused on Cecil County.
In late 1999, a Delaware-based religious group, Faith City Church, purchased the station from First Philadelphia Properties. Around this time it started simulcasting a remote feed, according to Wikipedia. Thus local programming was discontinued. The station changed its call letters to WXHL on Feb. 15, 2002.
