By Ben Orcutt -- Daily Staff Writer

FRONT ROYAL — If you're looking for an oldie but a goodie, you don't have to look any further than WFTR AM 1450.

The radio station at 1106 Elm Drive in Front Royal celebrated its 60th anniversary on Friday. About 200 people attended the event, which was replete with local radio personalities and, of course, a birthday cake.

One of those on-air personalities, Lonnie Hill, 47, has worked on and off for WFTR and its sister station, WZRV 95.3 FM The River, since 1984. He's about five years into his latest stint with the FM station, and is on the air from 3 to 7 p.m., five days a week.

"When I first started here, WFTR was an FM and an AM and it was simulcast, so we had the same thing on both stations," Hill said.

Like others at Royal Broadcasting, which is owned by Andrew Shearer, Hill said WFTR turning 60 is significant.

"The significance is, first of all for a business in general to be 60 years old is a mile-marker, but for a radio station to accomplish that is something really special," said Hill, the stations' operations manager.

"For one thing, the call letters have not changed in 60 years," he said. "It's always been a community station, and it continues to do that, and that's remarkable to me. That's one of the things that drew me back into the business."

Like any industry, the years have brought many changes, Hill said.

"The biggest change for me has been computers, in terms of not only what we do on the air, but also how we do commercial production," he said. "It's changed dramatically. What used to take us an hour to splice up actual quarter-inch tape now takes us two minutes to do on a computer."

Having the music stored on a hard drive has also made life easier, Hill said. "You don't have to worry about records or CDs skipping."

"And the Internet, huge, as far as having a Web site and having people anywhere grab on to you and listen to you," he added. "That's amazing to me."

WFTR is a 1,000-watt country music station and, like WZRV 95.3 FM, broadcasts 24 hours a day.

"It serves Warren County very well," Hill said of WFTR. "For a hometown station for Front Royal and Warren County, we got you covered."

Kathy Willis, 45, is the business manager for both stations.

"We think it's a great accomplishment that one of the radio stations in the area has been around for 60 years serving the community, which is the reason why it was built to begin with," she said.

"It's just great that we still have the local advertisers, and some have been around for 20, 25 years," said Joe Woodall, 21, assistant operations manager.

Susan Hrbek, 61, a local resident who attended the festivities Friday, said one thing that stands out in her mind about WFTR's early days is that when a siren would sound in town, the station would interrupt its programming to inform listeners where the fire was.

Town Manager J. Michael Graham, who was also in attendance, said one of his favorite songs on WFTR as a youth was "Wild Thing" by The Troggs.

Town Councilman N. Shae Parker also was on hand with his wife, Lisa, whom he met while working at Royal Broadcasting. Parker recalled with fondness such shows as "Valley Today," the "News at Noon," "Talk Net" and the "Swap Shop," where listeners would call in with an item and leave their phone number.

"It was sort of like the Valley Trader, but on the radio," Parker said.

Word at WFTR is that Warren County Commissioner of Revenue John H. Smedley dubbed the station as "the grandest little station in the nation."

"It was built to serve the community, and it serves the community, and it's done it for 60 years," said Parker. "That's the great thing about it."

*Contact Ben Orcutt at borcutt@nvdaily.com