Article Contributed by
Media One Group
Media One Group radio announces the retirement of one of its broadcast veterans who has serviced the area’s airwaves for decades. Ron Reiff will end his commercial radio broadcast career at the end of the month and local radio will never sound the same.
Area radio listeners may not recognize the name, because Reiff has been on the local airwaves as “Ron Smith” for decades. Most recently Reiff has been a Senior Sales Consultant and commercial voice for Media One Group’s five local radio stations. Additionally, Reiff has been educating fans of classic rock each Saturday morning on WQFX 103.1 FM and has been a radio commentator of Eisenhower High School Varity Football for the past seven seasons . His recent accomplishments, however, are just the career extends far beyond his time with Media One Group.
Reiff first began radio in 1963 at WNAE-WRRN, while he was still in High School. His first full-time job at the radio station was in the position of a copywriter and on-air personality in 1969. From there he went onto WWSE in Jamestown where he became the first morning man in the stations history, the FM spin off of WJTN-AM. In 1974 Smith began his twenty eight year tenure at WWCB in Corry, Pennsylvania. He joined radio stations WKSN, WHUG and WQFX in June of 2004 and returned to the Orchard Road broadcast facility in West Ellicott in 2005 when Media One Group acquired the stations from Vox Allegheny. For a majority of his career Reiff also provided professional voice over production for radio and television commercials across the country.
“It has been an honor working alongside Ron,” said Andrew Hill, Media One Group’s Director of Operations and Programming. “His creativity for commercial copywriting is the best in the business and we’ve been lucky to have his talents in our community. He could have easily been working in Hollywood with his skills. His enthusiasm and belief in local radio has been inspirational for many young broadcasters he has come across.” Hill added.
Other than radio broadcasting, Reiff’s other passion has been auto racing. Reiff was the track announcer at State Line Speedway in Busti from 1986 to 2001. In 1994, Dirt Track Magazine announced that Reiff had been voted as one of the top ten best track announcers on the East Coast! In 2016 Reiff was honored with The Legacy Award by Stateline Speedway during their end of year banquet in appreciation of his many years of passion and dedication to the local speedway. After giving up the mic at the track in 2001 he became the radio host of “The Pit Road Show” which aired on WHUG-FM, WWSE-FM and most recently on WQFX-FM each Saturday night, live from “the Pits” at Stateline Speedway.
Reiff, as a licensed amateur HAM radio operator, is looking forward to spending more time with his family and chatting with other HAM operators around the world under his call sign KB3BYP.
Anyone wishing to congratulate Reiff on his retirement can do so at www.MediaOneGroupRadio.com.
