Pittsburgh’s youngest DJ, 1963

Each program also featured gospel music sung by Darlene MacLloyd with the aid of several members of the choir at her father’s church.

Alas, her radio career appears to have been fairly short-lived.

A check of various online databases finds no mention of Bishop MacLloyd after the mid-1960s, though he apparently relocated to Washington, D.C., after suffering a series of tax problems in Pittsburgh. Social Security records indicate that he died in Cleveland in 1979.

WZUM became a progressive rock station in the early 1970s (with regular polka programming from station owner Jimmy “Jimmy Pol” Psihoulis) before being sold in 1975 to Dolores and Bob Hickling, who turned it into a Christian radio station under the call letters WPLW.

Sold again in 1998, the station returned to its WZUM call letters and tried a variety of formats, including jazz, oldies and a few weeks doing “all traffic” before it was leased (and later sold) to the owners of the Green Bay, Wis., based Relevant Radio Catholic network.

Radio stars were becoming “brief and brighter,” reported the Pittsburgh Courier 45 years ago. “Brief in size, that is.”

The weekly had a feature story on the young lady it called “the youngest radio star in the nation.” She was Darlene MacLloyd, 10, who hosted a half-hour show of advice and music for kids at 5 p.m. Sundays over Carnegie’s WZUM (1590).

Darlene was the daughter of Bishop Clifford N. MacLloyd, an entrepreneur, popular “spiritual healer,” and founder of St. Philip’s Orthodox Science Church on Herron Avenue in the city and Frankstown Avenue in Penn Hills.

The newspaper described Darlene MacLloyd as “confidence personified” behind the WZUM console.

“Good afternoon everyone, and welcome to the station of hope,” Darlene opened each episode of “Darlene’s Diary,” according to the April 20, 1963 issue of the Courier.

WZUM had signed on in July of the previous year, programming a mix of ethnic music including rhythm and blues.

The focus of “Darlene’s Diary” was on “better behavior and obedience to parents and others in authority,” the newspaper noted. “When she is stumped by questions mailed in by her listening public, the little ‘pro’ confers with her dad and comes forth with the answer.”