Remembering Earl Bugaile
June 6, 2016KQV-AM (1410) anchor and reporter Earl Bugaile passed away Sunday at the age of 69. Bugaile had worked at KQV since 2006 but got his start at WTRA in Latrobe and worked at several stations throughout the Mon Valley. Just last year he was nominated for a Jefferson Award for the creation of a program providing information and support gor heart surgery and cardiology patients at Washington Hospital. He is survived by his wife and three children.
So sorry to see this. Earl was a good man and a hard worker. Had a real passion for hockey.
I hope this link works …
http://www.heraldstandard.com/news/local_news/bugaile-remembered-for-nose-for-news/article_9bbc297f-c14c-546b-b69d-6758243f1612.html?_dc=428551897706.05054
If you can’t access that piece, here is the text …
0 comments
One could recall Earl Bugaile on quite a few levels, including his many years in Tri-State radio.
“He was a great team player,” said Bob Dickey Jr., general manager and vice president at KQV-1410 in Pittsburgh, where Bugaile worked since 2006. “In a time at the station when we had some retirements and some unforeseen departures, he would say, ‘Give me a call and I would be available.’”
Bugaile, 69, of Washington, Pa., died Sunday. He also was a freelance writer for various publications including the Herald-Standard; a spokesperson for such entities as Washington County and Presbyterian Senior Care; a talent providing commercial voice-overs for advertisers; a musician in the Monongahela Area Community Band; and a participant in local theater groups.
“Earl was just a great human being,” retired KQV news director Frank Gottlieb said. “He was justifiably proud of his kids. One of them, Ben, is an organist. He went through the music program at (Indiana University of Pennsylvania). Earl and (his wife) Marta invited me to Heinz Chapel a couple of years ago for his senior recital. The kid is talented. That all comes from the nurturing he had from his parents.”
In addition to his wife, Bugaile is survived by their children, Benjamin, Molly and Timothy, as well as Timothy’s wife, Kaitlin; Earl’s brother, Eric, and his wife, Deborah Bugaile of Harrisburg; Earl’s sister, Carol Ann Wells, of Lawrenceville; nieces, a great-niece and nephew, and several cousins.
Bugaile made his mark in radio news, including 10 years at KQV and stops at WTRA (now WCNS-1480) in Latrobe; WEIR-1430 in Weirton, W.Va.; WEDO-810 in McKeesport; and WKEG-1110 (later WKZV, now defunct) and WJPA/AM-FM in Washington.
“He’d jump on the phone and do all the things you wished you could do all the time, he did all the time,” said state Department of Environmental Protection spokesman John Poister. “You never worried about accuracy. He was dead on. I can’t remember anything that Earl ever got wrong.”
Poister knew Bugaile from the days when he was news director of WMBA-1460 in Ambridge and Bugaile was at WKEG.
They had an informal news exchange set up by their respective stations’ then-owners, Joe Nascone at WKEG and John Bride at WMBA, whose friendship began as sales persons at rival Pittsburgh radio stations.
“Joe (Nascone) came in after the lunch and agreed it would be a great idea for both stations,” Poister said. “He said, ‘pick up the phone and call my news guy in Washington. I want you guys to get to know each other. We hit it off right away.”
“If something was going on in Washington County, and I called him, he knew what was going on,” Poister said. “He had his finger on the pulse of Washington County.”
Bugaile was at WEDO during its era as Pittsburgh’s CBS Radio Network affiliate and fed reports to that network as well as the old Mutual Broadcasting System.
“He worked back in that 1969-70 period at WEDO with Bill Tush, Dick Ruby and myself,” Alan C. Serena posted on Facebook. Serena went on to own another McKeesport radio station and today is an executive at Renda Broadcasting. Ruby still works as a broadcast engineer, including tasks for WEDO, and Tush went on to a three-decade career with Turner Broadcasting and CNN.
Poister last talked to Bugaile last month for a KQV story.
“Even when he interviewed me three weeks ago, he asked me my name, and made sure he had everything right,” Poister said.
“He was really a talented guy,” said Gottlieb, who worked with Bugaile from 2006 to 2012. “You talk about someone in the business having the proverbial nose for news, and that was Earl and I could tell even after I left that a lot of what he did at KQV was self-assigned and doing stories that otherwise wouldn’t have gotten on the air.”
Friends said Bugaile’s passions included his pet Corgi dogs, watching and covering hockey games, and trains. The latter was well known and reflected in some of his work, including a March 2014 Herald-Standard story on CSX that dwelled extensively on that railroad’s history.
“As the 21st century began, CSX began hauling a new kind of freight on cars equipped to carry shipping containers to and from the ports on the Atlantic Ocean,” Bugaile wrote. “As traffic increased, CSX saw the need for double stack container trains that would result in more efficient use of diesel fuel, decreasing traffic on the highways and a way to preserve the environment.”
As Bugaile wrote, that led to a public-private partnership with which CSX is developing a $850 million “National Gateway” over a 30-year period from northwest Ohio to the Eastern Seaboard.
Part of that project involves intermodal terminals, including a $60 million complex planned for McKees Rocks. Dickey said Bugaile focused on that for a series of “In Depth” KQV specials in 2014, where he was involved in all facets of the production – and helped the station in both the short and long term, as KQV was able to cultivate new ties in that area outside Pittsburgh.
“He was very public service driven,” Dickey said. “He reported news without an agenda, without a personal preference. He had them but he didn’t make them public. I really have a great esteem for people like that.”
Bugaile was a volunteer as well working with heart patients at Washington Hospital. Washington Health System CEO Gary Weinstein nominated Bugaile for the Jefferson Award, a prestigious honor for community and public volunteerism, which he received in a May 4, 2015, ceremony in Pittsburgh.
“He began volunteering after his own little (heart) episode,” Gottlieb said. “He had bypass surgery several years ago, and after having surgery, it was his way of giving back to the hospital, to volunteer in the cardiac unit. He would talk to the patients and encourage them.”
“We will truly miss him,” said Kathleen Engelmeier, director of patient experience at Washington Health System. “He touched many people’s lives and will be remembered for all his kindness and wisdom.”
And his public service extended to another aspect of his life. From 1992 to 1996 he served on the Trinity Area school board, representing Region III including South Strabane Township.
He was a graduate of Washington and Jefferson College and a U.S. Army veteran who served for more than 20 years in a Pennsylvania Army National Guard unit in Washington, Pa., where he was an information officer.
Bugaile was an active member of Westminster Presbyterian Church in Upper St. Clair, where a memorial service was conducted on Wednesday. Warco-Falvo Funeral Home Inc. handled arrangements.
In lieu of flowers, the family requested memorial contributions to The Washington Hospital Cardiac Care Unit, 155 Wilson Ave. Washington, PA 15301, or to the Mario Lemieux Foundation at http://www.MarioLemieux.org/donate/.
Earl Bugaile worked for 3 years, in the early 70s at WKEG Washington Pa. As a day-timer Joe Nacone
created a weekday local news block called “Washington Now” 745am to 8:30am..and Washington Today”,
4pm to 4:45pm.
I was PD at the time, and Earl’s local news reporting put us on the map.Our competition was WJPA-AM-FM.
The “daytimer” was a huge success, and made money.
When my Mother died, Earl was the first to arrive Monday morning in Bentleyville 10:00 am Sharp.. That was
Earl. I will miss him.
Ed Sherlock/Owner WSDE AM-FM Cobleskill NY.