Remembering John Longo
September 11, 2024We’ve received word of the death of John Longo this past Saturday about a month before his 84th birthday. Longo began his radio career at WTRA (1480) in Latrobe in 1959 and 30 years later was sole owner of the station, then known as WCNS. In between he served in the US Army Reserves and eventually did everything there was to do in radio at stations such as WIXZ (1360 McKeesport), WEDO (810 McKeesport), WYDD (104.7), WHJB (620 Greensburg), and WOKU (107.1 Greensburg).
Mr. Longo became minority owner and general manager of WCNS in 1982 before becoming sole owner in 1989. He later acquired WLCY (106.3 Blairsville) and formed Longo Media Group. Longo and his stations won many awards and recognitions throughout his career from which he retired in 2014. WLCY is now owned by Renda subsidiary St. Pier Group. WCNS went to LHTC Media and is now WJFG under the ownership of Disruptor Radio.
Longo died at his Florida home, leaving a large family behind including his wife of 60 years, two children, and six grandchildren. He was preceded in death by his parents and a son. He will be buried in Greensburg following a funeral on Monday.
I had the pleasure of doing my internship in 1990 at WCNS, then worked for both stations part time after graduation.
Mr. Longo took me to press conferences (one when it was announced Sony was coming to the old VW plant) and told me that being a DJ probably wasn’t a money making career choice…lol. He said sales or engineering was the way to go.
He ended up being very right about that.
He also gave me a good tongue lashing when he checked in on me on a Saturday morning and the television we used for news updates was a playing cartoons! LMAO! To be fair I just hadn’t turned it off and wasn’t paying attention but I took my “lesson” and learned from it.
He was a good man. Never failed to ask about me even years later when he would see my dad at the car wash he managed in Greensburg.
Very sorry to hear he has passed. Good thoughts to him and his family.