WDKX-FM founder, CEO dies

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The CEO and founder of Rochester radio station WDKX-FM 103.9, Andrew Langston, has died, according to a statement on the station’s Web site.

Mr. Langston, 83, died Thursday, the station reports.

As the founder of Monroe Broadcasting Co. Ltd., which owns and operates WDKX-FM, he was one of few remaining local commercial-radio-station owners in Rochester. Many others sold their properties to large corporations.

Born and raised in a rural Georgia town, Mr. Langston’s parents were sharecroppers. In a 1997 interview with the Rochester Business Journal, he said his family instilled in him the value of hard work. He always had odd jobs–from sweeping a barbershop floor to caddying at a golf course.

It was through his caddy job that he learned the game of golf. Mr. Langston tried to become a professional golfer, but back in the 1940s no one would sponsor a black athlete.

"I was Tiger before the Woods,” Mr. Langston said of his golf abilities.

Mr. Langston arrived in Rochester 50 years ago with his wife, Gloria, and son Andre. Before arriving here, Mr. Langston had earned a bachelor of science in business administration from City College, City University of New York in 1951 and an MBA in finance and economics from New York University in 1954.

He came to Rochester with the ambition of launching a broadcasting career after a job offer he got over the telephone from a radio audition tape he sent to a local station.

But when he arrived at the job, management refused to see him.

"I had an appointment with the station manager and general manager–they never would see me,” Mr. Langston said in the 1997 interview.

When asked if he was denied the job based on his skin color, he replied: "You figure it out—were there any blacks on TV in 1960?”

Mr. Langston said he was determined to rise above the situation. He could have returned to New York City where he had worked as a Wall Street stockbroker and as a writer at CBS News, but to do would have meant admitting failure, he said.

After some initial years in apparel and insurance sales, Mr. Langston in 1968 founded Monroe County Broadcasting Corp. and sold shares to raise capital. In 1973 he obtained a license for a radio station.

It took six years, but his broadcasting dream became reality on April 6, 1974, with the sign-on of WDKX-FM. The call letters stand for the names of black leaders: Frederick Douglass, Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X.

In 1995 Langston and his family became sole owners of the station.

“A great man with a personality that filled every room he entered, Mr. Langston was not without reverence for his heritage, naming WDKX, his most prized of all his accomplishments, after the black heroes: Frederick Douglass, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and Malcolm X. In homage to their legacies, he devoted WDKX to the black community, indeed the whole Rochester community,” the station’s Web site states.

In lieu of flowers, donations in Mr. Langston’s honor may be made to the Andrew A. Langston Center for Educational Excellence, at Canandaigua National Bank and Trust, 2075 Monroe Avenue, Rochester, 14618.

A private service will be held for family and close friends, with a public service to be announced soon.

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