page_title: WMBS
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: WMBS / History
caption_attribution_description: English: WMBS studio at 44 South Mount Vernon Avenue, Uniontown, Pennsylvania. Seen from the west.
context_page_description: WMBS is a Full service/Adult Standards formatted broadcast radio station licensed to Uniontown, Pennsylvania, serving the Uniontown/Pittsburgh/Morgantown area. WMBS is owned and operated by Fayette Broadcasting Corporation, and broadcasts at a power of 1,000 watts, day and night, adopting a two-tower directional antenna pattern at night from its facilities at 214 Georges Fairchance Road, just off U.S. Route 119.
context_section_description: WMBS became the very first station to sign on the air in all of Fayette County, doing so on July 15, 1937.  This was also the second suburban station outside of Pittsburgh in southwestern Pennsylvania to go on the air.  WHJB (now WKHB) in Greensburg had signed on in 1934, and WKST in New Castle would do so in 1938.
  WMBS bears the distinction of being under the same ownership since it first went on the air.  Though the principals have changed over the years, it has had the same family line for generations.  Robert Pritts is the most recent owner principal, who controls the majority of the station.  Pritts is the nephew of H.S. Dumbauld, one of the station's co-founders.  With the 1997 passing of Dumbauld's son Edward, the family's interest was passed on to Pritts, a retired school district administrator from Columbus, Ohio.
  Brian Mroziak is the current general manager, who ascended to that position at the age of 24, making him one of radio's youngest top executives in the country.  Ken Hawk, of the former WKPA (now WMNY) 50 miles north in New Kensington, was another, becoming general manager of that station at age 21 in 1991.
  WMBS also bears the distinction of being a highly successful AM station without an FM in its portfolio, despite its average listener age of over 65.  WMBS did have an opportunity to acquire an FM property, following the bankruptcy liquidation sale of Uniontown-licensed WPQR-FM (now WPKL) in 2001.  That station had been silent for almost two years due to financial problems that eventually forced it and its AM sister WCVI (now WBGI) into bankruptcy proceedings.  Owner Bob Pritts, who attended the bankruptcy sale, had offered $452,000, but was outbid by current owner Keymarket Licenses, LLC.
   As part of a long-term plan for WMBS' future in the late 1990s, the station moved from its longtime rented location on Fayette Street (the original location in 1937 was in the Fayette Bank Building in downtown Uniontown), to a large Victorian house on South Mount Vernon Avenue owned by Pritts' cousin, the late federal judge Edward Dumbauld, thus eliminating the station's monthly rental bill.  The station also incorporated more off-site music programming, putting existing local disc jockeys to other uses.  The moves strengthened the station financially and improved its overall sound.
  On Monday, January 27, 2003, WMBS flipped from its format of rock 'n roll oldies to its present nostalgia format.
caption: South Mount Vernon Avenue in 2015
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