Schuylkill County has lost a media legend. The voice of Crimson Tide football and basketball for decades, Howard “Les” Blankenhorn passed away on July 8 surrounded by loving family. Blakenhorn was 86 years old.
For decades, Blankenhorn was a fixture on local radio. He was an on-air personality at WPPA-AM 1360 and WAVT-FM (T-102) in Pottsville. Blankenhorn was best known as the voice of local sports. He also served as disc jockey during just about any shift over the years, a news reporter, and studio engineer.
Outside of his work in local sports, Blankenhorn’s voice was heard for years in homes, cars, and at work through his mid-day show and its signature tagline, “Get more with Les.”
Blankenhorn was eventually promoted to Operations Manager with Pottsville Broadcasting Co. before his retirement.
His talents even extended beyond the station. He served as a racetrack announcer in Pine Grove for years and was honored with induction to the Coal Region Racing Hall of Fame in 2022. And he served as emcee of the Muscular Dystrophy Association telethon locally at Fairlane Village Mall.
A life dedicated to broadcasting …
Blankenhorn was part of the graduating class of 1957 at Pottsville High School. He later attended Radio Electronics Institute in 1975
Blankenhorn started at the station in 1969 and worked for about 40 years before retiring. And for many who worked with Blankenhorn over the years, he was much more than simply a co-worker or an employee. He was a leader and a mentor in the workplace and in the radio profession.
As a young child, current owner Argie Tidmore remembers Blankenhorn being at the station and learning the ropes from him before he eventually took control of the airwaves from his parents.
“As long as I can remember, he was there. He taught me an awful lot as a little kid,” Tidmore tells Coal Region Canary. “He explained why things were the way they were at the station. He was literally a Godsend for us, for me, for my mom and dad. Les was passionate.”
Now a public affairs and marketing executive for Jefferson Health/Lehigh Valley Hospital-Schuylkill, in the mid-1980s, Michael Peckman was a budding news reporter at the radio station. He started there in high school and officially joined the newsroom after college.
Peckman remembers Blankenhorn as the man who showed him what a true professional was and how to dedicate oneself to their work.
“Les was a mentor to so many,” Peckman says. “Every one of us learned something from Les. Les was everything there. He was just a leader. He loved Schuylkill County. He loved Pottsville.
“Les was a pro. I emulated that through my career,” he adds.
Blankenhorn took many young, up-and-coming radio personalities under his wing in the 40 years he dedicated to the profession. Another one of those was Paul Kennedy, now executive director at Signal of Eastern PA and Signal of Western PA.
Before he started in the security industry, Kennedy was a young, on-air personality at WPPA and he remembers Blankenhorn as his first boss there.
“Les gave a young kid a chance to learn, to grow, and to belong,” Kennedy remembers in an online dedication to Blankenhorn. “I was usually the youngest guy in the room and there were times when that wasn’t easy. Les never let that become a disadvantage. He defended me when I needed it, reminded others that my voice mattered, and gave me the confidence to keep learning and contributing.”
“To learn the craft from a legend has been priceless.”
Over his decades on the air, Blankenhorn worked with many people in the booth at high school sports events. In the 1990s, current Frackville Borough Councilman Ed Beneshunas knew he wanted to be a sports commentator and Blankenhorn gave him his shot at WPPA.
Beneshunas became WPPA’s sideline reporter for Crimson Tide football games in the ’90s. Blankenhorn was on the play-by-play.
“Getting to learn the craft from a legend has been priceless,” he says.
He wasn’t just a boss though. To Beneshunas, Blankenhorn was much more. He describes him as a mentor.
“I try to do him justice every time I go out and honor him with the broadcast side,” he says.
“JP, can you come up here?”
Perhaps no one personality is connected with Blankenhorn more than John Powers Sr., the retired Dean of Students at Pottsville Area High School, who spent 20 years on the air with Blankenhorn providing color commentary for Crimson Tide games.
And that partnership began as happenstance.
Powers recalls a moment at Crimson Tide boys’ basketball game when he first joined Blankenhorn on the air in 1982. At the time, Blankenhorn’s typical on-air partner, the late Chris Knapp, was unavailable and Powers was walking around at Martz Hall prior to the game. A voice rings down. It was Blankenhorn.
“JP, can you come up here,” Powers recalls hearing. So, he makes his way up the staircase to the press box at The Mecca. “Sit down. Sit down,” Blankenhorn instructs him.
“He put the headphones on me before I could say anything,” Powers says, and suddenly he’s the color commentator for the game that night as Blankenhorn gets started, saying “Welcome, JP.”
“I’d never done anything like that. It was the start of an incredible journey for me,” Powers says.
He adds that he learned a lot from Blankenhorn in the 20 years they worked together on the air broadcasting countless games together but the duo shared a common bond in their style from the get-go.
“This game is about the kids. It’s not about athletes,” he says, remembering how Blankenhorn never made a negative comment about a student, even when they committed a turnover or any kind of mistake in a game. “Neither of us coached from the broadcast booth.”
“MacGyver before MacGyver”
Although he was known best as the voice of local sports, especially in Pottsville, Blankenhorn was the guy at the radio station who got calls when things went sideways technologically.
“He was MacGyver before MacGyver,” Tidmore remembers fondly.
Tidmore says Blankenhorn knew everything there was to know about the station and never panicked, even when the station was up for compliance checks with the Federal Communications Commission.
“You knew Les was on top of it,” Tidmore says.
That technical savvy extended beyond the studio in Pottsville, too. Back when it wasn’t so easy to get on the air, Blankenhorn made it look so with his engineering skills.
“He was the guy who could get you on the air with alligator clips,” Tidmore remembers.
Peckman recalls running into technical issues numerous times while he manned the news desk at the station. And that often required phoning Blankenhorn at home. The man didn’t blink and was always there to lend assistance, he says.
As a first-class engineer, Blankenhorn was the go-to guy when something wasn’t working properly, or at all.
And even when he had every right to be upset about being bothered at home with these problems, Peckman says that wasn’t in Blankenhorn’s character. He says he could call him at any hour, explain the problem, and Blankenhorn had the fix for it.
“That kind of treatment was just tremendous. He could have been not nice about it and never was,” Peckman says.
Powers remembers one time more specifically when he was just in awe of Blankenhorn’s abilities.
“I always called him Inspector Gadget,” Powers says. “He wouldn’t let me touch the equipment, which was smart.”
While the pair were preparing to broadcast a Crimson Tide basketball game at Blue Mountain, the color commentator remembers they couldn’t get on the air. Powers says Blankenhorn told him to take a wire and climb under the bleachers at the school’s gymnasium.
Meanwhile, Blankenhorn went into an office near the gym, opened a window, and Powers fed the line to him. Blankenhorn disassembled a phone receiver and using an alligator clip, was able to get the announcing duo on the air in time for the game.
From Beneshunas’ perspective, he says, “I always thought he was that geeky guy who knew if you took the red wire and connected the green wire with the black wire, you would make sound on the other side.
“If you had a problem, you just called Les. He knew the workings inside and out,” Beneshunas says.
… and a life dedicated to his family, friends, and community
For all the praise his co-workers and proteges had no problem sharing with Coal Region Canary about his dedication to broadcasting and radio, they were equally or perhaps more effusive in speaking about Blankenhorn’s dedication and love of his family and how they all became true friends with him over the years.
“Just a good guy, an all-around good guy,” Tidmore says.
Peckman adds, “Les was an American original. Look up good guy – Les Blankenhorn. Our hearts go out to his family. Good family. He was a local boy who made good.”
Paulette Jenkins, a manager at Pottsville Broadcasting Co. who started at the station a few years after Blankenhorn in 1972, remembers her friend fondly. “He was just a genuine good person.”
Blankenhorn is survived by his loving wife, Diane (Belas) Blankenhorn; two daughters, Jennifer L. Martin and her husband, Jesse C. Martin Jr., of Exeter, and Cindy Studlack and her husband, John Studlack, of Minersville; and three cherished grandchildren, Jasmine E. Sam, Colin Studlack, and Sara Studlack.
He was a devoted member of Trinity Lutheran Church in Pottsville, where he served on the Church Council. Blankenhorn was also deeply involved with the Pottsville Salvation Army, serving for many years as Chairman of the Citizens Advisory Board and Chairman of the annual Christmas Drive. He also served on the Board of Directors of the Economic Opportunity Cabinet of Schuylkill County and as President of the East Side Area Project Council during the $5 million federal Home Rehabilitation Project for low-income homeowners. He was a longtime member of the American Hose Company of Pottsville, too.
“I’m heartbroken. He was the real deal,” Powers says. “I cried. Such a good guy. Les and I became super friends.”
When Blankenhorn wasn’t talking about radio, he was talking about his family, everyone says.
“He was the best dad you could imagine and a fabulous husband. He did it with his actions,” Powers says. “He’s left quite the legacy, not only with us but with his family.”
Powers adds that not only was Blankenhorn dedicated to his own family but to the Powerses as well. “Les and I became super friends. He became a friend of the family. I still love the man. He went out of his way with younger daughter.”
Beneshunas remembers Blankenhorn speaking non-stop about his family when they’d hit the road for games, especially when Pottsville’s football team was playing in a Berks County-based league years ago.
He remembers Blankenhorn talking about his wife, Diane, working at Boscov’s and going to pick her up from work and going out for burgers.
“Loved his family. Every time we went to Berks County, it was ‘Oh, Jenny’ or ‘Oh, Jesse’. She works here. She worked there. We’ve been over there for breakfast,” he recalls from Blankenhorn’s stories.
Beneshunas adds, “He knew every good spot to stop and he knew where every McDonald’s was.”
As a friend, Kennedy remembers standing in the garage with Blankenhorn (maybe sharing a few puffs of a Lucky Strike) and talking about radio, life, or whatever else.
“Looking back, those conversations taught me just as much as anything that happened behind the microphone,” Kennedy remembers. “The heavenly airwaves gained one of the very best broadcasters today.”
Services
Funeral services will be held on Thursday, July 16 at Donald J. Butler Funeral Home in Minersville, starting at 11 a.m. Relatives and friends are invited to call starting at 9 a.m. that day. Internment will be held at Schuylkill Memorial Park.
In lieu of flowers, Blankenhorn’s family requests memorial contributions be made to Muscular Dystrophy Association’s Lehigh Valley office, at 2132 S. 12th St. in Allentown. Contributions will also be accepted at the funeral home.
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