Personality Profiles KOOL Morning Show

Personality Profiles

An interview with R.J. Harris and Sylvia Maus
of the WKKL 99.3fm Morning Show

By Scot Giambalvo

If you don’t mind waking up with a smile on your face every morning, then you ought to give the KOOL Morning Show a whirl. Besides great oldies, R.J. Harris and Sylvia Maus mix up their own brand of get-up-and-go humor every morning from 5:30 to 9am.

Knowing full well that getting a straight answer from either of these two would be like pulling teeth, I dispensed with the typical where did you grow up and how did you wind up in radio questions in leiu of the question "What’s the funniest thing you’ve ever done on the air?" "Well," started R.J. Then Sylvia chimed in and said, "Tell him about when you called Prince Charles for his birthday!" I leaned over and said "You didn’t." R.J. blushed and said "I never though I’d ever really get through to him, it was just a fluke." But low and behold, calling as Ronald Regan, Mr. R.J. Harris of KOOL 99.3 actually spoke with Prince Charles of England on the air.

But day to day just isn’t that wild. "We’re partly serious, but most of the time Sylvia’s got something to say that I can poke fun at" commented R.J. "Like the time she noticed the fog rolling in off the mountain. I just had to tell her that there were fog-evacuators in the hills and not 10 minutes later folks from all over Harrisburg were calling in, telling Sylvia that it was true. We had her going for the whole show."

"R.J. keeps me in the dark about what’s going on each day." said Sylvia. "It keeps her sincere. You can tell by her laugh that it isn’t rehearsed." Sylvia breaks out laughing. I asked R.J. if he considered himself as the funny man in this duo. He answered: "I don’t see myself as a comedian, I just happen to like to do weird and wacky things.
At KOOL you’ll find the best goofy stuff in town!" And goofy might be putting it mildly. For a morning talk show that plays the most music, these KOOL kids always seem to have something or someone unusual to share with their audience.

Interestingly enough, on any given day of the KOOL Morning Show you can participate in games, trivia questions, even hear celebrity call-ins from guests like Dick Clark, Donna Mills, Peter Guest, and even the totally hip Wink Martindale. And with suprise appearances from Edith and Archie Bunker, and Rocky Balboa, there is seldom a calm moment around the ole studio. "We’re very interactive with the audience" said R.J., "They make it work as much as we do."

So, the guy Mayor Stephen Reed proclaimed Harrisburg’s Resident Humorist, and the gal that wanted to be a Nun, (but couldn’t stand the clothes,) serve up the KOOLest radio java with the best oldies.

BTW, happy third anniversary R.J.! That’s right, folks in Harrisburg have been waking up to R.J. (whose been on the front page of USA Today) for 3 big ones this month. Sylvia (winner of 2 Excellence in Broadcasting awards) gets her third gold star in June.