AIRCHECK WEEK: Weird Beard

This Weird Beard was a hyperactive rock DJ on WAKY-AM, and WBBF in the mid-sixties. His real name was Burt Markert. He left WAKY for a PD gig in Rochester, and quit radio to become a cop in Louisville. He died in 1995 of MS complications.This Weird Beard may not be your Weird Beard. It turns out that there were many different Weird Beards. Burt Markert has no connection to Bill Vermillion another Rock DJ of the same era who was Weird Beard in Orlando on WLOF-AM. Nor any relation to Russ "Weird Beard" Knight on KBOX, WICC and KLIF Dallas in the 1960s and 1970s.  Also unrelated is Windy Craig "The Weird Beard" another mid 60s radio personality. His real name was Fred Winston he did time at WOLF and WLS-AM. That particular Weird Beard also set a a Ferris wheel riding record of 183 hours 2 minutes.  Jim Rose wrote an article about the Weird beard discontinuity phenomenon. You can read it here.

*Audio from http://www.79waky.com/airchecksweirdbeard.htm

102.3 WMFX, the Fox also has a Weird Bread on staff today. He's an ex-truck driver who has been spinning classic Rock at "The Fox" for the last decade. You see "Weird Beard" was a popular nickname for hippies that grew beards. In the shedding of the stiff clean-cut fifties look the beard had a renaissance which is being revisited by a new generation of clueless hipsters today.