a 48-hour period in 1959, later revealed to be a stunt, when the station aired rock music: called "Black Tuesday" by listeners, the story made national headlines. WAVI applied for and received a construction permit for a companion FM station in 1960. It took four years before WDAO (107.7 FM) began broadcasts in September 1964 as the first station in the region with an R&B format. The growing WAVI-WDAO operation expanded in 1967 into a facility designed with separate studios for the AM and FM sides and additional office space. Over the years, WAVI earned a reputation for alternative programming. In 1965, it expanded its talk and news output significantly, joining the Mutual Broadcasting System and picking up Joe Pyne's syndicated show. Two years later, it jettisoned its big band "good music" sound for country, only to flip to adult contemporary in 1969. This in turn slowly evolved into a more talk-driven format until the station went all-talk on weekdays in 1971. The talk programming lasted for over a decade, sometimes paired with oldies music. From 1978 to 1982, Mike Gallagher—later of Fox News Channel and Salem Radio Networks—hosted a program on WAVI, from which he was fired for discussing the need for president Ronald Reagan to be "rehearsed" by his staff before press conferences, a topic that offended owner Crowl. WDAO moves to AM In late 1984, after three decades of owning WAVI, Crowl and the other stakeholders sold WAVI and WDAO to Stoner Broadcasting of Des Moines, Iowa, for $4 million. The transaction remained pending when, on January 26, 1985, Crowl died of a heart attack. Stoner closed on the purchase on March 1, 1985, and rumors of major changes at the AM-FM pair quickly escalated ahead of the handover. The final hour of WAVI's talk programming on February 28, 1985, was characterized by Dayton Daily News columnist Dale Huffman as "a wake on the airwaves". Simultaneously, Stoner moved WDAO to the AM frequency—naming the first Black station manager in its 21-year history, Jim Johnson—and relaunched the FM as WWSN "Sunny 107.7" with an adult contemporary format. In 1987, Stoner sold WDAO to Johnson Communications, headed by station manager Johnson, making it the first Black-owned radio station in Dayton and just the fourth in all of Ohio. The station moved into the Westown Shopping Center and broadcast from there for a decade before relocating to a rehabilitated building