Ross Felton - Friend of Heritage

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jeremy Morris, Executive Director of the Wheeling National Heritage Area Corporation, presented that group's Friend of Heritage Award to Ross Felton. Jeremy's remarks are included below, in their entirety.

 

In 1965 J. Ross Felton of Fairmont, WV was hired to be part of the management team of WWVA. Country music was changing and WWVA owners were bent on keeping the station and its programming at the forefront of this change. At the time Ross arrived, the Jamboree played live from the Exhibition Hall on Wheeling Island and the management offices and station operated from the Hawley building on Main Street

 

In 1969, WWVA and the Jamboree moved to the Capitol Theatre, renaming it the Capitol Music Hall and conducting a major renovation. The theatre would become home to not only the Jamboree, but also the radio station and all of the executive and management offices.  The theatre’s reopening on December 13, 1969 would set the tone for a golden era in our community’s history, one that would see our Capitol Theatre and our hometown become Nashville North, a place where anyone who was anybody in country music would perform. This entire transformation took place under the watchful eye of one J. Ross Felton.

 

In 1970, the Music Hall brought “Cabaret” to town, the first of many touring Broadway shows that would grace the theatre’s stage.  This Broadway tradition continues today under the theatre’s new ownership and performs to sellout crowds

 

In the Spring of 1971, the Jamboree opened its own full service 8 track recording studio, a modern, fully equipped facility offering a variety of recording services.

 

In 1974, Jamboree Tours was created and facilitated programming and tour packages for tour bus operators, leading to the bus-lined streets that so many of our residents fondly recall.

 

Throughout the 70s Wheeling repeatedly hosted the likes of Merle Haggard, Tanya Tucker, Loretta Lynn, Tom T. Hall, Charley Pride, Glen Campbell, Marty Robbins and Tammy Wynette, in November 1975, Johnny Cash set an all-time Jamboree record with 6 shows in 3 days performing to nearly 15,000 people.

 

Ross, true to his nature, quietly played an influential role in all these developments at WWVA.

 

The decade long success of Jamboree USA led to the creation of another country music tradition of which Ross is a founder.  In 1977, Jamboree in the Hills launched with Ross and his colleagues assembling an impressive two-day line-up of musicians. Jamboree in the Hills grew throughout the 1980s and 90s and is known today as the Superbowl of the Country Music and the Ultimate Country Music Experience.  Jambo, as the locals call it, is not only important to country music but is a major influence on today’s modern music festival scene.  Festivals like jamboree have grown exponentially across our nation in the last decade and are a major source of revenue for the music industry.

 

Fast forward a few years and in December of 1984, Ross and his wife found themselves sitting at a dinner table with Randy Worls and his wife. The dining room at Wilson Lodge was empty, just the four of them.  Room vacancy during the holiday season had become commonplace at Oglebay Park in the 1980s, likewise ticket sells at the Capitol Theatre were meager at best during the winter months.  The topic of conversation for that evening was how to fill the hotel rooms of Oglebay and the seats at the Capitol Theatre during the long winter season.  That December Dinner began a year long, ongoing conversation that resulted in the Founding of the Festival of Lights at Oglebay Park in December of 1985.  A new Wheeling Tradition was christened by Randy, Ross and their colleagues. The lights transformed not just the park but the entire community during the holiday season.  It is a tradition that we have all come to know and appreciate and it is hard to imagine an Oglebay during the holidays without the lights or the people or the traffic. 

 

Around that same time Ross and his friend Randy were working on another project, laying the groundwork for elevating Wheeling’s economic and historic preservation capacity. On May 13th of 1985 the two of them along with several Wheeling hoteliers founded the Wheeling Convention and Visitors Bureau. The Convention and Visitors Bureau is the organization charged with promoting our community to tourists and business travelers. The idea of having a central organization to promote the community was a new idea in West Virginia, but Ross and others saw its value and knew Wheeling would benefit from this type of organization. Even in the darkest days of the Steel Industry depression, they had a vision for a better community. They took the long view when they created the Wheeling CVB and knew if they invested in the building blocks of a new economy that it would pay dividends down the road.  Since it’s founding the Wheeling Convention and Visitors has grown into a highly effective promoter of our community. It is far and away the most innovative of West Virginia’s CVBs.  No other CVB in West Virginia invests in a tourism venue like our Wheeling CVB does for the Capitol Theatre.  It seems only fitting that an organization Ross founded 30 years prior should now the theatre that he loves so very much.

 

In 1991, the Winston-Salem Thumderbirds were looking for a new home and were interested in coming north to Wheeling, but needed a financial commitment from the community. Ross took the lead and worked tirelessly to arrange the advertising commitments that would woo the Thunderbird owners.  In 1992, the Wheeling Thunderbirds flew from Winston-Salem, NC and skated onto the ice in Downtown Wheeling.  Several years later, Ross was again leading the effort to assemble a group of local partners that would become the owners of the team and firmly cemented that hockey is our town’s sport and the Wheeling Nailers would remain the hometown team.  Two decades and several owners later, the Nailers are a Wheeling tradition and a driver of downtown economic revenue. 

 

Ross could never take on just one project at a time, he always had to juggle several major projects at once.  So, while he was bringing professional hockey to Wheeling, he was also playing what I consider his most important role in the development of Wheeling. In 1992 Ross became involved with the Wheeling Heritage Project, a burgeoning effort to root Wheeling’s economic development in the preservation of its historic resources. In 1994, he was one of four incorporators of the Wheeling National Heritage Area Corporation, creating it as a 501c3 charitable organization.  Ross served on both our corporation and foundation boards for over 18 years, retiring from the board little over a year ago. In that time he helped guide decisions that would revitalize our waterfront, create our city’s first façade loan program, see the investment of $2 million dollars into the Wheeling Stamping Project and thus relocate Orrick, Herrington, and Sutcliffe to our community, and towards the end of his 18 year tenure Wheeling Heritage and its partners were contemplating the purchase of the Capitol Theatre. Hydie Friend who couldn’t be here tonight asked me to point out that without Ross’ wisdom and insight into the operation of the Capitol we wouldn’t have had the knowledge nor confidence to make the 2009 purchase of the building and take on its revitalization. In simple terms, without Ross the theatre would be sitting dark and vacant tonight, it would be sitting dark and vacant every night.

 

Humble, soft-spoken and ever so kind, Ross Felton is never one to boast of his accomplishments.  Personally I can think of few people who have had more influence in charting the course of modern-day Wheeling than Ross. He is one of the people that we can credit for Wheeling’s resiliency.  He helped keep the ship steady when the economics of the region wanted to turn her on her side. His lifelong efforts have laid the groundwork for our city’s 21st century Reinvention, a reinvention that is taking place today on the streets of Wheeling. Quietly through his leadership he has created a path we can follow into the future, a path grounded in tourism, high-quality entertainment, and historic preservation.  From creating history at the Capitol Theatre to helping preserve history with Wheeling Heritage, Ross Felton you are truly a Friend of Heritage and we thank you for all you have done for Wheeling.