Thank you for visiting with us. The WSIC staff is a mixture of many talents and backgrounds, part-time and full time. WSIC’s staff enjoy creating content and providing news and information to our communities.
Kathy Flerx is Sales Manager for WSIC. In addition to providing leadership for the sales team, Kathy enjoys meeting face-to-face with clients to help them customize advertising solutions that grow business. Starting her career as a part-time on-air personality at WXCF in Virginia, Kathy learned the business from the ground-up. She went on to work in numerous sales and management roles including her first appearance at WSIC between 1999 and 2006. “It was a lot of fun,” says Kathy of her first stint at WSIC and WFMX. “I’ve always loved radio. It’s a wonderful and rewarding thing to help a business grow and prosper. There’s no better way than radio to accomplish that!” Outside of work, Kathy enjoys experimenting in the kitchen, DIY projects around her house, and spending time with family.
Mark Sanger was born in Portsmouth, Virginia, and became an owner of WSIC in June of 2006 after being approached as a possible investor. Before he became an owner of the company, Mark’s experiences included radio sales, teacher, experiential exhibit sales, licensed real estate broker, investor, and also a volunteer fireman. He attended Kellogg Community College in Battle Creek, Michigan, and Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina. His degrees include one in Applied Fire Science and another in Radio and Television Broadcasting(B.A).
Pat Shannon was born and raised in Iredell County and first started working for Statesville Broadcasting in 1960 while at Troutman High School. After graduating from Troutman High School in 1961, and attending Mitchell College for a year, Pat joined the Air Force and was trained as a military broadcaster. With the exception of a year break in service, during which he returned to Statesville and WSIC from 1965-1966, Pat served 23 years of active duty in the Air Force with 16 years overseas in Armed Forces Radio and Television in Taiwan, Vietnam, Korea, Germany, Azores, Iran, and Guam. While stationed stateside, Pat made training films for the Air Force and handled advertising and publicity for the Air Force Recruiting Service. Now, being semi-retired, Pat enjoys spending time with his wife, Sonja, and his two animal companions Scruffy and Mia. Pat also enjoys time spent on his boat “The Mulligan,” and playing golf. He has two daughters, three grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren. With the exception of trying to retire once, Pat has hosted the Home Ad show (and for a period of time, the morning show as well) since 1986.
Tim Sherrill, a native of Statesville, is one of the station’s longtime employees, first starting in 1978 when WFMX was still part of the company. As Traffic and Continuity Director, Tim plays an important part in WSIC’s mission of connecting businesses and the community. Tim ensures that commercials are on the station’s “log,” or schedule, each day and ready to play. He also handles public service announcements and the community calendar. Tim enjoys working with the staff at WSIC and feels that they work well together to get the job done correctly. When he’s not working, Tim is an avid car guy and enjoys attending car shows, classic car cruse-ins, and NASCAR races. His favorite driver is #14, Tony Stewart in the Sprint Cup series.
Heather Gessler considers herself a Carolina girl now since moving here after high school from Ohio. She started officially in November after freelance writing political stories and is now an Account Executive. She enjoys working with local businesses and helping them grow. She’s married to a local Pediatrician, Dr. Walter Gessler, of 16 years and together have a 14-year-old son. They recently adopted a lab/collie from the local animal shelter, which completed their family of four. She enjoys University of Kentucky basketball, all things politics and was just elected 2021 President of Iredell County Republican Women and volunteering with several non-profits. One of her favorites is Baptist on Mission, where her 25 years of logistics experience is utilized. She can be seen wielding a chainsaw or a clipboard at a disaster site within the United States. The family can be found hiking in our beautiful mountains with Scouts or at the beach in Cherry Grove any given weekend. She’s currently attending Western Carolina University in pursuit of her bachelor’s degree in Emergency and Disaster Management. Their family is members of Front Street Baptist Church.
Bryan Starrette is an on-air personality hosting some of our weekly shows including Health Talk and Our Town. A Statesville native, his family goes back four generations locally, and he is a graduate of West Iredell High, Pfeiffer, and Duke Universities. Bryan and his wife Gina reside in Statesville with their pomeranian Cali and cat Bentley. Gina is employed at Mitchell Community College. He has two daughters–Emily lives in New York and works for the Child Mind Institute, and daughter Sarah resides in Los Angeles with her husband Dustin. Sarah is a photographer and Dustin is with Disney Corporate. Both are from Bryan’s first wife who succumbed to cancer after 25 years of marriage. In addition to radio, Bryan participates in Theatre Statesville as an actor and is a regular emcee at Carolina Balloonfest. When he is not entertaining on-air or onstage you may find him enjoying a mountain hike or a local concert, and documenting his travels with photography or videography. To keep up, his favorite workout is a good run! He is also a Board Chair at the Statesville YMCA and attends Grace Baptist Church in Statesville.Isaias Sanchez is our production and operational expert. Isaias helps with all aspects of video, cabling, software, client branding needs, and day to day operations of all equipment and helps keep the station running at capacity.
Mike Jackson is the WSIC News Director.
Pat and I were office partners in Charlotte while in Air Force Recruiting Service (1973-1974 timeframe). In years gone by when I would be traveling through the Statesville area I would scan my radio hoping to pick him up on some radio program by chance. Was watching a TV show with Kevin Costner and for some reason Costner made me think of Pat. Remember when he built his log cabin in Troutman and his girls, Emily and Kelly, were so very young. He bought a yellow Volkswagon with a Rolls Royce grill that was often used in parades. I ended up staying in Recruiting until my retirement in 1982. I cannot remember if Pat went back to regular Air Force or not around that time. Please pass on to Pat that I inquired of him and perhaps the day can come when we can talk about old times. Pat was always one of the good guys and had a voice just made for radio.
To whom ever puts the news programs together, I think it would be nice when giving COVID updates that you include the numbers and percentages of people who get better vs just saying the number of new cases and folks who died of COVID. I for one would like to know the actual # of folks that died of COVID alone vs the ones who died with other health issues that perhaps would have died had any other virus attacked them while in a weakened state of health. I’d like to see the news stop spreading a spirit of fear when the get better numbers are very good. Thank you.
As of today, 10,026,786 via CDC have had COVID in the US. As of today, 237,921 have died. That leaves a recovery number of 9,788,865…. which is about a 98% recovery rate based on their numbers. It would be nice if all the news reported the total. As well as the number of people that died of COVID alone vs those having co- morbid conditions. The spirit of fear must be rejected w the facts vs COVID is the only death that matters. Other pandemics still continue ex. 500,000 children disappear every year. Cancer, car wrecks, heart disease, suicide, murder, domestic violence, drug use of all kinds, diabetes’s-and even the regular old varieties of flu we deal w yearly for those that have the health issues that put their lives at risk regardless of what they may conteact. etc etc