Radio host Jacquie Gales Webb will be honored this month for her 35 years on the air.

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One of the top radio stations in the nation’s capital region is WHUR, 96.3 FM, according to Nielsen ratings during the first quarter of this year.

While the Howard University-owned station has perennially enjoyed high marks as an urban contemporary station, playing secular R&B, jazz and soul music, its gospel programming also manages to earn a significant share of advertising revenue.

That’s thanks to the station’s longtime gospel DJs, Jacquie Gales Webb, 70, and Winston Chaney, 72, who are on the air every Sunday.

“WHUR does very well on Sunday mornings,” said Al Payne, the station’s senior director of programming.

“Those two DJs are killing it. They’re both number one in their time slots. Jacquie is an institution and also does well with folks between ages 25 to 54. And surprisingly, Winston is a hit with listeners between ages 18 to 34, and that’s a very unique audience that loves gospel,” Payne said.

Both Gales Webb and Chaney are D.C. radio veterans, having formerly worked at the Cathy Hughes-owned WYCB radio station, based in D.C., for 40 years.

Radio legend

During her decades-long career, Gales Webb won six local Emmy Awards, a Peabody Award, a DuPont Silver Baton and a Gracie Award. She recently retired from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, where she was vice president of radio.

Before Gales Webb moved to the nation’s capital in the late 1970s, she lived in suburban Long Island, NY, where she graduated from Westbury High School. She attended college in Boston at Emerson College, earning a bachelor’s degree in mass communications with a focus on radio and television broadcasting.

While still in college, she worked at WILD in Boston, and after graduation she worked for a TV station there.

Soon after learning that an African American business conglomerate had purchased an AM radio station in D.C., Gales Webb was inspired to relocate to “Chocolate City” in 1978 to join a new group of broadcasters.

“This was important time of life. I wanted to pursue what I’d been trained to do in college — and relocating to D.C. provided me a chance to interact and learn from like-minded individuals who were in a startup mode as African American entrepreneurial media owners,” she explained.

She soon met a young Cathy Liggins (now Hughes), general manager of station WYCB. Gales Webb started on the air and six years later became the station’s program director.

After establishing herself as a viable broadcasting personality in D.C., Gales Webb held positions at Smithsonian Productions, WDVM and WUSA9-TV, where she became a news producer and won six local Emmy Awards for her work.

Now the widowed mother of two adult children, Gales Webb says working part-time on Sunday mornings is quite enough.

“This job is still as rewarding as it was 35 years ago. I still go out into the community and interact with my listeners, and they provide me the feedback I need to incorporate into my future shows,” she said.

Brushes with celebrity

Gales Webb is on the air on WHUR’s “Morning Gospel Experience” from 8 to 11 a.m., while radio host Chaney hosts his early-morning show from 5 to 8 a.m.

Growing up in Danville, Virginia, Chaney realized radio was in his blood when he was in his teens. He recalls visiting the radio booth of a Black radio station in his hometown when he was 14 years old. Local DJ Doyle Butch Thomas invited him in, Chaney remembered.

“He let me stay his whole shift, and that was very nice of him,” Chaney said. “He knew even at that age, I had a real interest in the business. Radio was always intriguing to me. The fact that you had control over thousands of listeners — that was real interesting to me, even after all these years,” he said.

Chaney had two loves: basketball and radio. After a successful high school hoop career at George Washington High School, Cheney played briefly at Virginia Commonwealth University, where he graduated with a bachelor’s degree in office administration and landed a job with the Virginia Employment Commission.

After college, Chaney played in semi-pro summer basketball leagues in D.C. with future NBA players like Adrian Branch, Joe Pace, Eddie Jordan and Larry Spriggs, he noted.

While still in Richmond, Chaney got his first professional radio gig as an R&B music host.

Chaney moved to D.C. in 1980 not only because “it was the largest major city closest to Richmond,” he said, but because of his experience with the basketball scene there.

Drawn to the local radio scene, Chaney immediately befriended legendary TV and radio host Ralph “Petey” Greene and worked as his board operator at WYCB. Greene, who won two Emmy Awards for his talk shows, was an excellent mentor. More than that, Chaney said, “He was my best friend.”

When Greene died of cancer in 1984, approximately 10,000 mourners lined up outside Union Wesley AME Zion Church in Northeast Washington for the chilly January funeral.

Once again, Chaney was fortunate to be surrounded by greats, he remembered: He was a pallbearer, along with TV announcer James Brown and boxer Sugar Ray Leonard.

“Wake Up With Winston Chaney” and “Gospel Spirit” with Jacquie Gales Webb air on WHUR 96.3 every Sunday beginning at 5 a.m.