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Lee Courtney

For much of his 15 years at FM 88.5 WMNF (five as a volunteer and ten as a paid employee), music director and deejay Lee "Flee" Courtney was one of the Tampa station's highest profile boosters, regularly organizing benefit concerts by local bands and hyping the events to local media outside the scope of his 10-hour week part-time job.

In June 2010, the longtime Tampa radio veteran was among the first people ever laid off in the 30+-year history of WMNF, although he agreed to remain with the station as an unpaid volunteer host of the program "Sonic Detour." Management blamed the downsizing on a budget shortfall due to a tanking economy. However, a week later, he was told he could keep his job, thanks to a large donation and voluntary staff benefit reductions.

Courtney started out mixing music in grammar school by hotwiring the earphone from a transistor radio to his miniature reel-to-reel tape recorder. Until he was old enough to take the bus, his parents drove him to all the local radio stations so he could watch the deejays spin records.

Today (2010), Lee is president of BAAMO (Bay Area Arts and Music Organization) and owner/president of The Easy Guide, a publishing company. He began his radio career in 1985 as production and underwriting director at WWUH, a non-commercial educational FM licensed to the University of Hartford in Connecticut.

Station History