Who: Ray Love, aka “The Love Daddy of Cincinnati,” 38, evening air personality for Mojo (WMOJ-FM, 94.9).

        On display: His collection of Tasmanian Devil items, including more than 200 stuffed animals, mugs, shirts, shoes, a leather jacket, a robe, slippers and six wristwatches.

Ray Love with some of his Tasmanian Devil items (Glenn Hartong photo) | ZOOM |

        He also owns four gold Taz charms, a nutcracker, a foot massager, an alarm clock, two popcorn poppers and a bank.

        Where: Throughout his Hyde Park apartment. Even Mr. Love's bed is decked out with a Tasmanian Devil comforter, sheets and pillowcases.

        Whirling dervish: “When I first started out in radio back in 1990,” Mr. Love explains, “I played on the station basketball team. One of my buddies started calling me the Tasmanian Devil. He said: "When you play, you play you run up and down the court and act real hyper, just like the cartoon character.' ”

        “The name really stuck,” he says with a grin.

        Wild ride: Mr. Love's first Tasmanian Devil was a stuffed animal that he kept in the back window of his car. He calls it his “Dennis Rodman Taz” because the top of its head bleached out from the sun.

        “I was a school teacher for 6 1/2 years,” he explains. (That was after his 1990 graduation from Ohio University.) “I taught during the day and did radio at night.

        “Once the kids found out that I was into the Tasmanian Devil, they would give them to me for Christmas and my birthday. It was really nice. Parents would come in and say, "This is for you. We were at the store and bought this Taz for you.' ”

        That's all folks! Mr. Love does a dead-on impersonation of the Tasmanian Devil and other Looney Tunes characters such as Speedy Gonzalez, Foghorn Leghorn and Marvin the Martian. That talent came in handy when he was teaching fifth grade.

        “It really kept the kids' attention,” he recalls. “I would impersonate Taz and start spinning. The students just loved it. They would beg me to do it again. And I would, once their work was done.”

        Always searching: Most of the items in Mr. Love's collection are gifts from friends and family. Other items are eBay and yard sale finds. Occasionally, he will treat himself to something like his new leather Tasmanian Devil jacket or the Taz tattoo he sports on his right shoulder.

        Mr. Love can't imagine giving up his collection. “If I ever get tired of them,” he says, “I'll probably give them to a children's home.”

        “The reason I like the Tasmanian Devil,” Mr. Love reflects, “Is he personifies everything that I am. He's wild and crazy.”

        “But,” he says with a twinkle in his eye, “it's a good crazy.”

        Share your prize possessions with Marsie Hall Newbold by mail: c/o The Enquirer, Tempo, Prize Possessions, 312 Elm St., Cincinnati, OH 45202: e-mail: marsolete@aol.com.
       

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