A Burlington businessman and former Alamance-Burlington school board member is being sued for allegedly refusing to pay thousands in wages and other compensation to his former marketing manager.
Chuck Marsh – who owns Maverick Radio and Hope Radio in Burlington – is being sued, along with two of his media companies, Alamance Media Partners and Triad Media Partners, by his former marketing manager, Tina Smith, who claims to be owed thousands in unpaid compensation.
Marsh had also been elected to the school board in November 2022 but resigned on February 24, 2025 with 21 months remaining on his term, which runs until December 2026.
He had previously told The Alamance News that ongoing health problems had caused him to miss 11 out of 24 meetings between March and November 2024. (Dr. Eric Hall of Elon, who the remaining school board members appointed in late April to complete Marsh’s term, was sworn into office Monday night.)
Smith, the former marketing manager for Maverick and Hope A Burlington businessman and former Alamance-Burlington school board member is being sued for allegedly refusing to pay thousands in wages and other compensation to his former marketing manager.
Chuck Marsh – who owns Maverick Radio and Hope Radio in Burlington – is being sued, along with two of his media companies, Alamance Media Partners and Triad Media Partners, by his former marketing manager, Tina Smith, who claims to be owed thousands in unpaid compensation.
Marsh had also been elected to the school board in November 2022 but resigned on February 24, 2025 with 21 months remaining on his term, which runs until December 2026. He had previously told The Alamance News that ongoing health problems had caused him to miss 11 out of 24 meetings between March and November 2024. (Dr. Eric Hall of Elon, who the remaining school board members appointed in late April to complete Marsh’s term, was sworn into office Monday night.)
Smith, the former marketing manager Radio, claims to have increased the two radio stations’ annual ad revenue from “zero to over $500,000” between 2019 and 2024 but hasn’t been paid in full for her work, based on the lawsuit she has filed in Alamance County superior court.
Smith is now seeking to collect thousands of dollars worth of joint and individual judgments against Marsh and his two companies under multiple alleged claims for relief, including: breach of contract; wrongful classification of her employment status as an independent contractor; alleged violations of the North Carolina Wage & Hour Act; and liquidated damages for the allegedly outstanding compensation.
If she prevails in court, Smith stands to collect hundreds of thousands of dollars from Marsh and his two media companies. Recounting the background of her employment with Marsh, the former marketing manager says she was initially hired in 2019 to sell ads for Maverick, a country station; Smith’s job responsibilities were later expanded to include Hope Radio, a contemporary Christian station that Marsh acquired in 2022.
Marsh had structured Smith’s compensation as commission-only, at 18 percent of all ad revenue from any new clients she landed and for any existing clients whose advertising accounts she managed, according to her lawsuit.
However, as he expanded his media holdings, Marsh fell behind on paying Smith the commissions the commissions she was due, according to her suit.
Marsh bought four radio stations in southwestern Virginia for a total of $495,000, according to an announcement that the previous owner, Three Rivers Media, ran at the time in a radio industry trade publication. A subsequent notice from the Federal Communications Commission also confirmed the assignment to Marsh through a new company that he had formed in the summer of 2023, Blue Ridge Media Partners.
“As Marsh’s expansion unfolded,” Smith claims he began shorting her on her compensation. “He told the plaintiff that he was experiencing cash flow shortages and that if she continued her work as usual, she would be fully compensated later,” the complaint states.
Smith further claims that, as the financial pressures of his two radio stations in Alamance County and the new stations in Virginia mounted, “Marsh – who had always been unconventional and eccentric – grew increasingly unpleasant,” producing a toxic work environment in which he berated and belittled his employees.
The former marketing manager says that she felt conflicted over the prospect of resigning: she didn’t want to disappoint clients who had trusted her to make their ad campaigns successful but also feared Marsh would never pay her the compensation that she claims she’s owed.
‘Broke, angry, and hostile’
The situation ultimately came to a head in the spring of 2024, after Marsh revealed during an April 3 staff meeting that his companies were “broke,” Smith says in her lawsuit.
Smith says Marsh’s behavior became “angry and hostile”; and during a second meeting the same day, he berated and cursed at her, leaving her with no choice but to resign. Seven days later, Smith turned in her resignation seven days later but agreed to work through May 31, 2024 in order to fulfill her obligations to several clients with active ad campaigns underway.
Following her departure, Smith continued earning commissions from radio ads she’d sold, for which she acknowledges Marsh paid her $12,000 through August 2, 2024 – but not the full compensation she claims to be owed.
At the same time, the former marketing manager claims that Marsh improperly classified her as an independent contractor. Throughout the five years of her employment, Smith said she had been led to believe she was an employee of Marsh’s two media companies before learning that she had been classified as an independent contractor and had incurred Social Security and Medicare tax liabilities that she says her employers should’ve paid.
The liabilities that Smith incurred as a result of “wrongfully classifying her as an independent contractor” currently include $17,977.50 in income taxes on $235,000 in wages; and $1,439 in Social Security and Medicare taxes on unpaid compensation, Smith asserts in the suit she filed in superior court late last month.
Smith is seeking multiple joint and individual judgments against Marsh and his two media companies. She is asking a superior court judge to award: $18,812.43 for alleged breach of contract; $19,416.65 against each defendant (and jointly) for allegedly improperly classifying her employment status an independent contractor; $18,812.43 for alleged violations of the N.C. Wage & Hour Act; $18,812.43 in liquidated damages for the allegedly unpaid compensation; and in lieu of the breach claim, joint and individual judgments against the three defendants for unjust enrichment. She is also seeking an award for her interest, attorney’s fees, and court costs.
Earlier this month, an Alamance County assistant clerk of court granted Marsh’s request to extend the deadline to file a response to Smith’s suit until June 30. The defendants are being represented by Burlington attorney Benjamin Overby.
Smith is being represented by Graham attorney Robert N. Jennings.
Marsh also sued last fall
Marsh had been previously sued for $5,000 in Alamance County small claims court by an announcer for Maverick Radio, Joseph Baker of Graham, whose Facebook page describes him as the host of “Classic Country Saturday Night.”
Neither the “complaint for money owed” that Baker filed in small claims court in August 2024 nor the Alamance County court file reveals the circumstances surrounding the case, for which Marsh had been listed as the sole defendant.
The following month, an Alamance County magistrate judge dismissed Baker’s complaint, concluding that the proper jurisdiction for the case would be civil superior court. (State law requires civil actions involving amounts ranging between $5,000 and $10,000 to be filed in small claims court; cases involving $25,000 or less to be filed in civil district court; and all cases involving disputes of more than $25,000 to be filed in superior court, according to the North Carolina judicial branch.)
Baker subsequently filed an appeal in Alamance County civil district court in September 2024 but voluntarily dismissed it on March 13 of this year, according to the court file. Both he and Marsh agreed to pay their own court costs, based on Baker’s notice of voluntary dismissal with prejudice, which closed the case permanently.
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