Date: March 19 2002 at 16:18:40
Name: John Hillis
Location: Washington, or Tulsa with more traffic and less barbeque
Comments:

I still have the FCC Third Class Radiotelephone operator's license I got back in the mid 60s hanging on the wall. I remember having to go down and take a test that showed you knew one end of a plug from the other, but I passed without difficulty after a few days' study in a cram book, so I suspect it was not a challenging course, even for a nerdy teenager.

As The King's right hand man noted, you had to sign the transmitter log every half-hour, attesting to the fact that the meters were within tolerances and that the lights came on at dark.

Strangest place I ever used that "Third ticket" was in a station in the middle of a kudzu patch in Georgia. The fast-growing vine had encircled and was climbing the guy wires and was about to take over the tower base. I suspect it would have climbed the whole 50 or 60 feet(!) to the top if given enough time. That was the station that played "Dixie" at sign-on instead of the National Anthem. Maybe it was the national anthem there.

Pay for half a broadcast day (sun-up to halfway to sundown) was $15. This wasn't half bad in winter, when it worked out to three bucks an hour, but in summer, when the shift was about eight or nine hours long, it was less fun. But all the vinyl records you could eat!

The last entry reminded me that on my first job at KDNT in Denton Texas, each announcer was issued (and you had to sign it,) a certificate that made you some fifth grade Engineer so that you could write down two meter readings every hour or so. I have no idea what they showed but if they dropped down, you were off the air and a bell rang! At that point, you were supposed to call "The Engineer" and he would go out and kick something. I never saw what our transmitter was housed in. I suspect a "Johnny!"..........

I remember Bells had a token machine in their arcade in the mid 70's and remember making one. The last place I saw one of the machines was at Joyland Amusement park in Wichita, KS in 1988 - even made one for a dollar with my name on it (I think it's in a box somewhere in my closet!)

BTW speaking of Dallas Radio Transmitter sites. I remember driving the KRLD station transmitter site a couple years ago - the site is still in use with a chain link w/barbed wire fence around it and was in a old red brick building.

They don't build them like KVOO's anymore with room for several studios and a big transmitter - most modern transmitter buildings are cheap portable aluminum sheds, with enough room for the transmitter, AC and signal processing equipment.

Billy

I see Jim Garner is the new corporate voice on Williams Energy national spots.

Hello I'm trying to locate the following simulcast's from KMOD in Tulsa:

Gentle Giant at the Wharf-March 20 1977

Bill Bruford at the Cains -1979

Genesis at the Brady - 1976,(not a simulcast but any audience recording would be fantastic)

UK at the Cains - 1978

Any help with these would be greatly appreciated.

KWGS, the University of Tulsa FM station, began broadcasting TU basketball games, all home games, in the l948-l949 season, using yours truly for the play-by-play and various other students for "color" comments, for two full years (we didn't have the money to go on the road, though we did try to borrow certain oil company lines at one time). (See the photograph in the sports section of the 1949 Kendallabrum).

In 1950-51 KTUL (the radio station) began carrying the games on a delayed basis (10:15 p.m., I think), using TU students Bill Hays and Dave Croninger. Dave adopted the radio name of "Davis," leading to some confusion on campus with another speech arts student who was born "Dave Davis." I don't think they did the games for more than a year, but I don't really remember. I do remember that this was the period when John Henry was sports director of KVOO, doing play-by-play of TU football and Oklahoma A & M basketball. The games were inherited by Hal O'Halloran after John moved to Denver's KOA.

Harwell gym was the ancient structure used in my time at TU for intramural games. It's in a non-athletic role now, though I forget what's in there now.

I've regarded TU's present basketball team of Bruce Howard and J. B. Haney as "superb" for a long time. I think Howard is at least a part-time faculty member and Haney is an ex-coach (he sounds like it). Haney calls himself "J. B." on a spot now running on the broadcasts, although the Tulsa World prints "J. V." in an ad for a regular television sports program.

I remember one night when KWGS had to miss one home basketball game when the floor at the National Guard Armory had been rewaxed, or something, and the game had to be quickly switched to the Pavilion. Instead of doing play-by-play that night, I ended up assisting the visiting sports reporter from Des Moines who was following Drake (Tulsa was still in the Missouri Valley conference). AT&T did a quick switch of lines from the Armory to the Pavilion for the Des Moines station, but didn't have the time (or we didn't have the money) to make the same switch for KWGS.

Tulsa University playing in the Reynolds Center on campus and having national TV coverage is a long, long way from the way it was in the 1930s and into the 1950s. TU at first only had one gymnasium on campus, a tiny floor with a running track above the perimeter that covered up much of each end of the playing surface. There was no space for seating. The university had to play games at whatever local high school could make space available. Still, TU competed in the Missouri Valley Conference, one of the toughest in the nation.

After World War II they were allowed to play in the National Guard Armory at 15th and Oswego. It was a fine court, and had seating for about 2,000 spectators. It was here that Clarence Iba started building TU into a respectable basketball program, mainly by using regional and local boys, especially those from Tulsa Central. (To show how desperate Iba was, he even offered a full scholarship to me.)

After the National Guard closed its building for local high school and basketball use, TU moved its games to the Fairgrounds Pavilion. It provided seating for perhaps four times as many people as did the armory. It was either the armory or the Pavilion that didn’t have hot water for taking showers, something that really angered the opposing teams.

I don’t know when radio broadcasting of TU games started. Broadcasting of high school games occurred occasionally. When I was at TU during the first really prominent years of the Hurricane round-ball resurgence, it was Tony George who did the play by play, and a fine job he did. I still have a tape broadcast over KOME of a game he did in St. Louis in 1955. Meanwhile, Oklahoma A&M games were being announced by Hal O’Halloran, who did a super job. I think they were on KVOO.

Even though Tulsa has never been a major market, it has been very fortunate to have had very good sports announcers. I think the two men (Bruce Howard and J.V. Haney) who do the TU games today are superb.

Just wanted to share my memories of Don Woods. I had the pleasure to become acquainted with Don back in 1990 when he was teaching meteorology at what was then TJC Metro. He would come down to the cafeteria and visit with us and tell some of the BEST stories about his TV days.

Don's a great guy and although I was never a member of his class, I'm sure his students found him to be great too!

Another Chuck Jones book is titled: Chuck Redux.

Don't know if Amazon.com has Howard K. Smith's excellent auto-bio of about 10 years ago but supposedly Chuck Jones wrote 2 books on his career and "cartoonology" that I am interested in finding a copy of either...

Hi webmaster, I love your site! What memories. I have not had a chance to read all the entries, but I will.

Does any one remember echo behind the voice on all local programs on Channel 8 in the 1960s? Jack Morris was my hero, I wanted to be a DJ and he had a voice like God!

I lived 7 miles south of Joplin and discovered my neighbors had an outside antenna and rotor and watched Tulsa and Springfield TV. I saved up my money and got an antenna of my own and presto could watch ABC programs "live" on Channel 8. When Channel 8 went to the new 2000 ft tower, with much fanfare, there was no change in the signal 100 miles away for some reason, I was disappointed.

I remember well the High Flight signoff. Remember as well Weird Theatre, and I think Sea Hunt with Lloyd Bridges on Channel 2.

In agreement with a much earlier posting, the color on Channel 6 was weak compared to 2 and 8 on the Joplin cable TV system.

In 1967 Joplin got Channel 16 KUHI-TV who got their network feed from KTUL off the air. This worked fine, except when 8 broke the net with local weather inserts. At this time (1967) there was no echo on KTUL-TV local audio.

I wish Joplin had a page like your fine one on early Joplin TV. Keep up the good work.

Glad you're liking it. I was a "Sea Hunt" fan too, as you can see on the "Pop bottles" page. Could that have been Fantastic Theater?

I just read Lowell Burch saying he thought Bob Hower was network anchor material. I did too, and I'd be honored to meet Mr Hower some day. I wonder if any network opportunities came his way and/or if he sought them out?

I remember John Chick having to retire years ago (for health reasons?). On that occasion, Channel 8 ran a retrospective on his career. One clip was of Chick anchoring the local news when JFK was assassinated. The setup looked much more primitive than News Eight/Total 8 Tulsa did in the '70s, and Chick had a nameplate on the desk in front of him. Does anyone have more info on any of this or on the Don Woods/Italian restaurant promo I mentioned a while back?

We lost 2 biggies in our TV world last week.

Howard K. Smith at 87 - one of "Murrow's boys" in WWII and longtime ABC anchor.

Chuck Jones - who gave us the best of the Warners Bros. 40's/50's/60's cartoons and and livened up our lives so long...

Giants? At least both touched our TV "lives"...

David Halberstam is an author and journalist. His brother, Michael, a well-known Washington D. C. cardiologist, surprised a burglar inside his home. The burglar shot him, Halberstam chased him in his car, crashed it, and died in a hospital.

I have this nagging memory from some time ago that there was a well known author named Halpern or Halberstrome who was assaulted while walking in his neighborhood in Washington D.C.? Anyone Know?

Sounds like David Halberstam, but I couldn't find reference to a personal incident in a Google search.

Rick Wells' replacement on 6 In The Morning is KWTV reporter/anchor Casey Norton. I don't know much about him, but I don't believe he's been with KWTV/Griffin very long.

I enjoyed seeing the outstanding Digital Photography of David Halpern. Wonderful images.

His photo of the KVOO transmitter site took me way back to when I was in my late teens in Arlington, Texas. Someone took me out to an old site that WBAP radio had in the vicinity before and during the World War Two years. When we visited it, it had been abandoned and vandalized (of course.) But you could still make out where the old control room and studio had been. One could imagine that it had been quite grand. The ceilings must have been twenty feet tall. Odd that I should have worked for WBAP Radio years later.

Speaking of WBAP and the fact that people check this site from all over, I wonder if anyone knows what became of the WBAP-AM-FM-TV announce staff that I knew back then? Frank Mills, Tom Mullarky, Larry Morrell. I know that Mel Dacus (TV annc.) passed away a couple of years ago. He later became the director of Fort Worth's "Casa Manana." And of course Bobby Wygant, the Barbara Walters of the fifties. There were others but I can't recall them and as I have said before, there is no site like this in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

Great Bob Hower story on this site. I have a great photo of Bob, Bob Mills and myself from about four or five years ago when Mills hosted us for dinner at his house. I'll try to get it to the Webmeister for a reprint here.

I see Rick Wells is leaving "6 In The Morning!" A new face from Ok. City is the "newby!"

An update at 10:00.

Rick Wells will become the consumer reporter for KOTV. He was a comfortable and entertaining presence on "6 in the Morning". I'll miss him.

Jim Reid's comments about Goldie's have made me decide that for lunch I will walk down there and have a country charburger. Nothing like a burger and fries smothered in country gravy.

Just got permission from David Halpern to show you his photograph of the KVOO radio transmitter site from his book "Tulsa Art Deco". I've put it on a separate page for best viewing. It's somewhat large (246K).

I think the Northland Woolsworth had one of the token machines. I saw so many in those days but was usually unwilling to pay the .25 for one of the products.

I always thought Bob Hower was national news anchor material, much better than most they have on the networks.

Saw Sonny Hollingshead today at the Home and Garden Show....he told me about this site and I want to thank him!!

Welcome, Bob! Here is a funny, behind-the-scenes story in which you played a part.

And here is Bob's book, 1921 Tulsa Race Riot: The American Red Cross-Angels of Mercy.

Remember this kind of good luck charm? Free-standing machines let you dial in your name and stamp it on an aluminum token. You could then put it on a chain along with your collection of multi-colored real rabbits' feet. I haven't seen one of the machines or a token in ages. Bus and rail stations were prime locations. Anywhere else? Did Eastgate shopping center have a token machine at one time?

This one appears to pay tribute to Jim Ruddle's "Zeta, On Satellite Six" program.

Goin' to the new Goldie's in Colleyville, Tx. for lunch today. It's nice to see they are finally getting civilized down here.

Just found the following snip of info concerning TTM regular John Hillis:

Allbritton Communications Co. (owners of Tulsa's KTUL) will combine its Washington, D.C., properties -- WJLA-TV and cable NewsChannel 8 -- into a single organization in Rosslyn, Va., headed by WJLA-TV general manager Chris Pike. The facility will be in the former headquarters of Gannett Co. Inc., owner of rival station WUSA(TV). NewsChannel 8 GM John Hillis will move to the company's corporate side. Pike said the two operations will maintain separate identities and separate news directors, and there will probably be a net gain in staffing. (Broadcasting & Cable)

Paul Serrell resigned from KOTV a few months ago to work for CBN News in Washington, D.C.

Haven't seen Paul Serrell on the Channel 6 newscast lately. Anybody know why?

Tulsa was rated as one of Fodor's ten outstanding travel destinations this year, and also the top overlooked one. The web page recommends as a "Tasty treat: Chicken-fried steak, preferably at Nelson's Buffeteria."

I've communicated with the folks who had recent comments relating to the appropriateness of Guestbook comments, and I think we are OK now. I wrote a "policy" about it back in Guestbook 89, if you want to read it, but it's not very restrictive in intent.

According to the newspaper today, a helicopter pilot crash-landed Monday on Lookout Mountain while en-route to the KTUL pad. No one was hurt, but the tail of the six-passenger Bell Longranger was damaged. The pilot works for KTUL, but was not on company business, nor was the copter leased to KTUL.

Was reading the last archived guestbook, came across the name "Twilley" and it reminded me that I was probably Dwight Twilley's first date. We went to a cake walk together when we were 6th graders at John Paul Jones. I can remember him as being sort of an "outsider" like myself and that we were very fond of each other. We won a cake together that night and it was like a "real" date with his parents picking me up from home, we held hands and yadayada. Dwight...if you check in here sometime...let me tell you that I wish the rest of my "love" life had been as sweet and uncomplicated as that cake walk.

Thanks Mike for the great Tulsa website...peace, love, dove.

Supposedly Charlotte, NC is a big re-package and distribution center for Spencer Gifts. I think we have about 4 stores in malls - ya never see a free-standing Spencers ya know.

Though when doing night runs to Fedex's big NC WORLD CENTER - most nights Spencers humongous warehouse off I-77 seems shuttered but for about 60 trailers at the docks....

Like a bad dream - just went past the Network Control Center for INSP TV. They are the parent company to my employer though I am tasked exclusively to Fox's Speed Channel on that contract.

Overnight INSP carries 6-8 hours of Spanish programming on the bird. Tonight - though INSP does NOT carry "The 700 Club" in English - they do in Spanish! What grabbed me was Pat Robertson doing a message in Spanish - very obviously dubbed to lip sync with his movements with the voice of one of them guys who normally do novellas! I asked the MC Op on duty - is this normal? He said yep - they stopped worrying about things like this and just keep all up technically fine..."Contents in God's hands" they joke...

How many remember Rudy Cohen - the late, beloved but often disorganized Continuity Director at 8 in the 60's/70's. He put togther "the book" of announcer and slide copy each day - often wrote copy for slide spots. Will always remember the cigar smell that arrived with him. We also remember that he had a cute daughter!

A really sweet guy who also played second violin with the Tulsa Philharmonic for many years. He may have been a KTUL RADIO musician. Rudy died almost 20 years ago from prostate cancer.

You know - the little gray cells click with what Sonny wrote - Leake was worried about something offensive with folks at home eating dinner - maybe it was lunch - and being offended.

Duh how many hubbies and kids are home for lunch weekdays in OK? Maybe that WAS the time period he was worried about. 8 was NOT showing any spots locally via a national spot buy OR maybe already 8 had told their national sales rep firm that these spots were a no-can-do on 8.

Really the spots were slathered thru the soaps and popped up quite often in prime time. Often the TWX - Western Union telex - sent by ABC of spot positions was inaccurate or listed the conglomerate "parent" company (not spot product aka American Home Products - which could be Drano to FDS) and we would be zinged by a feminine product spot!

We hated liquor FDS spot "covers" if the "A" or first position in a 1-2 min. network break. We could always roll a clock on the "A" and cleanly cut into a "B" or second 30 sec. spot in a break. We REALLY hated it when 15 second spots run piggyback in a position often became the norm in the late '70s. We were told to make all look seamless when doing a "cover".

Crazily - we often rolled local Coors Beer spots over network and different looking Coors spots. Wish Keith Bretz or one of the old Sales guys at 8 were still around to tell us why we did this....

Jim Reid...I remember JCL explained that he and Marjorie were eating dinner and watching TV when one of the aforementioned ads came up. The ad coming on while they were eating dinner was the catalyst for the decision to cover 'em.

The sky is falling in DC - QWest digital TV is laying off scads and now Nightline is going away per Mr. Eisner at Disney. A head hunter friend in DC specializing in media hires says now 300 news/engineering/shooter/editor folks soon to be unemployed. Big hit in a small industry - add to the 380 that lost TV jobs at BET last year and Fall - DC is becoming a bad place to work but still one of the best "news" towns in the US. Go figure.....By the way - several ex-Okies at both ABC and QWest are now among the slaughtered - 2 at QWest lost jobs at BET 10 mos. ago and felt lucky to land there!

For you Tiki fans, I am sure there are a lot of Tiki items on the internet but I noticed that there is a bobbing head Tiki at Spencer's Gifts at Woodland Hills. It might make a nice St. Patrick's Day gift for yourself or someone you love.

I like the movies they show on the World's Worst Movies. In my opinion, the movies are good choices and seem to fill the bill as core material for the show, but the live segments and overdubs they run during the movie offer little promise of keeping the show alive. Maybe a change of writers or hosts would do the job.

Meanwhile, the FOX News seems to be working.

This week, WWM showed Francis Ford Coppola's 1964 movie, "Dementia 13", definitely not the world's worst (although the sound recording was pretty bad). I like the hosts, but there is certainly room for improvement in their material.

I was in a meeting once in Tom Goodgame's office where JCL explained to all of us his reason for covering the feminine hygiene spots. I don't remember the exact reason, but Tuma was at the meeting and asked "how do we justify covering these spots and then going back to the soap opera where everyone is rollin' around on the bed, havin' sex?" The room got very quiet. Don't remember the answer he got, but I sure remember the question.

I seem to remember the reason for JCL keeping them fem Ads off the air was because Marjorie (the wife) felt uncomfortable about them.

My switcher reflexes are still hiding somewhere. The key phrase that raised the heartbeat and turned the shoes into rockets was (remember this?)....

"From the Fields of..." (Fill in the blank guys!)

Later,

Pda

Jax Fl

To Jim Reid - yep and I remember a lot of female staff members were offended JCL made that decision (as a man) also there was a question of 8 losing national spot buys on ABC that may have overruled it. Them hygiene manufacturers were too slick at times and we were skunked many a time and just took black or a slide on air if we were caught unprepared.

Different stations in other markets tried blocking other "undesirable" products and were often told by the networks - hey, play along or don't be an affil.

I knew several stations (on "moral" grounds) who had a policy of NOT selling local ad time to movie theatres - in fear of what presumed "nastiness" might be huckstered in a movie trailer ad! Usually in the South or Texas...

To Mike Bruchas....I well remember the days of having to block liquor ads. Do you remember when we had to block all feminine hygiene product spots? This was Jim Leake's idea. ABC used to move spots around and burn us occasionally. The rule was, if you saw grapes or a woman walking on the beach, hit black on the switcher!

Remember the late MILTON CROSS - for years the voice of the Texaco Metropolitan Opera broadcasts on KWGS? Need Ed Dumit to tell us more how TU was able to get a weekly sponsored network radio feed on a public station. I think we used to have to block out their spots with promos.

This segues to those of us blocking network liquor spots with local roll-overs on 2/6/8 in those '70's days because it was illegal to air hard liquor spots in OK then. That was not fun!

Mary Stuart Houchins, Tulsa Central High graduate who played a continuing character on "Search for Tomorrow" for many years, died on Thursday in Connecticut. She was remembered here previously on the Central High page, and was a student of Miss Ronan. Here is her obituary in the Dallas Morning News.

Archived Guestbook 102, where we learned that...

Weird Al's movie "UHF" (shot in Tulsa in 1988) is coming available on DVD soon. We heard from Lorrie Akins who posted a note on tikinews.com in 1999 about the Jade East restaurant in Tulsa (see the Tulsa Tiki page here). Rodney and the Blazers' Rodney Lay wrote in. The Winter Olympics and TU football great Howard Twilley were topics.

We heard from KJRH's Master Control Rich Edmunds. The history of the NBC chimes and logo was delved into. A couple of Don Woods promos were recalled.

I returned to this Guestbook host. It had been perfect until it disallowed multiple entries in one day. I tested it last night and if you wait only a few minutes, it now does allow this. Previewing of your submission is better, too. To be safe, highlight and copy your remarks before submitting. Then if you have any trouble, email your comments to me, and I'll make sure they get into the Guestbook.

The site just moved from Tripod last week (the URL is still tulsaTVmemories.com). Hope you enjoy the less cluttered look and faster download time. They are thanks to Mr. Tim Schmitz of WebDub.com (and Dick Schmitz' son).

WebDub is a way for professionals to deliver high quality media files to customers in TV/radio via the internet. If you are in advertising or production and this sounds intriguing, please email Tim from his site.