If any of you folks who spent time in OKC in the 80's remember her - look up Ann Nyberg at www.newschannel8.com under Biographies. She has been anchoring at WTNH New Haven for a long time.

Ditto for mini mini bios of former KTUL anchor Rea Blakey and former KOTV/KTUL reporter Gail Pennybacher - look to www.wjla.com.

Yeah - KERBANGO - dat's it - the internet radio. Will sell somewhere for around $300 to start.

But is it really a radio if it ain't portable? Unless you want to unspool phone cable behind you when you walk, this sounds to be an "at home only" and "on shore power" product though I guess it is MP3 compliant so maybe it may have a player component to it.

Guess now we need the satellite fed radio system for our cars.

Ya know - AM & FM are so much simpler to use - whether portable or at home!

True, but the selection will be a lot better...unless the company making the radio controls which "stations" you can listen to.

Jerry Pippin mentioned Kerbango to me a couple of weeks ago.

To Whom It May Concern:

Thank you. You have brought back so many wonderful memories to this 43 year old Tulsa native of his youth. I grew up in T-Town during the height of Leon Russell and all the Church Studio days, the Restless Ribbon and "Phoney Conies" at the Coney Islander, Greer's and the Admiral Twin. I love Tulsa and will always consider it to be my home. I grew up with Tulsa radio and in fact, I've been in the business for almost 20 years on air. I'm presently the Assistant Program Director and Music Director for 107.7 KRXO in Oklahoma City. My Production Director is named Richard Conner, and we both grew up with Mazeppa and Teddy Jack.

Such a very cool web site, thanks again. Can you please direct me to any info on Tulsa radio air talent of the past. I worked with Mike "Morning Mouth" McCarthy at KVOO FM for a very short time, and he and I would talk about all the "old" days, remember a jock named Don Bishop? Long time KRMG and KVOO talent.

Again, thanks so much. By the way, can you tell me if "Dwight Twilley" is still on the underpass at 31st and Yale? Please keep your page going, it's great.

Regards,

Lee Roberts

You're welcome, Lee.

Don Bishop is still working at KRMG (you can see his old Big 40 jock picture on the KAKC page). "Morning Mouth" has been mentioned here, but no updates on his whereabouts as of yet. I'm not sure if Dwight Twilley is still on the underpass, but he just released a new album, "Tulsa", that is getting good reviews, and selling big in Europe.

C. Crane is one of the few radio shops still out there doing mail order - DC had Electronic Equipment Bank that sold all kinds of scanners to the newsies and voyeurs and shortwave receivers to them furriners here till it shut down last year. They sold a lot of the DXing antennas.

If you wanna shortwave - buy a Sangean from Taiwan - the best after Sony and sold by Crane. Also switchable if you go to Europe - for some reason SW channel spacing is different between the US and rest of world, you need this in tuning. Sangean has made some radios for Radio Shack, Phillips and others under their name. Grundig used to be great in SW and radios for DXing AM but is all Chinese made semi-junk now - but often discounted greatly. Ah to live for a classic Zenith Trans-Oceanic 20 lb portable AM/FM/SW or about a 10 year old Sony or Panasonic of similar ilk!!!!

Most of your AM antenna coil thingies were developed for use up in Alaska while those swift Canadians have had localized shortwave transmitters and radio repeaters all over for years up there to beam news from Toronto,Ottawa and Montreal.

Internet radio may put ALL Of this out of business. At the recent NAB show in Las Vegas, a new deco-looking Internet radio was shown! Have to find the name - Kragin or something like that. Will try to get a site or picture of it. Plug it in a phone line and you don't need a computer to access the sites.

Also here in DC several firms have licenses to start satellite transmitted radio in the near future. Not sure on the technology but it will be digitally bundled. That will really be DXing. May start first with car radios I hear.

The deco internet radio is by Kerbango.com...it looks pretty slick. You can accomplish the same with the little C.Crane FM transmitter for your computer, but it would be fantastic to have one of those internet radios in the car.

Herb Jepko! Lets all sing........

"We're the Nitecaps, Nitey Nitecaps, and we hail from everywhere....
As we meet and greet and reminisce, as we broadcast over the air.........."

I used to throw a Tulsa World paper route in the early 70s. KVOO carried that show before KVOO went country.

I seem to remember that Herb got caught up in some kinda scandal revolving around the show.

Geeze...I'm now as bad as those folks who used to call Herb!

Thanks for the info, Joe.

Does anyone have recordings of some of those great voices from the past? People like Dick Campbell. I have two recordings of Doc Hull, one from "Central Day" on KVOO ("Sleepwalkers Serenade") and one at KRMG when Doc was interviewing a woman regarding the tornado which had hit Dallas.

Wouldn't it be great to be able to make a collection of these voices?

Webmaster's reference to Dick Campbell wearing a raincoat in his obituary picture reminded me of a stormy Saturday night in KOTV's early days, before the station had a weekend weatherman.

Dick came in, stopped the movie and delivered a "severe weather warning" while wearing his raincoat. Maybe it was whimsy, or maybe he thought the raicoat added to his authority in delivering the warning.

Maybe some of the older engineers remember this.

Dick Campbell's news program at 10 p.m. is listed on the 1947 Tulsa radio schedule.

Late night radio....

Herb Jepko came out of KSL in Salt Lake City, a 50kw blowtorch owned by the Mormon Church. He wasn't on Saturday overnights because of Mormon religious programming. Decades before Seinfeld, he did 36 hours on the air a week about nothing: essentially old folks and other insomniacs and non-sleepers and whatever they wanted to talk about. I think he had a couple of cardinal rules--no religion, no politics. A lot of nostalgic recollections, and very looong calls.

In the mid-70's the Mutual Network, then owned by the founders of Amway, put him on nationwide. I think he got about 70 stations, which wasn't as bad as it sounds because probably most of Mutual's affiliates were daytimers that weren't on the air after dark.

Sponsors were as hard to find as big-power Mutual stations, however, and Jepko was pulled from the net and replaced by a harder-edged host out of Miami who was just pulling out of bankrupcy--Larry Zeiger, nom de air, Larry King.

Speaking of blowtorch stations, I grew up within sight of WWL New Orleans' quarter wave height tower on the shores of Lake Ponchatrain. The high water table and the salt water conductivity in what soil there was made that 50 kw clear channel station a real flamethrower--I once picked them up rock solid at high noon 650 miles away in Georgia. At night, it carried all over. It would stop a receiver scan function in Tulsa and probably all the way to Canada.

The Charlie Douglas Road Gang was one of the all-night trucker country music shows, along with Billy Parker and Bill Mack at WBAP in Fort Worth. For a while, Charlie had a network of stations that were all around WWL's 870 frequency, like 860 somewhere in the middle of Nebraska, so as WWL drifted out in the age of non-digital tuners, you had a good shot at picking it up on the other station.

KVOO was 50kw directional N-S, I think, protecting WWVA, Wheeling W.Va. on 1170. It came in well at night in New Orleans, generally blocking out KSL on 1160, but if you drove much further east, WWVA would wipe it out.

This Guestbook page is now the best source of info about Herb Jepko on the internet.

After leaving WBBM, Jay Andres went to WGN. Franklyn McCormick was probably the last of the late night poetry readers-record players. He was, as Mike noted, sponsored by MeisterBrau beer, but kept a bottle of Cutty Sark at hand during the program. WGN has some memorable tapes of him on a gag reel, one cut of which runs for fifteen minutes or so and has McCormick extolling the wonderful flavors of Meister Brau--punctuated every few words--with a loud hiccup. He kept apologizing, but kept on reading and hiccupping until another staff announcer could be rushed in to relieve him. On another cut, McCormick is doing a live feed from a resort on Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. From a spot near the dining room, you hear McCormick rolling into one of his poetry readings: "Hearts never break..." he intones. At that precise moment, a busboy drops a tray with the damnedest crash ever recorded. A long pause, then, "Hearts never break...."

By the way, another DJ of that period in Chicago was a fellow named Ernie Simon, who also did a few gigs as a standup comic. His son is Scott Simon, of NPR.

Long Brain Dump Here...Side effect from a cortisone shot I got today for my larynx - yep us cable guys need to talk, too.

Radio DXing at night- OK was great for it in the 60's and 70's though I remember driving up by Wichita at night, Herb Jepko came booming in from either KSL in SLC or on KOA (I think) out of Denver. KOA was always a great boomer and good news station. FM was only in the cities and 50,000 watt plus FM's were few and far between THEN. I also think Herb Jepko may have later been re-transmitted on a Wichita station.

Yep, the Charlie Anderson RoadShow out of "NawrLeans" was always listenable to as I gear-jammed my 1969 Opel Kadett 2 door wagon up/down I-55 or I-35, then I started to notice he had a network of stations which blew me away. As you cruised the dial between cities he would magically come up again and again.

In Chicago - we used to DX WHAM In Rochester, NY as kids - it was a great jazz AM directional station, but basically the Chicago radio spectrum was fulll - maybe a Milwaukee station might get thru though.

My link to Chicago after moving to Tulsa was ABC-owned WLS then a rocker but KNOR in Norman - a day-timer - blanked it out in the daytime. Which I thought was weird as it was like only 1000 watts. I think KNOR later went on at night at reduced power for "local service" (250 watts = to a loud Waring Blender at output). Often had to re-explain to co-riding car passengers about directional radio signals, why if WLS was 50,000 watt - if you were driving South to Little Rock, it would disappear off the tuner. When in central MO or Eastern KS we would pick-up KAAY - the big rock n roller outta Little Rock.

CBS owned WBBM - where Jay Andres was at - skipped in and out when I was in Tulsey but I would swear BBM had gone mostly all news by then. Andres may have been their last entertainment/music show. I have no idea where he went after WBBM.

I have an excellent paperback on BBM done in the 80's that talks about their "class act". BBM did a lot with a studio trio or orchestra for years. The longtime GM there in the 40's,50's and 60's had been part of the family that originally owned the station and was a maverick compared to the Paley clan from NYC BUT MADE MONEY. So they let him alone and he helped build a unique station.

I am soooo old I can remember network radio soap operas on my long departed grandma's kitchen radio from WBBM in the 50's -- but what was the best was ***GUNSMOKE*** with William Conrad on Sunday afternoons around 6pm. As a kid I was confused that Matt Dillon wasn't portrayed by James Arness but by this great voice (long before Conrad's TV detective turn as "Cannon"). My Dad got me hooked and often Sundays - I HAD to hear this!

Mal Bellairs was another daytime WBBM fixture and I think his wife appeared with him. BBM has had a lot of hubby/wife news teams - so the tradition runs on. Mal later bought a couple of small AM's after BBM's next generation of management drove him off and rebuilt part of his audience and I think started buying more stations - he was homey but NOT Jay Andres.

WBBM - News Radio 78 has become a fixture for years now and a lot of Chicago stations do more talk on AM then anything else.

The late great pickled Franklin McCormack held court on WGN radio all night for years on Meister Brau Showcase (hey it's a beer AND a breakfast food!) sounding like he had his own "case night" many times - he was Jay Andres' competition on "Music till Dawn". John Doremus replaced McCormack when he went to that great saloon errr studio in the sky. Before John went to WGN and had been shagged away from NBC-owned WMAQ (most likely when they dumped MOR to go country) - he was on 5000 watt AM MOR WAIT ("the WAIT station") as the midday guy and when I sold cameras after school and on weekends in high school - NO STATION but WAIT could be played in-store. Twas no supermarket/elevator music but wasn't the same venue as "Patterns in Music". Much more gentle formatted, but still VERY formatted. John was probably the only really recognizable voice on there - the rest were the unknown voices of FM quality. I think John had a sojourn on an FM too at some time -- all the while cranking up his airline music business.

I can remember my Mom pointing out an article on "his new career" for in-flight entertainment in the now departed Chicago Sun-Times because my folks LOVED his TV show. Back when John was the "dinner music" early evening shift guy on WMAQ, if waiting to get my Dad at a later train from Chicago - we would listen to "Patterns in Music" in the car on the bassy AM Delco radio. This was when "dinner music" was still a standard on AM and early FM in the 50's/60's. His "Patterns in Music" TV show was often on as a "special" in the 6:30-7pm period Tuesdays or Thursday on then on NBC-owned WNBQ-TV before getting exiled to weekends.

To add to confusion on call letters and more Chicago NOT TTM trivia - in Chicago WLS-TV was originally WBKB-TV which stood for W-Balaban and Katz Broadacsting, the original ABC station owner in CHI. Balaban and Katz owned a big string of theatres. Bob Balaban - the last generation became a character actor in the 70's and was in a whole passle of movies as a sidekick or weasely lawyer, For some reason NBC had different call letters for their TV stations than radio - later WNBQ - I am sure in Jim Ruddle's turn there it was WMAQ-TV.

So much for medically affected brain dumps! Will see if I can find a Jay Andres picture to get scanned in - he WAS a debonair-looking guy I recall.

Tulsa was fortunate to have many good newscasters in those days: Ken Miller, Ed Neibling, Dick Campbell and others. My greatest compliment came from one of my father's friends who told me that, next to Ed Neibling, he liked my newscasts the best. I'm sure he was just being nice, because I was just a raw 18-year old kid at KAKC; but it made me feel good nonetheless.

When I moved to KTUL in the summer of '52, Dick Campbell was there. Does anyone know why he left his high position at KOME to be a lowly announcer at Boulder-on-the-Park? (I say "lowly" because announcers were only one-step above the writers, who were at the bottom of the corporate pecking order, that is unless there were a receptionist.)

My computer crashed decidedly last week and, after having a new hard drive installed, I needed several days to get back on the net. Sadly, it was then I learned of Dick Campbell's death.

Dick was a gentleman in all my dealings with him. I first became aware of him when he was broadcasting news from KGGF, in Coffeyville, KS. My mother thought he was the best in the business, and my early impressions were that she wasn't wrong. He had a great delivery to go with a magnificent voice and, in the days when Ken Miller ruled the news roost in Tulsa, Dick was a superb alternative.

I first met him, when I was just a punk kid hanging around KOME, in Tulsa, where he was station manager. He wasn't wild about the fact that I was constantly there, although he made no effort to have me barred. I was about fourteen, at the time.

In 1950, I was working at KAKC (where, by the way, Lewis Meyer did an afternoon program) and I thought I was ready for television. I was eighteen and probably looked even younger. Well, there wasn't much demand for eighteen year old announcers and newscasters on television, especially when that looked (erroneously) like choir boys. Still, Dick set up an audition for me and let me go through it, but said I probably needed more experience: Read that as grow a few years older.

The few years passed, and after I got out of the Coast Guard, I came back to Tulsa and gave it another shot. This time, he hired me and treated me very well.

He was a tall, good-looking guy, with a great sense of humor, even whimsy, and the antithesis of the agate-eyed bastards who later took over broadcasting.

I lost track of him after he went to the West Coast and the film sales business, but I'll always rank him as one of the finer people I knew in television.

When I was at TU in the early to mid-'50s, I used to listen to the strong, night time signal of WBBM in Chicago which featured the beautiful, dulcet voice of Jay Andres playing classical music. I assume that this program was the precursor of Doremus' efforts, for it also was sponsored by American Airlines and was called "Music 'til Dawn."

Fate is strange: John and I used to talk about how great Andres' voice was, never suspecting that John would take over that program in a few years.

The John Doremus note reminded me of how different the all-night radio airwaves were 35 or 40 years ago. As memory serves (though the service seems to get worse as the years go by!), Doremus was the voice of "Music Till Dawn," syndicated around the country and sponsored by American Airlines. Very calm and sedate. I imagine it was syndicated around on vinyl disc, though I couldn't be sure. Five or six hours five or six nights a week would mean either a lot of LP platters or a whole lotta tape reels to ship around the country.

Holiday Inns also had a similar low-key all-night music program, with the records spun by "Dolly Holiday." Holiday Inns founder Kemmons Wilson had a bit of a thing for radio. He was a friend of Sun Records founder Sam Phillips in Memphis and Phillips's radio station operated out of one of Wilson's motels. In my travels around very small towns in the late 60's and early 70's, I found several Holiday Inns that converted a couple of rooms into little AM radio stations.

Given that the era of CNN began only five or six years later, it's remarkable to note that even network radio newscast service mostly ended around 1 am until the early 70's. The age of satellite distribution and changing tastes in music pretty much put an end to easy listening formats not long after the time KVOO made the move to all-country. Perhaps some expert will remember the exact date, '70 or '69 maybe?

For wee hours radio programming, how about Herb Jepko and the Nightcappers Club out of Salt Lake City in the 60s and 70s? The only Jepko mention I could find on the internet was in an article about Art Bell, which is pretty interesting in itself.

Mail call - got a great note from Ken Broo after pinging him in Cincinati. That IS a good news/sports town, too, and I wish him continued success!

Also got a great note with some John Doremus news. Tom H. Jones (no not Las Vegas Tom Jones) from MN wrote:

-----

I happened to come upon your 10/02/99 comments about John Doremus this weekend.

I am president & general mgr. of KNXR (FM) in Rochester, Minnesota.

I first made contact with John in 1962 and we met in 1966 when we began to produce a syndicated version of "Patterns In Music" using the music in the KNXR library.

"Patterns In Music" with John Doremus airs each evening from 7-10 on KNXR and is one of our most popular shows. It is now in its 34th year! We received many comments from folks visiting the Mayo Clinic from around the country who have heard John elsewhere. The program is actually assembled as you hear the show on KNXR. All of the music is from our library.

We bought all of John's material (voice tracks, scripts, etc.) about a year before he died. We have enough voice-tracks for about 8 years of shows.

I still keep in contact with John's secretary, Dorothy Miller, and his three boys, David, Fred and Paul.

We all know plenty of info about Sapulpa which John dispensed regularly on the program. Sometime I want to go to Sapulpa and see if the lady who gave young John the crank-up phonograph for mowing her lawn is still around. She is/was credited with getting John started in radio as a grade-schooler.

All the best and many thanks for the kind words about John.

-----

Tom's staff has also assembled a 3 cassette "best of John Doremus" anthology collection with 60 of his most asked-for bits. If anyone is interested in obtaining this, call him. Sorry I don't know the price. I think this is neat that John's work lives on - today.

You can reach Tom at:

Tom H. Jones
KNXR RADIO 97.5
(507) 288-7700

In addition to his instantly recognizable on-air voice, Dick Campbell did a curious thing in addition to his insistence in putting the emphasis on the first syllable of the word “homogenized.” Some people think that he ruined Charles Conner as an announcer.

In the early ‘50s there was a big emphasis on “punch,” meaning that the announcer had to read commercials with great excitement and emphasis. A natural, low-keyed technique was frowned upon. I used to hear program directors criticize the announcers at non-commercial stations because they had to be “re-trained” for working at commercial stations because the non-profit announcers did not have punch.

The ad agencies and advertisers insisted on punch. The commercials recorded by Roy Pickett and Jack Morris show this technique taken to the highest degree when they shouted the Charlie Shepherd Kaiser-Frazier commercials at the top of their voices, accompanied with sounds such as machine guns.

But Campbell took it the most absurd degree with poor Charles Conner. (Charles had won the KVOO Scholarship in 1950, the year after Jim Ruddle and the year before I did.) Campbell decided that Conner needed more punch. He put Charles across the room from the microphone and had the poor announcer yell loudly, even on simple station breaks. It sounded terrible, and Charles gained a terrible reputation as an announcer. It almost ruined Conner’s voice.

Charles left radio and became a preacher. I assume that now he uses Campbell’s techniques in his sermons.

I thought I had put this link out here before, but I hadn't. It shows recordings of the early 30-line television system developed by a Scotsman in 1926.

http://www.dfm.dircon.co.uk/recordng.htm

After I gave my two-weeks’ notice to KFMJ, before going to KRMG, I was curious to see whom they would hire to replace me. At the end of the first week a short, skinny, middle-aged fellow with an angular face and bulging, furtive eyes walked in with program director, who told me that I was to break the new man in as my replacement.

As I showed him the Western Electric board (which was much more complicated than the Collins board at KAKC), I could detect a little fear in his eyes. To get him comfortable with the new surroundings, at first we shared the announcing duties, with me running the board. I noticed that he seemed to have some kind of slight speech impediment. I chuckled to myself, thinking that he had a wart on the end of his tongue. The reason for the chuckle was that, in the sexist, ignorant days of the '50s’ male culture, it was thought that you could have any girl in town if you had a wart on the end of your tongue.

When the time came for him to learn the board, his hands would shake terribly. When trying to cue up a record, the stylus would perform a merry, scratchy dance on the acetate. The poor man became the butt of jokes behind his back. Most people called him “Shaky,” but I preferred my own appellation: “Wart Man.” However, I had never seen the man laugh or stick out his tongue to see if he merited the label.

The next to last day I was there, he told me that he wanted to bring his wife down to meet me and to see the place. I couldn’t wait. I was working the board when he walked in, followed by a portly middle-aged woman and a gorgeous young female. I thought, “Wow! How could an ugly guy like that have such a beautiful daughter?”

He said, “I’d like for you to meet my mother-in-law and my wife.” He beamed with a wide smile. The smile was so big that I could see inside his mouth.

And-----sure enough!

Re: Frank Morrow inquiry:

Alas, The Dick Campbell who died Friday was THE Dick Campbell; the Tulsa World obituary was just a little sketchy, omitting his time between Coffeyville and Tulsa's KOTV (KOME and KTUL) and immediately after he left KOTV (real estate, I think).

Bill Hyden told me Campbell didn't attend the KOTV reunion last November because he was in a Tulsa nursing home. Friends, the magic circle is getting smaller!

(I attribute sketchy obituaries to the youth of the obituary writer--not having enough background to fully check things out. That's why the Tulsa World never mentioned Lewis Meyer's book reviews on KTVX-TV before KOTV or KVOO radio before that.)

And anybody remember TU football star Harold (Tuffy) Stratton (four touchdowns against Kansas in a 56-0 rout in l946)? He went on to do well as a coach at Northeastern State/Tahlequah. The young sportswriter checked with Northeastern (his last connection) as was logical, but Northeastern had nothing to gain by referring to his great career at TU, I suppose, so it didn't get mentioned!

Take heed of English literature, friends: "The paths of glory lead but to the grave!"

Until I read the obituary about the death of Dick Campbell, I had thought that the former executive of KOTV was the same Dick Campbell with the rich voice who had been an announcer at KOME and KTUL in the '40s and early '50s. What happened to my Dick Campbell?

To the many fans of former KOTV Sports Director Ken Broo, Ken is now sportcaster in Cincinnati.

Found this item on the station's web site:

Home Page/WLWT-TV/Who's Who/Story
Ken Broo
Sports Director

Sports Director Ken Broo returned to Cincinnati in February 2000 for his second stint at the WLWT Eyewitness News 5 sports anchor desk. His first tenure at channel 5, from 1986-90, was followed by six years at WKRC in Cincinnati and four years WUSA in Washington DC.

Ken is a native of Belleville, N.J. and a graduate of Ohio University. He is pleased to be back in Cincinnati to begin his second quarter century is television sports.

Like countless sports broadcasters, Ken's love of a great game determined his career choice.

"I get to meet to all the athletes everyone else roots for," he says. "Plus, I get into all the games for free!"

Ken's signature "Broo's Boos and Bravos" have returned to Cincinnati as well. Watch for his daily column here on ChannelCincinnati.com!

You can e-mail Ken at: ken.broo@channelcincinnati.com.

Ken also maintains his own Web site: www.kenbroo.com

We'll look forward to hearing from Ken again soon. Recent pictures of Ken can be found on The Sports Page and The Rasslin' Page on this site.

A sad note for those of you who knew him....from Sunday's (5/21) Tulsa World:

-----

John R. "Dick" Campbell, retired Columbia Pictures vice president, died Friday. He was 86.

Private family services will be held in Broken Arrow.

Campbell was born in Independence, Kan., and graduated from Independence Junior College in 1935. After graduation, he started working at KGGF radio station in Coffeyville, Kan., as a disc jockey.

In 1949, Campbell moved to Tulsa as general manager at KOTV-Channel 6. He remained there until 1956.

In 1966, he moved to Hollywood, Calif., to work at Columbia Pictures. Eventually, he was promoted to vice president of the Western Sales Division at Columbia. He retired in 1987.

He is survived by his son, Kent Campbell of Tulsa.

Friends are making donations to St. John's Episcopal Church.

-----

I knew Dick when I was program director at KGTV in San Diego. Film salesmen could sometimes be annoying but never Dick Campbell..no pressure and a great sense of humor. One of the last from the golden days of television program syndication.

Thanks for letting us know, Don.

Archived Guestbook 38.

We heard from several new people and some of the regular contributors about Lee Woodward, Mazeppa's live broadcast, Mack Creager, the first Fantastic Theater theme, salaries in broadcasting, BMI and ASCAP, Perry Ward, Jim Wheaton, and miscellaneous arcane topics.