I, the Kornerman, gave a 90-minute speech last October to a crowd at the Boone County Historical Center, reliving some of my memories of work at KWBG radio and the Boone News Republican.
Numerous acquaintances, friends, particularly those who no longer live in the Boone area, noted that they were very interested in the presentation, though they were not able to attend in person.
In the time since the actual presentation, I've tried to, in the Korner, in a written form, provide highlights of that speech for those interested.
By now, we have pretty well covered everything except for this one final subject, "Highlights of my days at KWBG."
I did part-time announcing, starting in my senior year at Boone High School, 1953, and continued that during my two years at Boone Junior College.
After graduation from BJC, I entered U.S. Army service for two years. As I was about to be discharged from the military, I received an offer to return to KWBG at "85.00 a week." That was my official start at KWBG in 1957.
I worked full-time, opening the station at 6 a.m. and doing sports, play-by-play ($15 extra per game), in the evenings. All this, while attempting to attend Iowa State University, an effort I eventually gave up on.
By the way, during that ISU time, I was given an opportunity to work at WOI-TV as an announcer. What a big deal......not. All I did was work late night weekends and between programs, I would recite, "This is WOI-TV, Ames"......that was it.
In my time at KWBG I did lots of sports events, primarily all BHS contests in all sports with a few Ogden, Madrid, United games mixed in. Watching Jim Goodrich of United becoming the all-time Iowa High School basketball scorer was a highlight.
I never kept track but may have done 1,000 high school contests or more and yes, was happy to do so for that extra $15 per contest.
Tournament time was especially hectic and that was a time we broadcast a lot of area games. There were many more schools involved in those days and it took lots of contests to pare the field to eventual state tourney qualifiers.
Oftentimes, schools would host three games in one evening. I recall going to Ogden for an early tournament basketball game at like 5:30 p.m., getting the car at its conclusion and driving to Stratford to do an 8 p.m. game there that same night.
I was always proud of the fact that I broadcast a game of the State Tourney when I was just 18 or 19 years old. That was pretty big for a young broadcaster.
Some other radio highlights:
A fellow broadcaster, Roger Weber, and I decided to have an afternoon show with an invitation to call in whatever was on listener's mind. That resulted in a discussion of all kinds of city news......council, police, fire, organizations. Exchanging recipes even became a popular subject. In fact, Roger and I eventually put many of those recipes in a "Dial Your Neighbor" cook book which I understand can still be found, on occasion, at local garage sales.
Yes, that was the name of the show and this was in the early 1960's. Today, "talk" shows are a dime a dozen but I really feel like Roger and I were involved in one of the earliest such broadcasts.
We had an early "Quiz Biz" program......the usual.......ask a question and take calls with the answer and whoever was first with the correct answer won the prize.
Being the great music fan I am, I had purchased a wonderful album by the famous Nelson Riddle orchestra. His orchestra was well know for providing the background music for the great singers of the day.....Sinatra etc.
The album was strictly, music, the orchestra alone, and it was designed for a sing-along. It even included lyrics for the songs involved. Well, I decided to "sing along." I recorded, "You Make Me Feel So Young" with the Nelson Riddle orchestra background.
That soon became a question on the Quiz Biz program. "We have a great song here featuring the famous Nelson Riddle orchestra and all we want you to tell us is the name of the singer on this song."
We played it and, as usual, the phone started lighting up.......Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Vic Damone and various others were guessed. I really don't recall if someone eventually decided it was me or if I had to break the news to everyone. That was fun.
Sometime along the line I became the station manager. We needed an announcer and put the word out. A young man who was attending Iowa State University applied and made a major, immediate impact. There was no doubt.....he was our choice and I hired him for his first real job in radio.
Mike Pace was the choice and, in all reality, I think we knew we had a real gem on staff and history eventually proved that was true.
Mike was in Boone initially for some time, actually left but then came back for a second time here.
Mike became a very highly visable personality in the metro area, working at a couple of radio stations, being a wonderful Master of Ceremonies for big events and participating, himself, in musical events and plays.
However, probably his major claim to fame came as the announcer for the national Powerball drawing telecast. That short program was seen each week by thousands across the country and he had that gig for some 18 years.
K-----K
Worldwide Korner headquarters are located at 928 South Jackson, Boone, Iowa 50036-4932. Phone number is 515-432-1530. Leave a message. To email your stories/memories/comments/death notices..........https://kelleyskorner1@blogspot.com.
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