WEBVTT

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 July 29th of 2002. And we are here at a su at the visitor information

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center at Rural Road and Apache uh
doing a series of interviews for the uh

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Arizona State University Retiree
Association, uh Living History video

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project. And I'd like to have you
introduce yourself so that we get your

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name uh pronounced correctly. And um
maybe just tell us what your title

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was. Uh When you retire at a SU, we'll
go back to the beginning or later.

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When you go back to the beginning, you
go back a long way. I'm Bob Ellis.

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And when I retired, I was associate
vice president uh at a su

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in University relations.

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Um And then why would you start it
start at the very beginning and tell me

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when you were born and where, where
you were born? Well, my sister and I

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were born in Cleveland, Ohio. We're
Children of the depression. I was born

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in 1928 and she was born in 1921. My
father worked for the Guardian Bank

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in Cleveland and uh FDR closed all the
banks and my dad lost his job and

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was out of work six years. And during
that period of time, I don't know

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how my parents managed to do this, but
I never lost a meal. I never, there

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was never a time when we didn't have
food on the table, there were always

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gifts and presents at Christmas time
and on my birthday. But sadly, my dad

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died when he was 46 years old in 1938.
So my sister, my mother and I went

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to live with my grandparents and we
lived there for six years. I graduated

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from high school in Cleveland and went
in the army. And if you'd like to

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hear about my army exploits, there
weren't many. It sounds like you're

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growing up here were a difficult time.
We talk a little bit about what you

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remember of those years. They really
weren't that difficult because my

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grandparents really took care of us.
And as I say, I don't know how my

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parents did it. But during the
depression, we lost our houses. We had

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three houses. Uh We had a 1929 buick,
a brand new buick that wound up on

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blocks in the driveway. We, uh my dad
had a boat that we uh took to Lake

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Erie every summer and we lost that. Uh
But he managed to keep our 16

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millimeter camera and, and tapes and
uh well, they were films then. And so

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I have uh films of when I was 2 to 67
years old. And uh my sister and I

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are very, very grateful that they
didn't sell those not, not very valuable

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, but uh we also had um, a great
family. Uh, and my uncles, my aunts, uh I

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was supposed to be the third
generation to go to work for the Cleveland

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Electric Luminating Company. My
grandfather started with the company and

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worked there for 55 years in the same
position. He was superintendent of

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the electrical division. My uncle
worked there for 30 years and I was

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going to be the third generation. It
didn't quite work out that way. So

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how did it work out differently? Well,
after I got out of the service, I

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came to Arizona to visit my, my sister
who had married a Phoenician and I

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took my uh severance pay $60 or so,
got on a Greyhound bus and came out

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here. There was a fellow that I went
through school with that also went in

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the service with me at the same time
who contacted uh rheumatic fever and

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he was going through recuperation at
the Pacco Hospital which no longer

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exists. And he told me about Arizona
State College. So I decided to come

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out and take a look. So I drove from
28th Avenue in Van Buren and I

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stopped at this huge campus and there
were, I don't know, four or 5000

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kids there, but they were kids. They
were like, you know, 1415, I thought

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what kind of a university is it? I
stopped off at Phoenix Union High

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School by mistake and went on to
Arizona State College and there were only

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2500 students here. So I started
school in 1948 and with the exception of

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a couple of years, I never left, uh,
never left Arizona

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a little bit about growing up. Were
you a good student? I was a terrible

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student but I loved high school. I was
kicked out of high school five

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times. Very, very terrible things that
we did. The basketball team came

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out of practice one day and went up to
the cafeteria and there were some

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pies out and you couldn't resist them.
We started to eat the pies. We got

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caught. That was one time I got kicked
out. Um, I loved, loved high school

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and I still have friends that I played
ball with and, uh, we, we stay in

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contact with each other. What sports
did you play in high school? I tried

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to play football and I managed to get
hurting my knee. So I wound up not

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playing football. I tried to play
basketball. That was a vain attempt. I

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was too small. When I graduated from
high school, I was 5 ft two and I

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weighed about £120

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and now I'm 510 and I'm not going to
tell you how much I weigh. But uh I

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did know all the kids that played ball
and, uh, hung out with them and had

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a great time. And how did you get
kicked out of school the other? Well, I

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, uh, did, uh, manage the football
team and I got a letter for that and

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one day I was, uh, shooting pool at
the local pool room with my letter

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sweater on. And, uh, the dean of
students, uh, saw me there and that was

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another time I kicked out. I don't
know if you had study halls. We had

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study halls. You had to go to the
study halls. But there were ways of

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getting out of study halls. For
instance, you could sign up for chorus and

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you could get out of study hall. And I
got called into the office one day

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and they must have had 100 study hall
slips that I had presented and never

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went to the study hall. And I never
went to the classes. I said I was

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going to. So I was kicked out again.
Now, you may wonder how I managed to

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stay in school. They always said you
have to bring your mother. And I said

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, well, you know, I can't do that
because my mother is working in the

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defense industry. And this was during
the first part of World War two. And

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so they kept excusing me because my
mother was working in the defense

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industry. When I graduated, the
assistant principal said to my mother, how

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is work at uh General Electric. And
she said I don't work there. I work at

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Southam Jewelers. Uh, I had got my
diploma by that time.

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What year did you graduate from high
school? I graduated in 1946. I went

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in the service right after I
graduated. So he missed World War Two as a

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serviceman. I, but it was, I was still
drafted and because of that, I was

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eligible for the G I Bill.

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That's one of the things I could take
advantage of coming to AC I had the

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G I Bill. So where did you serve
during your years in Fort Knox, Kentucky

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? That's it. I was there for a year
and a half.

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No, thank goodness, no combat duty.

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So, through these years of high
school, what did you plan to do when you

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grew up and graduated? I was going to
work for the Clean Electric

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Luminating Company. That's what the
plan was. But as I say, it didn't come

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out that way because I came out here.
Um, tell us again, why did you want

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to come to Arizona? Because my sister
was here and uh I just came to visit

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her and wound up going to school in
1948 and it was quite a different

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place then than it is. Now, you
describe a little bit what it was like

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when you first, you said you went to
Phoenix Union by mistake. What was

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the issue like when you finally found
it. Well, the great advantage of

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going to Arizona State College then
was, it was small. There were about

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2500 students. You got to know
practically everybody in the student body.

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Uh You really got to understand what
your professors were like. They

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invited you sometimes to their homes
for dinner. Um

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And I think that uh you, you, you
really realized that what camaraderie

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was all about, the great disadvantage
was that it was small and the

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faculty was good but not really
distinguished. And uh because of the

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sudden influx of GIS it was sometimes
hard to get in the classes you

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wanted to get into. Um And I, if you
were from back east, like I was, and

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you told somebody, you went to Arizona
State College at Tempe, the

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reaction was where's temp or is that
the University of Tucson? We really

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were not well known in those days. So
the advantage was, it was small. The

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disadvantage was that it was small.
And what, what were you majoring in?

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II, I majored in speech and drama.
Another disadvantage was that this has

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been a uh teacher's college and uh
there wasn't much research going on in

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the university. And as a result, you
probably would wind up majoring in,

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in elementary or secondary education.
So I was in secondary education uh

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with an emphasis in speech and drama.
And what did you intend to do with

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that? I had no idea again, I just
enjoyed myself because it was small and

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you wanted to go in and
extracurricular activities, you can participate in

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the choir, which I did. You could go
into debate with Dean mcs Slowy as

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your professor or you can go into
drama with Frank Byers. So I've tried

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all of them.

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What did you think of Arizona? When
your first experience? It was

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wonderful because I came in November
and then I went back to Cleveland in

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May. So I didn't experience those
terrible summers for three years. And

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then when I finally experienced those
terrible summers, I thought this is

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an awful place to live. But other
things happened to me at that time,

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unexpected consequences that made me
want to stay here.

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Um Well, why don't you tell us about
some of those things? Why did you

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decide when you, you were going to
school for four years? Three years or

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five?

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I graduated in 53. And uh I went to
work for KO I radio and unexpected

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experiences consequences. I was hired
to work in the continuity department.

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I had no idea what that meant. I found
out later. It meant writing

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commercials. It just so happened.
There was a very attractive, beautiful,

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smart woman who was single that ran
that department and I was immediately

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attracted to her and I have no idea
why she went out with me. But uh

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Frankie Joe Lanter was my boss. Wound
up fortunately marrying her and uh,

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next week we'll be celebrating our
48th anniversary. So that's why I

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stayed here. She was from this area.
So, when did you marry her? I married

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her in 1954 August the 7th, 1954. And
that's a date that I don't want to

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forget.

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Um, and so you, you met her working
at, at Koy, did you plan to make radio

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your career by then? Yeah. And, uh, I
had, uh, I worked there for seven

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years. What, what happened was a
friend of mine that I went to school with

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a, graduated in 1953. Jim Loper stayed
on in what was known as the

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broadcasting department. Then the
Bureau of Broadcasting and his boss was

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Doctor Richard Bell. They had this
great idea to start a television

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station, other public. Well, it was
non commercial educational television

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stations then had been started. The
first one was at the University of

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Houston. They had one at, uh Lincoln.
Uh, most of them started at

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universities and the idea was they
would be able to offer tele courses on

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the air and students wouldn't have to
come to campus to take those courses.

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So it was a really a non-commercial
educational facility. Jim asked me if

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I would come over and help in the
radio area and I took a cut in salary,

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but they were getting the station on
the air. So I came over here, station

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, went on the air. I came over in 59
station went on the air. January 30

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1961 you might say why January 30 why
not? The 31st or February 1st? The

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semester started on January 30.
Surprisingly Dick left in June. He went to

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the University of Colorado. He spent
several years trying to get the

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station started and then he suddenly
left. Jim had left to go back to, to

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go to us c where he did some of his uh
master's degree work and wanted to

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get his phd, he left and never came
back and guess what? I inherited, I

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inherited channel eight and that was
in 1961. And I stayed on as general

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manager until 1987. And actually, the
station reported to me from 87 to 90

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when I was in university relations. So
I was affiliated with the station,

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the beginning of it for about 30
years. Let me back up a little bit and

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start back at when you went to work at
Koy. Tell me what was Koy like?

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Then there were two major radio
stations in town Ktar and Koyko, I had

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been a CBS affiliate and they lost the
affiliation to a new station. Cool

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, that was run by Tom Chauncey. So, Ko
I became a mutual Don Lee affiliate

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and they had to re invent themselves.
They had relied on network

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programming up until this time. But
when I got, came on the scene, the

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reason they needed more staff is they
went to a local format. We had rise

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and shine in the morning, we had Bob
Caps and this from midnight to six

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o'clock in the morning, Frankie Joe
and I had a program called his and

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hers. So it was a lot of local
programming and you learned a lot about

00:15:45.330 --> 00:15:51.717
talking to the community at, at that
time. Uh The other interesting thing

00:15:51.750 --> 00:15:56.606
was ko I was going to go into the
television business. They finally did,

00:15:56.639 --> 00:16:03.015
they and uh Cool, merged for a
television facility, Channel 10 and

00:16:03.048 --> 00:16:09.037
eventually Cool bought them out. So,
yeah, it was a different station and

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a wonderful place to live in in the
morning from six o'clock until nine.

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Our ratings at that time were over
half of the ratings in town. In other

00:16:23.379 --> 00:16:28.505
words, more than 50% of the audience
available audience listened to us in

00:16:28.538 --> 00:16:33.467
the morning. And if you made a
mistake, you got letters who were some of

00:16:33.500 --> 00:16:39.116
the key people that were on the air at
that time. Well, Bill Close, who

00:16:39.149 --> 00:16:44.196
later on went to channel 10 and became
a news anchor there. Bill was the

00:16:44.229 --> 00:16:48.787
news director, Paul Ribbon who you
probably never heard of was also in the

00:16:48.820 --> 00:16:53.816
news department. Bill Lester was
assistant program director and he had

00:16:53.849 --> 00:17:00.706
several programs on the air. Uh Johnny
Holiday, which was a pseudonym. His

00:17:00.739 --> 00:17:06.825
name was Johnny Hetherington. But Jack
Williams was the owner and program

00:17:06.858 --> 00:17:09.926
director of the station and Jack later
became governor. There's another

00:17:09.959 --> 00:17:16.486
story there that maybe I'll have time.
I'll tell you, um, Bob Caps, we had

00:17:16.519 --> 00:17:22.065
a lot of John Johnson, Jim Murdock.
Uh, we had a lot of disc jockeys on

00:17:22.098 --> 00:17:26.097
the air at that time.

00:17:26.130 --> 00:17:30.367
Um, so you were there for what, five
years? I was there for seven years. I

00:17:30.400 --> 00:17:38.400
was there from 1953 until, um, 1959
when I came over here. But I went back

00:17:38.559 --> 00:17:44.295
and worked part time for them for two
or three years after that. And so

00:17:44.328 --> 00:17:50.075
was that a big decision and to leave
that? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we

00:17:50.108 --> 00:17:55.127
had, uh, two Children by that time.
And, uh, I told Frankie Joe that I

00:17:55.160 --> 00:18:01.906
really wanted to try a hand at
television and I took a cut in salary, but

00:18:01.939 --> 00:18:06.717
I said I could make that up for that
if I worked at Koy part time. So I

00:18:06.750 --> 00:18:11.627
wound up working seven days a week. I
rarely saw the kids. I worked over

00:18:11.660 --> 00:18:17.217
at the university and then on Friday
night I, I worked at, uh, Koy on

00:18:17.250 --> 00:18:21.887
Saturday morning and Sunday morning. I
worked there. I did the dog races,

00:18:21.920 --> 00:18:26.656
the greyhound races with Bill Close. I
did those three nights a week. So I

00:18:26.689 --> 00:18:30.795
wasn't home a lot during those first
few years that I worked here. So you

00:18:30.828 --> 00:18:36.075
took a cut in salary? What were
salaries like that? I think that I was

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making, I probably was making around
$7000 a year and I probably, I would

00:18:43.348 --> 00:18:49.377
guess it four or $5000 a year to come
over here. But tell me again, why,

00:18:49.410 --> 00:18:52.656
why you were willing to take the cut
and sell. Well, as I say, they were

00:18:52.689 --> 00:18:58.726
getting television stations started
and that, that, uh, enticed me and I

00:18:58.759 --> 00:19:03.476
thought there was some opportunities
here and I thought maybe I could take

00:19:03.509 --> 00:19:09.467
a hand at teaching and eventually,
maybe I would get tenure and uh all

00:19:09.500 --> 00:19:14.996
that happened. So tell me about the,
the station when, how it got started

00:19:15.029 --> 00:19:18.387
and how it got its call letters and
its station number and all that. Well

00:19:18.420 --> 00:19:26.127
, the station number was assigned by
the FCC. Uh Now you have to go back

00:19:26.160 --> 00:19:33.127
and recognize that at that time in
1959 the only stations on the air were

00:19:33.160 --> 00:19:41.160
channel five, which was KPHO channel
12, which was uh K VA R and then

00:19:42.680 --> 00:19:47.166
channel three came on the air a little
later and channel 10. So those were

00:19:47.199 --> 00:19:50.805
the stations, four stations, channel
eight fit right in the middle of that

00:19:50.838 --> 00:19:58.006
spectrum. So we went on the air and
we're on the air five days a week with

00:19:58.039 --> 00:20:03.137
mainly with tele courses. And since we
were located where we were located

00:20:03.170 --> 00:20:09.446
and there wasn't remote control, you
had to flip the dial past us to get

00:20:09.479 --> 00:20:15.647
from 5 to 10. And every once in a
while people would stop and we managed

00:20:15.680 --> 00:20:20.936
to get an audience even though we
didn't have much of a signal out there.

00:20:20.969 --> 00:20:27.456
That was in 1961. And we were offering
tele courses. We were successful

00:20:27.489 --> 00:20:33.825
with only one course. And that was um
Kno Martinez, Spanish 101 and 102. I

00:20:33.858 --> 00:20:38.097
think there were maybe 15 students
registered for it, but he sold 5000

00:20:38.130 --> 00:20:42.387
syllabus. So there were people
watching us at that time. Not many but a

00:20:42.420 --> 00:20:49.156
few. Yeah, at that time. Yeah. How did
you get the call letters, call

00:20:49.189 --> 00:20:55.467
letters Dan. We didn't want Kaet. We
wanted Kasu

00:20:55.500 --> 00:21:02.347
and uh that was not available because
that was a FM station in, at

00:21:02.380 --> 00:21:09.246
Arkansas State University. So we
settled for a ET which stands for Arizona

00:21:09.279 --> 00:21:13.956
Educational Television. Nobody
realizes that. Now it's a hard call letter

00:21:13.989 --> 00:21:16.196
Kaet.

00:21:16.229 --> 00:21:22.946
But uh we're still stuck with it. Now,
at that time, the, the commercial

00:21:22.979 --> 00:21:27.906
stations, now you said there was a
battle between Koy and, and cool trying

00:21:27.939 --> 00:21:35.939
to get one station. How did the
university get a station

00:21:36.239 --> 00:21:41.075
when the station went on the air?
Well, let's go, let's go back a minute.

00:21:41.108 --> 00:21:45.107
Brady Gamage was president. And as my
understanding, he told Dick they

00:21:45.140 --> 00:21:52.127
could apply for a license once they
had a foundation of uh funding from

00:21:52.160 --> 00:21:56.717
other than university sources. Dick
managed to get a grant from the mccune

00:21:56.750 --> 00:22:03.597
Foundation. I think it was maybe
$80,000. And Grady Gammon said they would

00:22:03.630 --> 00:22:06.956
match that. So they had enough money
to get on the air. They applied for

00:22:06.989 --> 00:22:13.877
the license, got the license and as,
as I said, went on the air in 61. Now

00:22:13.910 --> 00:22:19.617
, the interesting thing to me is they
didn't have enough money for a new

00:22:19.650 --> 00:22:23.496
tower or transmitter.

00:22:23.529 --> 00:22:28.795
Channel 12 was going to increase
power. So they had to get a new

00:22:28.828 --> 00:22:36.706
transmitter and uh tower and antenna
and Dick bought their old tower

00:22:36.739 --> 00:22:43.107
transmitter and antenna. I think he
paid $35,000 for it. The signal wasn't

00:22:43.140 --> 00:22:48.756
very good. And later on we had to take
the transmitter out and put in a

00:22:48.789 --> 00:22:54.906
new transmitter tower and antenna. But
KKTARK VA R, Dick Lewis at that

00:22:54.939 --> 00:22:58.906
time really helped him get on the air.

00:22:58.939 --> 00:23:02.496
Now, you're saying there were just a
few other stations, there wasn't the

00:23:02.529 --> 00:23:06.127
kind of public television that we had.
No, it was, it was non commercial

00:23:06.160 --> 00:23:11.726
educational television and there were
a few programs that were produced uh

00:23:11.759 --> 00:23:18.916
around the country and they were
recycled at Ann Arbor. The uh the uh

00:23:18.949 --> 00:23:24.967
National Educational Television Radio
Center was in Ann Arbor program was

00:23:25.000 --> 00:23:29.585
produced by, let's say W GB H in
Boston, it would go to Ann Arbor and they

00:23:29.618 --> 00:23:34.107
would make copies. They couldn't make
enough copies for all the 40 or 50

00:23:34.140 --> 00:23:38.686
stations that were on the air. So
maybe they make five or 10 copies and

00:23:38.719 --> 00:23:43.835
they would go to one station by the
mail. We weren't interconnected and

00:23:43.868 --> 00:23:47.956
then you would take that program and
you would send it to another station

00:23:47.989 --> 00:23:52.946
that would send it to another station.
But as a result, you couldn't have

00:23:52.979 --> 00:23:56.196
a lot of good promotion because you
couldn't say that such and such

00:23:56.229 --> 00:23:59.785
program. The Age of Kings, for
instance, was going to be on the air

00:23:59.818 --> 00:24:03.575
nationwide on Monday night at nine
o'clock because it might be on the air

00:24:03.608 --> 00:24:07.627
in New York at nine o'clock on Monday
night. And it might be on the air

00:24:07.660 --> 00:24:12.545
here at Friday night. So it was uh a
cumbersome system, but somehow it

00:24:12.578 --> 00:24:18.526
seemed to work. Uh, uh, you may
understand that this was all really

00:24:18.559 --> 00:24:26.559
difficult and uh shoestring operations
in many places. It wasn't until

00:24:26.739 --> 00:24:30.097
Lyndon Johnson became president that
they were able to get a bill through

00:24:30.130 --> 00:24:35.467
Congress to support uh public radio
and public television. That was the

00:24:35.500 --> 00:24:40.305
Great Society Act of 1967. And that as
a result of that, the Corporation

00:24:40.338 --> 00:24:45.367
for Public Broadcasting was formed and
that was followed by PBS.

00:24:45.400 --> 00:24:48.065
Tell me about what it was like when
you first came. What, what was your

00:24:48.098 --> 00:24:50.325
title?

00:24:50.358 --> 00:24:55.736
You see, I think my title was news
director or something. And my job was

00:24:55.769 --> 00:25:01.026
to, to produce radio programs for
radio stations throughout the state. And

00:25:01.059 --> 00:25:07.726
so we produced maybe five or six
programs, a U News Sports Western

00:25:07.759 --> 00:25:12.325
Business round up a College of
business program. These were recycled to

00:25:12.358 --> 00:25:18.467
the 50 or so radio station throughout
the state. And that was my job. Um,

00:25:18.500 --> 00:25:23.565
you know, Arizona State was a quaint
operation at that time. Yeah. If you

00:25:23.598 --> 00:25:31.598
, if you go back to the fifties and
you walk down College Avenue at 945 at

00:25:33.199 --> 00:25:37.147
night and there'd be cars parked in
front of the quadrangle, that'd be

00:25:37.180 --> 00:25:42.315
north, south and West Hall and there
would be some nicking going on in

00:25:42.348 --> 00:25:45.936
those, that's what we call it. Then in
those cars and smoke would be

00:25:45.969 --> 00:25:49.897
filtering out through the windows
because the thing to do was to smoke.

00:25:49.930 --> 00:25:55.016
And then about five minutes of 10, the
girls would run into the dorm

00:25:55.049 --> 00:26:00.815
because there was a curfew. Uh, I it's
hard to believe that that really

00:26:00.848 --> 00:26:04.426
happened and these were, these were
not co ed dorms and every once in a

00:26:04.459 --> 00:26:08.967
while you would hear a shout man in
the hall, which meant some guy had

00:26:09.000 --> 00:26:14.795
wandered through one of the halls and
they was caught, uh, then the guys

00:26:14.828 --> 00:26:19.055
in the cars would leave at 10 o'clock
and they would wind up at a local

00:26:19.088 --> 00:26:24.285
pub, maybe the hut downtown or
someplace, the whole school operated that

00:26:24.318 --> 00:26:28.847
way for a number of years. And even in
the late fifties and early sixties

00:26:28.880 --> 00:26:33.357
, when Channel eight was going on the
air, it still was a relatively small

00:26:33.390 --> 00:26:40.266
campus. And because the faculty was
interested in going on the air, some

00:26:40.299 --> 00:26:47.065
of them, we were able to offer 10 or
15 tele courses every semester, it,

00:26:47.098 --> 00:26:53.127
it worked out fairly well, but the
tele courses were not to the students

00:26:53.160 --> 00:26:59.097
liking, they just hated the idea of
taking a course via a television

00:26:59.130 --> 00:27:02.847
station and not seeing the professor.
And now you take a look at what's

00:27:02.880 --> 00:27:06.436
going on on the internet. A lot of, a
lot of the courses are offered that

00:27:06.469 --> 00:27:12.766
way. Now, finally arrived. How did it
change when the TV station went on

00:27:12.799 --> 00:27:17.397
the air? How did your job change?
Well, when the station went on the air,

00:27:17.430 --> 00:27:22.325
as I say, I was news director and we
did have a half hour newscast every

00:27:22.358 --> 00:27:27.986
evening. And I did all the announcing
for the station. We couldn't hire an

00:27:28.019 --> 00:27:32.857
announcing. We only had about, well,
maybe five or six staff members. We

00:27:32.890 --> 00:27:38.825
had uh Chuck Allen who is now manager
of the station. Uh Shell Siegel

00:27:38.858 --> 00:27:43.785
myself, Lynn Dryer, an engineer and uh
maybe a producer and a couple of

00:27:43.818 --> 00:27:48.436
secretaries who were very small staff,
but we relied on the students and

00:27:48.469 --> 00:27:54.585
we always had 20 to 40 students that
worked at the station. And uh we put

00:27:54.618 --> 00:27:58.785
a lot of them on the air. Al Michaels
who now does the Monday night

00:27:58.818 --> 00:28:04.565
football games, uh was a student and
he did some of the sports programming

00:28:04.598 --> 00:28:09.825
on, on channel eight. It, it was a
very different at that time and then it

00:28:09.858 --> 00:28:15.305
progressed because the tele courses
has started fading. PBS. Came on the

00:28:15.338 --> 00:28:22.035
air. We got interconnected and we kind
of forgot about tele courses on as

00:28:22.068 --> 00:28:26.535
an over the air medium and not too
many stations are offering them uh that

00:28:26.568 --> 00:28:30.887
way anymore. Tell me, describe for me
what the station was like when the

00:28:30.920 --> 00:28:34.456
TV station went on the air, where was
it located? What was the studio? It

00:28:34.489 --> 00:28:39.575
was located in the engineering center
in a very small studio. Uh Again,

00:28:39.608 --> 00:28:42.936
Dick took advantage of what was
available. The engineering center was

00:28:42.969 --> 00:28:48.166
being built at the time he applied for
the license. So the end result was

00:28:48.199 --> 00:28:52.436
he talked them into building a studio
in the engineering center and it

00:28:52.469 --> 00:28:57.236
wasn't a large studio, but it was
large enough to do some local programs.

00:28:57.269 --> 00:29:02.206
And uh since we had to rely on, on
local live programs, we didn't, we

00:29:02.239 --> 00:29:06.835
only had one tape machine at that
time. Uh A lot of the programs were uh

00:29:06.868 --> 00:29:12.967
pretty bad but uh they were, they were
interesting. The um the offices

00:29:13.000 --> 00:29:19.335
were in the engineering center and
then as the staff grew, we added uh a

00:29:19.368 --> 00:29:24.335
trailer in the engineering center that
I managed to get from one of the

00:29:24.368 --> 00:29:27.397
Indian education programs. They were
going out of business and they had a

00:29:27.430 --> 00:29:33.575
double wide trailer. So we hauled that
over the parking lot and the

00:29:33.608 --> 00:29:37.246
offices, part of the offices were
located there. And then we also

00:29:37.279 --> 00:29:40.936
convinced the administration to build
another studio. So we had two

00:29:40.969 --> 00:29:46.397
studios in the engineering center
later on when President Schwa was here,

00:29:46.430 --> 00:29:50.085
we managed to get a bill through to
build a mass communication center and

00:29:50.118 --> 00:29:55.156
we went over to the present facility
that's located where Forest Avenue

00:29:55.189 --> 00:30:02.127
used to be on Myrtle and Forest on the
campus. You mentioned that you only

00:30:02.160 --> 00:30:06.236
had one tape machine, everything was
live. So sort of describe what was

00:30:06.269 --> 00:30:10.416
the day of programming? Like how many
hours? I think that when we started

00:30:10.449 --> 00:30:15.476
out in 61 we had five hours weekdays,
we didn't go on the air, Saturday or

00:30:15.509 --> 00:30:20.637
Sunday. We stayed off the air during
the summer time during summer

00:30:20.670 --> 00:30:23.026
vacation.

00:30:23.059 --> 00:30:28.565
We just didn't have the staff to stay
on the air on a continual basis and

00:30:28.598 --> 00:30:32.847
it progressed gradually. We finally
were able to stay on the summers, we

00:30:32.880 --> 00:30:38.467
were able to stay on weekends. And as
you know, it's now on the air 24

00:30:38.500 --> 00:30:43.506
hours a day, seven days a week. So
what, what those first programs, what

00:30:43.539 --> 00:30:47.857
kind of programs and who did them?

00:30:47.890 --> 00:30:52.295
Well, there were tele courses. Uh as I
say, we did Kno Martinez Spanish

00:30:52.328 --> 00:30:58.647
program. We did the Basic Physical
Universe course with Doctor Yale. Uh

00:30:58.680 --> 00:31:06.357
Doctor Stony had been on local
television stations. Uh He was the Scorpion

00:31:06.390 --> 00:31:11.516
uh uh man and we did uh the Living
World with him, which was a biology

00:31:11.549 --> 00:31:18.226
tele course. Bueller Crouch did a
program in secondary education. We had

00:31:18.259 --> 00:31:23.736
uh Glenn Wilt offered uh business
math. Those were the programs and then

00:31:23.769 --> 00:31:28.367
we had the one newscast we did at, uh,
five o'clock, 5 to 530 every

00:31:28.400 --> 00:31:30.406
evening.

00:31:30.439 --> 00:31:35.967
What was the newscast? Like? Terrible.
It was just awful. I'm glad we

00:31:36.000 --> 00:31:40.847
don't have any tapes of that to show
you. Uh, I did, uh, News Shell Siegel

00:31:40.880 --> 00:31:47.656
, did the stock market and sports and
Chuck Allen did the weather. Chuck

00:31:47.689 --> 00:31:53.196
Chuck built a lazy Susan and he would
have a map of the United States and

00:31:53.229 --> 00:31:56.776
he would talk about what was happening
in the United States. And then he

00:31:56.809 --> 00:32:01.785
would physically turn it and there
would be a map of Arizona and then he'd

00:32:01.818 --> 00:32:06.746
physically turn it again and there
would be the, the forecast a couple of

00:32:06.779 --> 00:32:11.887
times, we taped it down so he couldn't
turn it. Uh Shell did the stock

00:32:11.920 --> 00:32:18.847
market. Then we had a, a lantern slide
behind him similar to the one

00:32:18.880 --> 00:32:24.486
you've got here. But this was a
lantern slide and we had a picture of Wall

00:32:24.519 --> 00:32:30.756
Street behind it. When the lantern
slide got hot, it would disintegrate

00:32:30.789 --> 00:32:35.357
from the center and we burnt Wall
Street four or five times a week. You

00:32:35.390 --> 00:32:40.397
know, it just disintegrate. So the,
the, the newscast was terrible, but we

00:32:40.430 --> 00:32:44.016
thought it was terrific. At that time,

00:32:44.049 --> 00:32:47.776
we didn't have any visuals. You know,
if I was doing the news in a plane

00:32:47.809 --> 00:32:52.746
crash tw a constellation crash over
the Grand Canyon, I would put up a

00:32:52.779 --> 00:32:56.726
picture of the flying fortress that my
wife had cut out of life magazine

00:32:56.759 --> 00:33:02.559
and would say a plane similar to this,
crashed at the Grand Canyon today.

00:33:03.989 --> 00:33:05.989
It's a shame there aren't any tapes of that and, and the, the courses they

00:33:08.719 --> 00:33:14.236
taught, they just taught them live for
an hour or so. Well, this was one

00:33:14.269 --> 00:33:19.367
of the problems you had trying to do a
tele course on a university campus

00:33:19.400 --> 00:33:25.555
television operates in 15 minute
segments or half hour or hour segments.

00:33:25.588 --> 00:33:32.075
Tele courses is operate in 50 minutes
segments and the professors

00:33:32.108 --> 00:33:37.795
insisted that they do 50 minutes. So
we had to fill 10 minutes at the end

00:33:37.828 --> 00:33:42.756
of every, every tele course. I warned
Doctor Stony. I said, you know, you

00:33:42.789 --> 00:33:49.825
don't have students to talk to, you're
on your own. You'll finish up

00:33:49.858 --> 00:33:54.486
before the course is over with all
your lectures. Let's do a half hour,

00:33:54.519 --> 00:33:59.347
four or five days a week rather than
50 minutes, four days a week. He

00:33:59.380 --> 00:34:03.795
insisted on doing 50 minutes and guess
what? He ran out of materials at

00:34:03.828 --> 00:34:09.666
the end of about 13 weeks on a 16 week
course. Uh, after that, they

00:34:09.699 --> 00:34:14.405
decided it was better to go with the
television format of a half hour

00:34:14.438 --> 00:34:18.135
rather than uh 50 minutes,

00:34:18.168 --> 00:34:22.727
but they weren't taped. So they had to
just do it again. No, they weren't

00:34:22.760 --> 00:34:26.477
taped and I'll give you an example of
what can happen when you don't tape

00:34:26.510 --> 00:34:33.026
a program. Dr Stony wanted to show
that rattlesnakes

00:34:33.059 --> 00:34:38.566
uh, can break a balloon with their
fakes. And so we had to warm up

00:34:38.599 --> 00:34:44.247
balloons because he said they won't
strike, um, a cold balloon. So we

00:34:44.280 --> 00:34:48.467
warmed up balloons and we put it down
and I think he spent 15 minutes

00:34:48.500 --> 00:34:52.287
trying to get this snake to strike the
balloon and without success and

00:34:52.320 --> 00:34:55.925
since it was alive he had to give up.
And I think he probably said this

00:34:55.958 --> 00:35:01.017
shows you that, uh, rattlesnakes are
not that dangerous or, or they don't

00:35:01.050 --> 00:35:05.017
like to lose.

00:35:05.050 --> 00:35:07.486
Um,

00:35:07.519 --> 00:35:10.796
you probably have lots of other
stories. Do you have any other particular

00:35:10.829 --> 00:35:17.945
events that stand out in your mind?
Well, there's after PBS got started,

00:35:17.978 --> 00:35:25.978
uh, he recalled that Nixon was
president. Um, he did not like public

00:35:26.050 --> 00:35:32.345
television. We found out later when
the tapes were released before he

00:35:32.378 --> 00:35:38.186
resigned that he had told neither
Haldeman or Ehrlichman to do away with

00:35:38.219 --> 00:35:41.586
public television. The reason he
didn't like it is there were some

00:35:41.619 --> 00:35:49.057
programs that criticized him. I don't
know how this, possibly his, his

00:35:49.090 --> 00:35:53.486
hatred of public television could have
filtered down to Arizona, but it

00:35:53.519 --> 00:35:59.767
seemed to me somehow it did. And in
1970

00:35:59.800 --> 00:36:05.126
well, I think it was probably 30 years
ago in 1972

00:36:05.159 --> 00:36:09.686
the president of the border regions,
Paul Singer, testifying in front of

00:36:09.719 --> 00:36:15.807
the Senate Appropriations Committee
accuse channel eight of broadcasting,

00:36:15.840 --> 00:36:21.706
leftist programming, left wing
programming. And that was a, a nice way of

00:36:21.739 --> 00:36:27.606
saying communist inclined programming.
I never could figure out what he

00:36:27.639 --> 00:36:32.247
meant by left wing programming and
they never identified it, but the

00:36:32.280 --> 00:36:40.280
committee had a couple of uh solid uh
right wingers on it. Uh And uh they

00:36:40.719 --> 00:36:47.095
implied that the university budget
would be held up and possibly they

00:36:47.128 --> 00:36:51.747
would find some way of censoring
programs that were left wing programs on

00:36:51.780 --> 00:36:57.307
, on channel eight. Naturally
Republican, the gazette got a hold of this

00:36:57.340 --> 00:37:02.905
and it was front page news. I got
calls from all the television stations.

00:37:02.938 --> 00:37:09.195
Uh It was, it was very serious. Um I
went to President Schwa and offered

00:37:09.228 --> 00:37:14.456
to resign if that would help. He knew
that Jack Williams and I had been

00:37:14.489 --> 00:37:18.126
friends that I had worked for him and
he suggested I go down and talk with

00:37:18.159 --> 00:37:22.365
Jack and see how if, if this was a
serious program. So I went down to see

00:37:22.398 --> 00:37:26.405
the governor and told him what had
happened. He knew what had happened.

00:37:26.438 --> 00:37:30.925
And I told him that I had offered to
resign that we thought it was a very

00:37:30.958 --> 00:37:35.296
serious problem. If that would help
the budget situation, I would resign.

00:37:35.329 --> 00:37:40.827
And he said, oh, don't do that. And
you know, that made me feel happy.

00:37:40.860 --> 00:37:44.577
Then he said something like I don't
want you to resign because if you do,

00:37:44.610 --> 00:37:51.106
they'll turn that station over to some
nutty professor. So, uh uh I, I

00:37:51.139 --> 00:37:58.186
accepted his admonition and came back
and told the President Dewade that I

00:37:58.219 --> 00:38:02.365
didn't think that the problem was
going to be that serious. It didn't

00:38:02.398 --> 00:38:06.506
quite go away. But the budget, the
university budget was passed and it did

00:38:06.539 --> 00:38:10.756
have channel eight's budget within
that umbrella. Another interesting

00:38:10.789 --> 00:38:17.905
sidelight to that uh uh Justice
o'connor was in the legislature during one

00:38:17.938 --> 00:38:21.925
of these periods of time when we were
having some problems and I had

00:38:21.958 --> 00:38:27.077
talked to her about it. She was a
friend of Channel eight and she said,

00:38:27.110 --> 00:38:32.307
never lose the university's budget
umbrella. By that. She meant as long as

00:38:32.340 --> 00:38:35.997
you're raising funds out that side,
that's fine. But keep that basic

00:38:36.030 --> 00:38:41.066
foundation with the the university
because that's an umbrella that can

00:38:41.099 --> 00:38:45.537
cover you in case some legislator or
some governor doesn't like what

00:38:45.570 --> 00:38:50.066
you're doing. And she was so right.
And even today, the university uh

00:38:50.099 --> 00:38:56.396
grants channel eight budget every year
and it hasn't been shrinking, but

00:38:56.429 --> 00:38:59.655
the other part of it has been growing.
So Channel Eight's been able to

00:38:59.688 --> 00:39:04.416
survive very well during these last
years.

00:39:04.449 --> 00:39:11.236
Um I think Roy mentioned about the
sixties being a kind of volatile time

00:39:11.269 --> 00:39:16.267
on campus with protests. Did uh
Channel eight get involved in? Yeah, you

00:39:16.300 --> 00:39:22.776
know, and uh these things seem so
important at the time. Uh There was a, a

00:39:22.809 --> 00:39:28.037
demonstration on campus and the
students came through the engineering

00:39:28.070 --> 00:39:36.070
center with their flags and uh one of
the students leading the parade was

00:39:36.300 --> 00:39:41.267
uh one of my students, I was his
advisor and they came through the office

00:39:41.300 --> 00:39:45.646
and we had glass windows in there and
they pounded on the windows going

00:39:45.679 --> 00:39:48.416
through and they scared one of the
secretaries I thought she was gonna

00:39:48.449 --> 00:39:53.445
have a heart attack and I was really
upset with this. Uh, his name was I a

00:39:53.478 --> 00:39:58.865
Opper and I called Ira Opper in and I
chewed him out. Like you wouldn't

00:39:58.898 --> 00:40:02.615
believe him. I told him there wasn't
anything I can do about his grades,

00:40:02.648 --> 00:40:09.217
but I didn't appreciate what he was
doing years later. I'm in Las Vegas,

00:40:09.250 --> 00:40:14.166
looking at broadcast equipment at, uh,
uh, uh, broadcasting, uh,

00:40:14.199 --> 00:40:21.017
convention where all the equipment was
displayed. And a fellow comes up to

00:40:21.050 --> 00:40:25.925
me and says, you don't remember me.
And I said, no, he's got a three piece

00:40:25.958 --> 00:40:29.816
suit on and he's standing next to some
production equipment that he's

00:40:29.849 --> 00:40:37.497
selling and he says, I'm Ira O, I
mean, he had changed completely and he

00:40:37.530 --> 00:40:42.095
was part of the capitalistic system
now. And we laughed about what had

00:40:42.128 --> 00:40:46.925
happened during the sixties at a su,
they weren't nearly that serious. Of

00:40:46.958 --> 00:40:51.186
course, they were at places like Kent
State. But I think the most damage

00:40:51.219 --> 00:40:59.219
that was done is when the students
wanted to lower the flag at, uh, in

00:40:59.320 --> 00:41:04.327
front of the administration building.
It's not there any longer and there

00:41:04.360 --> 00:41:08.537
were pansies around it. The governor
had said, no, we're not going to

00:41:08.570 --> 00:41:12.006
raise, we're not going to lower the
flag at half mast. And this was to

00:41:12.039 --> 00:41:18.695
honor the students at Kent and uh the
students gathered around that and

00:41:18.728 --> 00:41:24.155
our A su police also gathered around
this pansy place and the students

00:41:24.188 --> 00:41:27.517
picked all the flowers, they let them
pick the flowers, but they never

00:41:27.550 --> 00:41:31.717
lowered the flag. And you know, that
was about as serious as it got here

00:41:31.750 --> 00:41:38.606
on campus, destroying pansy beds.
Yeah, tell us about, you know, as, as

00:41:38.639 --> 00:41:42.756
the station grew, I'm sure your
responsibilities grew. Um Well, you

00:41:42.789 --> 00:41:45.566
mentioned that after the station got
on the air that everybody left and

00:41:45.599 --> 00:41:50.155
you were left in charge. Um, tell us
about how the station grew and got

00:41:50.188 --> 00:41:58.188
its new building. Well, it, it grew,
uh, not in leaps and bounds but in

00:41:58.760 --> 00:42:05.115
small fractions. Uh, you know, we, we
went from maybe 10 to 15 to 20

00:42:05.148 --> 00:42:09.586
stations and then I have 20 staff
members when the Corporation for Public

00:42:09.619 --> 00:42:15.026
Broadcasting was formed and received
funds from the federal government.

00:42:15.059 --> 00:42:19.146
Every station got a piece of those
funds. And then we had the basic

00:42:19.179 --> 00:42:24.506
foundation with the university. We
managed to get funds from the federal

00:42:24.539 --> 00:42:28.206
government through the Corporation for
Public Broadcasting. And then we

00:42:28.239 --> 00:42:34.787
started fundraising locally. Now we
were told I was told that this was not

00:42:34.820 --> 00:42:39.905
possible. You could not raise
underwriting funds. You couldn't get com

00:42:39.938 --> 00:42:43.827
businesses in the community to
underwrite programs unless you gave them

00:42:43.860 --> 00:42:50.086
commercials. Well, that proved wrong,
they were willing to help us out.

00:42:50.119 --> 00:42:55.727
And at that time, we had a lot of
local enterprises here. All the banks

00:42:55.760 --> 00:43:00.557
were local, the savings and loans were
local and we could go to them and,

00:43:00.590 --> 00:43:06.675
and ask them for support. So we did
get support for Wall Street Week and

00:43:06.708 --> 00:43:13.206
Sesame Street and Masterpiece Theater.
Then we started fundraising

00:43:13.239 --> 00:43:16.626
directly to the public and we weren't
the first to do this other station

00:43:16.659 --> 00:43:20.486
had done this and we were told again,
we couldn't do this and this was

00:43:20.519 --> 00:43:25.727
amazingly successful. So we had these
three or four different pots of

00:43:25.760 --> 00:43:30.787
money coming in and we could hire
staff. We hired staff through the

00:43:30.820 --> 00:43:34.925
corporation for public broadcasting
and through our local funds, the

00:43:34.958 --> 00:43:40.126
university budget didn't grow that
much, but it again had gave us that

00:43:40.159 --> 00:43:46.767
foundation so slowly but surely we
were able to, to gain more staff, hire

00:43:46.800 --> 00:43:51.365
more staff. And then, uh we convinced
the administration to put up a new

00:43:51.398 --> 00:43:55.057
building. The building

00:43:55.090 --> 00:44:00.885
supposed to be, I may be wrong in the
footage, but I'll be close 144,000

00:44:00.918 --> 00:44:07.155
square foot building. There were going
to be the mass communications

00:44:07.188 --> 00:44:11.217
department, the speech departments and
channel eight, and we were going to

00:44:11.250 --> 00:44:15.796
have five studios in the building. And
our portion of the building would

00:44:15.829 --> 00:44:20.345
have been about 72,000 square feet.
About half of the building was going

00:44:20.378 --> 00:44:26.026
to be channel 81 of the studios was
going to be completely dedicated to

00:44:26.059 --> 00:44:29.517
the mass communication department.

00:44:29.550 --> 00:44:35.956
We wanted a three story building and
we wound up as you know, with about

00:44:35.989 --> 00:44:40.767
74,000 square feet in a two story
building, I may wonder why is it so

00:44:40.800 --> 00:44:44.905
important to have a three story rather
than a two story building? Well,

00:44:44.938 --> 00:44:51.595
the studio is a two story building uh
in a two story building about 24 ft

00:44:51.628 --> 00:44:55.736
high. And that's really too small to
do the kind of production we wanted

00:44:55.769 --> 00:45:03.635
to do. But we managed to get three
studios. Uh and uh although the, the,

00:45:03.668 --> 00:45:08.057
the main studio, it was only two
stories, it still was sufficient for us

00:45:08.090 --> 00:45:11.095
to do local programming.

00:45:11.128 --> 00:45:15.477
I might mention one other thing, maybe
not important. The corporation for

00:45:15.510 --> 00:45:21.037
public broadcasting contribution to
the stations was based on your local

00:45:21.070 --> 00:45:27.675
income. So the more nontaxable income
you receive from businesses and

00:45:27.708 --> 00:45:32.037
membership, the more money you got
from the corporation for public

00:45:32.070 --> 00:45:37.546
broadcasting. So uh if you were
successful in raising money that way

00:45:37.579 --> 00:45:41.876
through the local membership and
sponsorship underwriting, then you got

00:45:41.909 --> 00:45:45.267
more money from the federal
government.

00:45:45.300 --> 00:45:49.506
Tell us about how you started getting
the local uh people involved in the

00:45:49.539 --> 00:45:56.956
first uh fun drives. The first pledge
drives you did. We uh had um friends

00:45:56.989 --> 00:46:04.095
of channel eight group that we
successfully got together. And the reason

00:46:04.128 --> 00:46:07.635
we were able to do that,

00:46:07.668 --> 00:46:15.668
I had known Hugh Downs and I went to,
to Hugh and asked him if he would be

00:46:16.550 --> 00:46:22.727
the chairman of the formation of a, of
a friends group. Uh And I thought

00:46:22.760 --> 00:46:27.307
with his name, we would be able to
attract people. Uh He said he would, he

00:46:27.340 --> 00:46:31.066
was willing to do that. Uh I talked
with the president and, and the

00:46:31.099 --> 00:46:38.227
president of the university and uh Mrs
Gamage Catherine Gamage and we

00:46:38.260 --> 00:46:44.967
invited some special people to a
dinner with uh Hugh Downs. And that's,

00:46:45.000 --> 00:46:50.327
there were 13 or 14 people that came
to dinner and that was the start of

00:46:50.360 --> 00:46:55.767
the friends of Channel eight. And from
that, we went into local on the air

00:46:55.800 --> 00:47:00.885
fundraising. I think the first time we
went on the air, we maybe had 10

00:47:00.918 --> 00:47:06.166
phone operators. I remember Irma
Bombeck was one of the founders of the

00:47:06.199 --> 00:47:09.807
friends group and she, she came down
to answer the phones. It was rather

00:47:09.840 --> 00:47:13.345
embarrassing. They were not ringing.

00:47:13.378 --> 00:47:17.336
What, what year was that? You
remember? Oh, gosh, I think we were in the

00:47:17.369 --> 00:47:25.369
new building. So it was probably in
the late seventies. Mhm. Um,

00:47:27.469 --> 00:47:32.066
that must have been quite a move into
the new building. It was a wonderful

00:47:32.099 --> 00:47:40.099
move and of course, we also were able
to add new equipment. Um, and we had

00:47:40.168 --> 00:47:44.345
more than one tape machine when we
moved into the new building. Where did

00:47:44.378 --> 00:47:48.155
you get? Your equipment was a lot of
it donated. At first, at first it was

00:47:48.188 --> 00:47:53.626
donated. Uh The cameras were donated
by uh channel 12 and they were dumont

00:47:53.659 --> 00:48:01.517
Cameras and then they replaced their
cameras and we, we managed to get, um

00:48:01.550 --> 00:48:08.066
, some a couple of cameras from them.
Uh We applied for federal grants

00:48:08.099 --> 00:48:11.896
outside of the corporation for public
broadcasting and we were able to get

00:48:11.929 --> 00:48:18.945
cameras via the, the federal grant
proposals. Um So we were able little by

00:48:18.978 --> 00:48:22.166
little to add, add equipment.

00:48:22.199 --> 00:48:25.436
Why don't you tell a little bit there?
Those cameras that was black and

00:48:25.469 --> 00:48:29.997
white and then it transitioned to
color. Yeah, we had, we were the last

00:48:30.030 --> 00:48:36.026
station to go color. And uh again, I
went to the vice president and told

00:48:36.059 --> 00:48:44.006
him that I, I, we really needed to, to
go color. And uh he went into to uh

00:48:44.039 --> 00:48:49.345
President Durham, the vice president
at that time was Joseph. She beer. He

00:48:49.378 --> 00:48:53.796
tells his story much better than I do.
And uh I'm not sure it's all

00:48:53.829 --> 00:48:59.756
completely true. But I went into uh
with him to see the president and the

00:48:59.789 --> 00:49:05.066
president wasn't that interested in
funding color because we had to change

00:49:05.099 --> 00:49:08.686
all the tape machines, the one or two
tape machines we had and all the

00:49:08.719 --> 00:49:14.546
cameras, the tower uh and antenna
transmitter, all that had to be changed

00:49:14.579 --> 00:49:21.936
and converted. So, uh I went out and
rented a color television sta uh set

00:49:21.969 --> 00:49:26.807
and I asked the president to keep that
in his home and just watch us and

00:49:26.840 --> 00:49:32.916
watch the other stations. And he had
said to me one time when he was

00:49:32.949 --> 00:49:38.517
watching the age of kings, I can hear
the kings but I can't see them. And

00:49:38.550 --> 00:49:43.345
that was because we had a terrible
signal. And I mentioned that to him.

00:49:43.378 --> 00:49:48.675
Well, when he saw that there was such
a difference between what we were

00:49:48.708 --> 00:49:52.256
airing and the other stations were
airing, he said, let's see what we can

00:49:52.289 --> 00:49:55.405
do. And,

00:49:55.438 --> 00:49:59.655
uh, and the other part of that is I'm
red green, color blind. And he

00:49:59.688 --> 00:50:03.287
thought it was rather ironic that a
red green color blind station manager

00:50:03.320 --> 00:50:08.227
was asking him to convert the station
to color. We did get some grants for

00:50:08.260 --> 00:50:12.896
that and he did get uh some extra
funds through the university to have us

00:50:12.929 --> 00:50:17.166
convert to color. It was quite an
enterprise.

00:50:17.199 --> 00:50:22.925
So, talk a little bit more about, you
know how the station changed the

00:50:22.958 --> 00:50:29.896
university grew and in your career
kind of grew. Well, again, I think I

00:50:29.929 --> 00:50:37.929
can't think of any university that has
grown as fast as Arizona State. If

00:50:39.090 --> 00:50:45.896
you consider that when I came here in
1948 there were 2500, maybe 3000

00:50:45.929 --> 00:50:51.217
students. And today there are 50,000
students, you'd say, how did all of

00:50:51.250 --> 00:50:55.267
that happen? Well, you have to take a
look at the community at the same

00:50:55.300 --> 00:50:59.776
time. I don't know how many people we
had in Tempe. When I came here. I

00:50:59.809 --> 00:51:03.517
would guess there would probably no
more than 50,000 here and maybe

00:51:03.550 --> 00:51:08.236
100,000 in the whole area, there are
3.5 million people here. This is a

00:51:08.269 --> 00:51:15.396
large community. So this, it was only
natural that the, if the university

00:51:15.429 --> 00:51:21.655
was to grow that, that fast and that
dramatically the station latched down

00:51:21.688 --> 00:51:27.247
to those boot straps and was able to,
to build itself up at the same time.

00:51:27.280 --> 00:51:34.405
Um Why, why this happened? Well, I
think the main cause of the growth in

00:51:34.438 --> 00:51:39.425
this area is refrigeration. I don't
think that without the advent of

00:51:39.458 --> 00:51:43.916
refrigeration, we'd have this many
people wanting to come here. The other

00:51:43.949 --> 00:51:49.986
thing was the GIS guys that had been
stationed here, came back after the

00:51:50.019 --> 00:51:56.787
war and the G I Bill helped. So all of
these things going together

00:51:56.820 --> 00:52:01.695
mushroom the growth of both channel
eight and the university. And of

00:52:01.728 --> 00:52:05.977
course, the other interesting thing is
we became a university. A lot of

00:52:06.010 --> 00:52:11.336
people didn't think that was desired.

00:52:11.369 --> 00:52:15.396
Looking back over your career. What,
what do you see as the most memorable

00:52:15.429 --> 00:52:21.606
landmark sort of of your career?
Marrying Frankie Joe? I really mean that

00:52:21.639 --> 00:52:29.639
um uh you, you, I needed that support
to come over here to a su from Koy

00:52:32.539 --> 00:52:37.287
to help me with my degree. I went back
in the summer time to Case Western

00:52:37.320 --> 00:52:42.236
Reserve to get my master's degree. She
took care of the kids. I went in

00:52:42.269 --> 00:52:46.155
the basement of my parents' home, they
were living there, my stepfather

00:52:46.188 --> 00:52:51.845
and my mother and I studied all
summer. She typed all my papers, she did

00:52:51.878 --> 00:52:58.106
all of that work. And then when we
came back here. Um, she took care of

00:52:58.139 --> 00:53:03.236
the house. I took care of the, the
finances, the, the huge finances like

00:53:03.269 --> 00:53:07.327
what was going on at the university
and the channel eight budget, she took

00:53:07.360 --> 00:53:13.066
care of the small things like the
house payment, our checkbook and I will

00:53:13.099 --> 00:53:18.816
say this no matter what my salary was,
she always managed to save some

00:53:18.849 --> 00:53:23.155
money. So when I retired I was in
pretty good shape because of the

00:53:23.188 --> 00:53:27.416
university retirement program and
because of what she had done for with

00:53:27.449 --> 00:53:32.610
our own savings. So, yeah, that was
the most important thing in my life.

00:53:34.378 --> 00:53:36.378
Looking a little bit more at your career at the university. Are there?

00:53:38.489 --> 00:53:42.566
What is the most notable? Well, I
think, you know, Dick Bell leaving and

00:53:42.599 --> 00:53:46.945
becoming general manager of the
station. And then later on, Brent Brown

00:53:46.978 --> 00:53:52.077
asking me to come into the university
relations office.

00:53:52.110 --> 00:53:57.586
That was a, a wonderful three or four
years because I went over there in

00:53:57.619 --> 00:54:00.416
uh 8687.

00:54:00.449 --> 00:54:05.497
And you'll recall that we went to the
Rose Bowl in 87 when we came out of

00:54:05.530 --> 00:54:10.186
the California game, Frankie Joe and I
went to, to uh the Mission Palms.

00:54:10.219 --> 00:54:14.077
They had alumni celebration. We beat
California and that meant we were

00:54:14.110 --> 00:54:20.195
going to the Rose Bowl President,
Nelson said I want to talk to you and I

00:54:20.228 --> 00:54:25.046
wanna talk to you and Brent Brown. So
we went over to the alumni gathering

00:54:25.079 --> 00:54:31.526
and the president asked me if I would
help coordinate the rose bowl

00:54:31.559 --> 00:54:36.977
activity. And the first time the
university had ever gone to the rose bowl

00:54:37.010 --> 00:54:43.845
, I thought this was, I didn't know if
I wanted to do that, but he didn't

00:54:43.878 --> 00:54:48.467
have to convince me, I talked with
Brent and he, uh the president said,

00:54:48.500 --> 00:54:52.206
you know, just ask me what you want
and we'll see what we can do. And I

00:54:52.239 --> 00:54:57.557
was able to pick the staff to help me
with that rose bowl activity. And he

00:54:57.590 --> 00:55:00.635
told me that there were a couple of
things. He said, I don't want any

00:55:00.668 --> 00:55:05.646
financial problems with this and I
want it to be a first-class event. And

00:55:05.679 --> 00:55:09.756
I think we accomplished that, but I
took off from nearly everything I did

00:55:09.789 --> 00:55:16.666
for several months and we went back
to, we went to the rose bowl and, and

00:55:16.699 --> 00:55:19.686
uh I think though everybody that was
there thought it was a pretty good

00:55:19.719 --> 00:55:27.537
event. And uh I, I think that was
working for Brent helped me immensely.

00:55:27.570 --> 00:55:31.717
What would you explain for, for people
that weren't really immersed in

00:55:31.750 --> 00:55:37.925
the university, what university
relations was and uh how you came to move

00:55:37.958 --> 00:55:44.557
university relations was formed
probably in 1984

00:55:44.590 --> 00:55:50.577
or 85 somewhere in there. Uh Paige
Mulholland appointed uh Brent Brown to

00:55:50.610 --> 00:55:54.747
be in charge of community relations
and then expanded into university

00:55:54.780 --> 00:56:00.557
relations. The following activities,
departments reported to Brent the A

00:56:00.590 --> 00:56:06.106
SU Foundation channel eight
Publications

00:56:06.139 --> 00:56:12.467
Public events and they're um

00:56:12.500 --> 00:56:18.425
we, we didn't the alumni association
and he handled all the political

00:56:18.458 --> 00:56:22.316
activity that the university was
getting involved in. So those were some

00:56:22.349 --> 00:56:28.126
of the enterprises that reported to
Brent.

00:56:28.159 --> 00:56:33.316
When I came over, he parceled some of
those out. He, he kept the

00:56:33.349 --> 00:56:40.885
foundation and the publications and
the alumni uh channel eight and public

00:56:40.918 --> 00:56:48.486
events reported to me. So uh he um was
responsible for the whole activity

00:56:48.519 --> 00:56:56.519
, but he was so busy with uh the
legislature and bringing the Cardinals to

00:56:56.949 --> 00:57:03.796
town. Uh Brent was responsible, maybe
he does want to admit it now for uh

00:57:03.829 --> 00:57:08.856
the Saint Louis Cardinals coming to,
to Phoenix. And uh he had to work out

00:57:08.889 --> 00:57:13.997
agreements with the uh university for
the use of the stadium. And then he

00:57:14.030 --> 00:57:18.146
had to work out agreements with uh
some of the community leaders to build

00:57:18.179 --> 00:57:24.615
a press box and the uh the uh boxes
that uh that were sold to e

00:57:24.648 --> 00:57:30.436
enterprises in the area. So that's
what university relations was then it

00:57:30.469 --> 00:57:35.936
became after he left institutional

00:57:35.969 --> 00:57:40.247
advancement, institutional
advancement. Thank you. And now I think it's

00:57:40.280 --> 00:57:46.175
public affairs. It's one of those vice
presidential offices that can

00:57:46.208 --> 00:57:53.166
change depending on what the president
wants. Well, we just saw that um

00:57:53.199 --> 00:57:57.316
looking back over your, your career,
what, what are the things that you're

00:57:57.349 --> 00:57:59.945
proudest of?

00:57:59.978 --> 00:58:07.896
Well, I think one of the things is um
the retirees organization, um I uh

00:58:07.929 --> 00:58:12.796
retired and Brent said there are a
couple of things we haven't done. We

00:58:12.829 --> 00:58:17.885
want a, a visitors center and you've
talked about forming something for

00:58:17.918 --> 00:58:23.106
the staff, a retirees organization for
the staff. So he hired me back for

00:58:23.139 --> 00:58:28.477
a year to see if we could put some
kind of organization together. And uh

00:58:28.510 --> 00:58:32.956
now the Arizona State University
Retires Association has both faculty and

00:58:32.989 --> 00:58:37.227
staff involved and I think they've got
over 1000 members and they're real

00:58:37.260 --> 00:58:43.095
going concern. So that's one of the
things I'm proudest of. I think the

00:58:43.128 --> 00:58:46.885
other thing of course is channel
eight, but it's been in great hands with

00:58:46.918 --> 00:58:53.756
Chuck Allen and I left in 87 or 88 to
go to university relations. He took

00:58:53.789 --> 00:58:59.175
over and the station has just done
marvelously well with Chuck when you

00:58:59.208 --> 00:59:02.635
stop and think there have only been
three general managers of the station

00:59:02.668 --> 00:59:09.936
, Dick Bell for six months and then
myself and Chuck and I just hope when

00:59:09.969 --> 00:59:13.885
Chuck retires, they find somebody else
that can carry on that tradition.

00:59:13.918 --> 00:59:19.077
Those are a couple of things I'm proud
of. That's pretty incredible to

00:59:19.110 --> 00:59:24.916
have just two station managers. I
think, I think nationally uh I don't,

00:59:24.949 --> 00:59:29.146
can't take full credit, but I think I
can take partial credit for the form

00:59:29.179 --> 00:59:36.037
formation of uh PBS. I was one of the
original board members and the

00:59:36.070 --> 00:59:41.316
chairman of the station management
group. And then out of that, we formed

00:59:41.349 --> 00:59:47.526
uh the Pacific Mountain Network. So
we've had a couple of enterprises that

00:59:47.559 --> 00:59:52.836
have been formed because uh people
from the West and from this station

00:59:52.869 --> 00:59:55.626
have been involved.

00:59:55.659 --> 01:00:00.646
Were there any challenges over the
years that, that you? Well, for funding

01:00:00.679 --> 01:00:05.967
for channel eight was the mens channel
challenge and still is and will,

01:00:06.000 --> 01:00:13.756
can you continue to be uh I don't know
where the future of Channel eight

01:00:13.789 --> 01:00:19.077
lies. But again, remember when we came
on the air, we were one of five

01:00:19.110 --> 01:00:27.110
stations and today channel eight is
one of hundreds of cable opportunities

01:00:27.659 --> 01:00:31.747
available to people that have cable
and satellite. So, you know, the

01:00:31.780 --> 01:00:38.876
fragmentation of this business and the
uh uh entry of high definition

01:00:38.909 --> 01:00:43.615
television is going to change the
channel eight in the next few years. I

01:00:43.648 --> 01:00:48.345
don't know where they're headed. But I
just, I just hope that nationally

01:00:48.378 --> 01:00:54.577
and locally they can find their own
niche in this uh fragmented spectrum.

01:00:54.610 --> 01:01:01.767
Um I, I also think that uh the
university is uh got to find its own niche

01:01:01.800 --> 01:01:07.776
and the new president is going to have
to work on that um community is not

01:01:07.809 --> 01:01:14.635
what it used to be when, when I worked
at the university. And um they're

01:01:14.668 --> 01:01:18.497
gonna have, they're gonna have their,
their problems trying to continue to

01:01:18.530 --> 01:01:23.796
be a research university and have
50,000 students that they need to take

01:01:23.829 --> 01:01:27.787
care of. It's gonna be a real
challenge for the new president. It's

01:01:27.820 --> 01:01:32.909
definitely of a challenge to run a
television station within a university.

01:01:33.309 --> 01:01:35.309
But you know, again, it's a great foundation having it with the university.

01:01:37.469 --> 01:01:42.115
I mean, you've got the faculty
resources that are available and it is

01:01:42.148 --> 01:01:48.327
true that sometimes the there are
people that criticize the university

01:01:48.360 --> 01:01:54.345
system that budgets uh channel eight
when the money is short on campus and

01:01:54.378 --> 01:01:59.655
probably could be used for good causes
elsewhere. But I I do think this

01:01:59.688 --> 01:02:04.135
station helps the image of the
university with the community. Uh Every

01:02:04.168 --> 01:02:09.626
station break says a service of
Arizona State University and that's what

01:02:09.659 --> 01:02:13.827
the university is. It's a service to
the community. And in the true sense

01:02:13.860 --> 01:02:18.967
, I I hope that Channel eight
continues that service of the university to

01:02:19.000 --> 01:02:23.796
the community, not necessarily in, in
courses anymore, but in broader

01:02:23.829 --> 01:02:29.787
services than tele courses. Some of
the PBS stations though that started

01:02:29.820 --> 01:02:34.115
at universities left that and became
community stations. Yeah, quite a few

01:02:34.148 --> 01:02:40.046
of them. Um University of Washington
station became a community uh station.

01:02:40.079 --> 01:02:46.885
Um uh Even W GB H started at Harvard
and then quickly became somewhat

01:02:46.918 --> 01:02:52.736
independent. Um A lot of the stations
had decided to become, they were

01:02:52.769 --> 01:02:57.296
university stations become community
stations. Now, I think the reason for

01:02:57.329 --> 01:03:03.267
that is the university decided that if
they could uh the station could

01:03:03.300 --> 01:03:07.787
operate on its own and didn't need
university support. So um that's

01:03:07.820 --> 01:03:10.977
probably one of the reasons why some
of these stations have become

01:03:11.010 --> 01:03:16.267
community stationss. Channel eight has
resisted that. Uh And I think

01:03:16.300 --> 01:03:19.155
rightly so

01:03:19.188 --> 01:03:23.595
was there ever a move to do that? Was
it? What a move by people to try to

01:03:23.628 --> 01:03:29.796
take it away from? Well, there have
been several efforts

01:03:29.829 --> 01:03:34.876
and one of my was in the seventies
when it seemed like that the

01:03:34.909 --> 01:03:41.155
legislature was going to curtail the
station's operation. Uh But

01:03:41.188 --> 01:03:45.365
fortunately that didn't happen there,
there have been a couple of efforts

01:03:45.398 --> 01:03:49.506
and maybe the station would have been
better off with a growing community

01:03:49.539 --> 01:03:55.095
to have been the community station.
But I kind of doubt it. I know one of

01:03:55.128 --> 01:03:59.186
the sort of challenging times was
during the impeachment of Governor

01:03:59.219 --> 01:04:03.967
Meacham and can't wait, broadcast that
talk about how that decision came

01:04:04.000 --> 01:04:09.477
about that came about because um we
had a program called Horizon that was

01:04:09.510 --> 01:04:13.747
on the air that was on the air every
night, every week night. And Michael

01:04:13.780 --> 01:04:21.037
Grant had uh been the host of that and
it still is when the impeachment

01:04:21.070 --> 01:04:27.896
process came along. Chuck Allen
decided to contact the other stations and

01:04:27.929 --> 01:04:34.126
see if channel eight could be the
station of record. We would broadcast

01:04:34.159 --> 01:04:39.506
all of the impeachment hearings and
other stations could use whatever we

01:04:39.539 --> 01:04:46.807
had available to them any way they
wanted to. So the station became the

01:04:46.840 --> 01:04:51.615
station of record for the impeachment
hearings. And it isn't that Chuck

01:04:51.648 --> 01:04:55.646
didn't get criticism. A lot of people
thought this was a terrible mistake

01:04:55.679 --> 01:05:01.506
that we were trying to show up
Governor Meacham. And uh again, the left

01:05:01.539 --> 01:05:08.506
wing accusations came, came up a
little bit, but it proved to be a very

01:05:08.539 --> 01:05:14.756
wise decision, another wise decision.
And this was Chuck Allen's and Dan

01:05:14.789 --> 01:05:21.717
Dun Burger's baby. Chuck came to me
and asked me if he could look into

01:05:21.750 --> 01:05:27.945
broadcasting live, an open heart
operation. And this was in the early days

01:05:27.978 --> 01:05:32.217
when open heart surgery wasn't that
prevalent.

01:05:32.250 --> 01:05:37.977
And he had gone down and seen TED
trick teach a class of doctors on

01:05:38.010 --> 01:05:44.316
television in a closed circuit system.
Well, he came to me and asked me to

01:05:44.349 --> 01:05:47.977
do this and I said, no, we're not
gonna take that. We'll tape it. Well, he

01:05:48.010 --> 01:05:53.186
didn't want to tape it. You do it live
to show people that this can be

01:05:53.219 --> 01:05:59.706
done and it is safe or if you want to
tape it that, that shows the public

01:05:59.739 --> 01:06:03.017
that it's not that safe. Well, after a
long period, not a long period of

01:06:03.050 --> 01:06:09.307
time, we decided to do it live and,
uh, we offered it to PBS. They turned

01:06:09.340 --> 01:06:15.186
us down, but I think 14 or 15 stations
picked up the live telecast. And I

01:06:15.219 --> 01:06:19.986
tell you, I sat in the office with,
uh, Chuck and Joe Zesbaugh, who was,

01:06:20.019 --> 01:06:24.787
uh, uh, president of the Pacific
Mountain Network who helped fund this

01:06:24.820 --> 01:06:29.865
broadcast. I sat on pins and needles
throughout that whole operation, but

01:06:29.898 --> 01:06:34.385
it really was a breakthrough
operation. And now heart operations are

01:06:34.418 --> 01:06:41.896
commonplace. I'm a recipient and that
tape is still used by hospitals to

01:06:41.929 --> 01:06:45.845
show what the operation is all about.

01:06:45.878 --> 01:06:50.227
That was a big deal at the time to do
that online. I remember that too.

01:06:50.260 --> 01:06:54.967
Any other major, um, events like that
that you haven't talked about? Well

01:06:55.000 --> 01:07:01.217
, there are a lot of what one was, um,
the death of a princess.

01:07:01.250 --> 01:07:08.095
Uh BBC had broadcast a docudrama about
a princess in Saudi Arabia that had

01:07:08.128 --> 01:07:15.706
an affair with a commoner and both of
them were either stoned or beheaded

01:07:15.739 --> 01:07:18.095
in public.

01:07:18.128 --> 01:07:24.146
The Saudi Arabian government didn't
like that broadcast at all. PBS picked

01:07:24.179 --> 01:07:26.436
it up

01:07:26.469 --> 01:07:33.155
and before the program aired, we were
urged not to broadcast it. PBS was

01:07:33.188 --> 01:07:37.276
urged not to broadcast that people
thought that the Saudis were going to

01:07:37.309 --> 01:07:44.155
embargo the oil if we aired it. I
received a letter from Senator Goldwater

01:07:44.188 --> 01:07:48.336
urging us not to broadcast this and he
was a great friend of public

01:07:48.369 --> 01:07:55.497
broadcasting and channel eight and we
went ahead and aired it and of

01:07:55.530 --> 01:08:00.296
course, it wasn't nearly as bad as
people thought it was going to be. It

01:08:00.329 --> 01:08:05.336
always bothered me that people would
call us and, or write us and say,

01:08:05.369 --> 01:08:10.026
don't air a program that they had
never seen, but it happens time and time

01:08:10.059 --> 01:08:14.227
again.

01:08:14.260 --> 01:08:16.585
Um

01:08:16.618 --> 01:08:21.174
We've covered most of the questions I
have. Could I ask a question? Uh can

01:08:21.207 --> 01:08:29.207
you remark on the Association of Kaet
to the Cronkite School? What?

01:08:30.837 --> 01:08:38.837
Ok. Um Back in the sixties, well,
fifties there were in the, the I I

01:08:39.618 --> 01:08:47.618
started teaching and advising. Uh, in
19 59

01:08:48.359 --> 01:08:53.027
first year. Well, I guess it was 1960
the first year that I was here

01:08:53.060 --> 01:08:59.576
during a school session. I don't know
how many students we had maybe 40

01:08:59.609 --> 01:09:02.036
students

01:09:02.069 --> 01:09:06.866
suddenly that major in the radio,
television, major in the mass

01:09:06.899 --> 01:09:12.826
communications department mushroomed
and I at one time advised 100

01:09:12.859 --> 01:09:18.515
students and taught three or four
courses every semester, we were short of

01:09:18.548 --> 01:09:26.026
faculty. Um The mass communications
department changed titles to become

01:09:26.059 --> 01:09:32.106
telecommunications. And then Walter
Cronkite was encouraged to lend his

01:09:32.139 --> 01:09:38.116
name to the school and that was done
through Tom Chauncey at channel 10.

01:09:38.149 --> 01:09:42.217
Um It became the Walter Cronkite
School of Telecommunications and

01:09:42.250 --> 01:09:48.866
Journalism. Um Channel eight had
always had students that worked at the

01:09:48.899 --> 01:09:53.634
station for a while. We had them
working for credit and we decided that

01:09:53.667 --> 01:09:58.205
wasn't a very good idea because then
they had to work there whether they

01:09:58.238 --> 01:10:02.755
wanted to or not. So we felt it was
better to have the students come on

01:10:02.788 --> 01:10:07.585
their own. And every semester, we've
had 40 to 70 students that have

01:10:07.618 --> 01:10:15.055
worked at the station in Cooper with
the Walter Cronkite school. The uh I

01:10:15.088 --> 01:10:20.616
I taught up until the time I retired
station management, but now the

01:10:20.649 --> 01:10:27.567
school has its own faculty. And uh
they, they have a superb faculty.

01:10:27.600 --> 01:10:33.546
They've got a nationwide um attendance
to the program and acknowledgment

01:10:33.579 --> 01:10:39.217
because of Walter Cronkite every year.
They have um a huge luncheon where

01:10:39.250 --> 01:10:45.626
they honor some journalists in, uh,
nationwide. They've honored the, the,

01:10:45.659 --> 01:10:50.826
uh, 60 minute staff. It's just a great
school. I think the one problem

01:10:50.859 --> 01:10:57.446
they have that this is not, uh, from
an outsider's viewpoint is limiting

01:10:57.479 --> 01:11:01.326
the number of students that enter the
school because they can only handle

01:11:01.359 --> 01:11:05.196
so much effectively. And, uh, I think
they have over 1000 students that

01:11:05.229 --> 01:11:09.305
are in the curriculum now just in, in,
in the telecommunications

01:11:09.338 --> 01:11:13.107
curriculum. But they've been able to
keep pace with what's going on and

01:11:13.140 --> 01:11:18.036
telecommunications is changing and
they have to be able to teach their

01:11:18.069 --> 01:11:22.576
students what's happening currently.

01:11:22.609 --> 01:11:30.609
Um How do you see your, your legacy
that you leave my legacy? Is there a

01:11:31.298 --> 01:11:36.885
legacy? I don't think so. I, I don't
think there's a legacy. How would you

01:11:36.918 --> 01:11:40.967
like to be remembered then? Um

01:11:41.000 --> 01:11:46.376
uh on my, on my epitaph, you can say
buried here is the husband of Frankie

01:11:46.409 --> 01:11:49.406
Joe Lander.

01:11:49.439 --> 01:11:54.906
No mention of the issue. Well, you
know, there's been so many people that

01:11:54.939 --> 01:12:00.385
contribute and it's very hard for one
person to take credit for anything.

01:12:00.418 --> 01:12:04.866
You know, I can't take credit uh
solely for uh the formation of the

01:12:04.899 --> 01:12:10.536
Retirees Association because Brent was
involved initially, I had to have

01:12:10.569 --> 01:12:16.067
his legacy, his, his permanent
mission. Uh Then we had a group of, of

01:12:16.100 --> 01:12:21.107
wonderful retirees that got together.
They did all the work. It was just

01:12:21.140 --> 01:12:26.376
an idea and I can't take
responsibility for starting Channel eight, Dick

01:12:26.409 --> 01:12:30.027
Bell did that. And Jim Loper, and
there's been so many people that

01:12:30.060 --> 01:12:33.467
contribute to these things that I
don't think it's fair for one person to

01:12:33.500 --> 01:12:40.635
take credit for anything that, that
they may, myth, mythological think is

01:12:40.668 --> 01:12:46.095
their legacy. But you kind of headed
up Channel Eight for almost 30 years.

01:12:46.128 --> 01:12:49.416
Yeah, it's pretty incredible in this
day and age. Yeah. But again, you

01:12:49.449 --> 01:12:54.246
know, a lot of times I was in
Washington at PBS meetings and somebody was

01:12:54.279 --> 01:13:00.206
running the station here. And, uh,
well, we always had great staff member.

01:13:00.239 --> 01:13:04.726
Um, and I think Chuck would feel the
same way. He's had great assistance.

01:13:04.759 --> 01:13:09.467
So you can go out of town, you can go
to luncheons. You, you can do, uh,

01:13:09.500 --> 01:13:13.015
fundraising for the station without
being right there because somebody

01:13:13.048 --> 01:13:16.956
else is running the station and, you
know, if you ask me to produce a show

01:13:16.989 --> 01:13:22.187
, it would have to be the worst show
you've ever seen or to direct. That'd

01:13:22.220 --> 01:13:24.635
be terrible.

01:13:24.668 --> 01:13:30.515
But you used to do this. No, no, no,
no. Only when I had to when somebody

01:13:30.548 --> 01:13:33.796
got sick or something.

01:13:33.829 --> 01:13:38.777
Um, we talk just briefly, we've seen
broadcasting really change from the

01:13:38.810 --> 01:13:43.027
days when you got in and then those
radio stations and TV stations were

01:13:43.060 --> 01:13:47.925
owned by one man or one family and run
kind of as a family operation to

01:13:47.958 --> 01:13:52.086
today. They're all being bought up and
owned by big corporations. Well,

01:13:52.119 --> 01:13:55.996
channel eight is the only local
station now,

01:13:56.029 --> 01:14:00.546
all of the other local stations, I
mean, local ownership, all the other

01:14:00.579 --> 01:14:07.467
local stations are owned by
conglomerates. And when you think that uh

01:14:07.500 --> 01:14:14.916
channel three, I may be wrong by a
million or so sold for over $300

01:14:14.949 --> 01:14:22.949
million you realize why a local owner
can't resist the temptation to sell

01:14:23.069 --> 01:14:29.036
the station and all of them are sold.
And when, when I started out at uh

01:14:29.069 --> 01:14:34.265
Koy, the radio stations were locally
owned, they're no longer locally

01:14:34.298 --> 01:14:41.187
owned. Um What's going to happen? I
have no idea. But I think

01:14:41.220 --> 01:14:46.345
the demise of local ownership has been
a detriment to the community. I

01:14:46.378 --> 01:14:48.906
think it's been a detriment to channel
eight. I think it's been a

01:14:48.939 --> 01:14:54.786
detriment to the university. Um
because, you know, if you're going to go

01:14:54.819 --> 01:15:02.256
to Bank one for underwriting, who do
you see there was a time when I could

01:15:02.289 --> 01:15:09.107
call Walter Bhimsen. And he would say,
well, see so and so, or I could

01:15:09.140 --> 01:15:13.226
call the publisher of the paper. The
paper didn't like us initially, but

01:15:13.259 --> 01:15:16.357
later on I could call the publisher of
the station and they would say,

01:15:16.390 --> 01:15:21.126
well, see, Bill Scho and we could, we
could get underwriting directly. Now

01:15:21.159 --> 01:15:26.187
, it's my understanding, you've got to
go locally and then nationally and

01:15:26.220 --> 01:15:31.256
sometimes you don't go get through
those channels. So it's, it's uh it's

01:15:31.289 --> 01:15:36.147
gonna be continuing the problem for
the university to raise funds

01:15:36.180 --> 01:15:42.876
nationally. Uh They're probably going
to have to uh have some, several

01:15:42.909 --> 01:15:48.647
people in that, that position to go to
Chicago and New York and L A to, to

01:15:48.680 --> 01:15:54.916
talk with the national organizations
that are, that are now owned by

01:15:54.949 --> 01:15:57.107
stockholders.

01:15:57.140 --> 01:16:01.217
You say the paper didn't like channel
eight? Why was that, Mr Pulliam

01:16:01.250 --> 01:16:08.217
didn't like any tax money going to
support television. He thought it was

01:16:08.250 --> 01:16:16.250
an encroachment on uh the taxpayer
this state to have any funds going to a

01:16:16.409 --> 01:16:19.456
television station.

01:16:19.489 --> 01:16:23.567
Initially, when we went on the air, we
were not listed with the other

01:16:23.600 --> 01:16:28.546
stations. They boxed channel eight's
programming and they would put it

01:16:28.579 --> 01:16:33.737
over by the obituary page or maybe in
the classified ads but not in the

01:16:33.770 --> 01:16:40.036
television section. And it was my
understanding from one of the, the

01:16:40.069 --> 01:16:45.286
reporters that uh resigned from the
paper that a memo went out from

01:16:45.319 --> 01:16:51.476
channel eight from uh Mr Podium saying
make channel eight obscure. He

01:16:51.509 --> 01:16:57.967
really didn't like us, but somehow we
survived. We survived Mr Pulliam.

01:16:58.000 --> 01:17:02.805
And later on, we got all kinds of
support from the the paper. Even though

01:17:02.838 --> 01:17:09.467
it was locally owned by Pom's son. We,
we got all kinds of support. Uh

01:17:09.500 --> 01:17:13.696
I'll, I'll give you one example.

01:17:13.729 --> 01:17:20.366
The name Duke Tully may be familiar to
people. Duke was a publisher of the

01:17:20.399 --> 01:17:27.857
paper and unfortunately, he had
expanded his resume to include being a

01:17:27.890 --> 01:17:35.456
pilot, an air force pilot in uh Korean
affair and he never was. But anyway

01:17:35.489 --> 01:17:43.196
, I will chuck Allen and I went to Mr
Tully for, uh, support and, um, he

01:17:43.229 --> 01:17:48.496
said, no, I, I won't give you a grant
for any of the programs. But if you

01:17:48.529 --> 01:17:53.046
ever need anything on a one time
basis, special event basis, like if you

01:17:53.079 --> 01:17:57.946
want to do, uh, uh, something from the
legislature or nationally, give me

01:17:57.979 --> 01:18:03.055
a call. We had Robin mcneil come to
town. The mcneil Lehrer report was on

01:18:03.088 --> 01:18:07.616
the air at that time and we wanted him
to meet some of the contributors to

01:18:07.649 --> 01:18:15.649
the station. So I called Duke Tully.
He talk to Bill Scho and they let us

01:18:16.000 --> 01:18:21.536
use their ranch. You know, they have
their Republican and, uh, Arizona

01:18:21.569 --> 01:18:27.467
Republic ranch. It's located in the
area and they furnished all the food

01:18:27.500 --> 01:18:33.256
and all the booze for over 300 people,
300 guests that we had, uh, to

01:18:33.289 --> 01:18:39.369
visit with Robert mcneil. That kind of
support was just marvelous to get.

01:18:40.829 --> 01:18:42.829
Just the one question I've asked everybody and, um, is to talk a little

01:18:44.949 --> 01:18:48.675
bit about advice that you give young
people today that are trying to

01:18:48.708 --> 01:18:54.487
decide what they wanna do with their
lives or their careers. What I have

01:18:54.520 --> 01:19:00.845
three grandchildren, four
grandchildren. Uh, Ellis is 15. Wendy's 13.

01:19:00.878 --> 01:19:08.496
Avery is nine and Kate is eight. And,
uh, I have found out that I don't

01:19:08.529 --> 01:19:16.529
give them advice, um, if they ask for
it, maybe, you know, if they ask,

01:19:16.619 --> 01:19:21.357
can I have the ice cream tonight?
Yeah. But to give them sound advice. I

01:19:21.390 --> 01:19:27.376
think that's their parents' job and I
just don't feel capable anymore of

01:19:27.409 --> 01:19:34.237
giving advice to uh students. I, I'll
tell you what, what can happen to

01:19:34.270 --> 01:19:41.437
you. I had Al Michaels in class and
when the Cardinals came to time town,

01:19:41.470 --> 01:19:46.996
he invited me to go to the broadcast
booth because Monday night was airing

01:19:47.029 --> 01:19:50.805
a game between the Cardinals and the
Dallas Cowboys. I went up there and

01:19:50.838 --> 01:19:56.317
Dan Dierdorf said to me, I understand
you were al's advisor. I said, yeah

01:19:56.350 --> 01:20:00.147
, I said, what kind of a student was
he? And I said, well, let me put it

01:20:00.180 --> 01:20:06.876
this way. I gave him a B in radio
television announcing. Now, am I capable

01:20:06.909 --> 01:20:11.467
of giving advice to students when I
give the premier sportscaster in the

01:20:11.500 --> 01:20:16.425
country? A B when he was a student? I
don't think so. Well, he might have

01:20:16.458 --> 01:20:19.217
been a baby then.

01:20:19.250 --> 01:20:24.446
Well, he didn't go to class one of his
problems so that could motivate him

01:20:24.479 --> 01:20:31.156
to improve. Ok. Anything else that uh
either of you want?

01:20:31.189 --> 01:20:34.876
Well, he didn't tell anything like,
you know, with bright buyers and stuff

01:20:34.909 --> 01:20:40.876
when we were students, but that's ok.
I can't,

01:20:40.909 --> 01:20:45.647
you can, you can cut this out.

01:20:45.680 --> 01:20:51.217
June Payne and I were in the drama
workshop. Now, as I said, when you went

01:20:51.250 --> 01:20:55.925
to school here in the fifties and the
sixties, early 60 s, if you wanted

01:20:55.958 --> 01:21:02.006
to participate in dramatics or the
choir

01:21:02.039 --> 01:21:10.039
or debate just show up. I showed up
and uh got a small part in the doctor

01:21:11.220 --> 01:21:18.946
in spite of himself or one of Modi's
plays. And after that, Frank Byers, a

01:21:18.979 --> 01:21:24.595
drama director helped me get into
every one of the plays that I I

01:21:24.628 --> 01:21:30.916
auditioned for. But he also helped me
get the job at Koy because he called

01:21:30.949 --> 01:21:35.437
Jack Williams and said I have a young
man that I think would, would be a

01:21:35.470 --> 01:21:41.706
help to your station. Now, Dean mccloy
was a debate coach and I went to

01:21:41.739 --> 01:21:45.175
him one day and said I was interested
in debating and guess what? I wound

01:21:45.208 --> 01:21:50.055
up on the debate team. Not a very good
debater, but those were the

01:21:50.088 --> 01:21:54.796
advantages that you could really have
in a small school. I hope that

01:21:54.829 --> 01:21:59.487
students can still take advantage of
extracurricular activities and I'm

01:21:59.520 --> 01:22:05.076
sure they do. If you go to any of the,
the music presentations on campus

01:22:05.109 --> 01:22:09.866
and here, the symphony orchestra or
the concert band, they're marvelous

01:22:09.899 --> 01:22:13.626
much better than they were when I was
a student. And I guess the same

01:22:13.659 --> 01:22:18.147
thing is true with the drama
department. A big school offers a lot of

01:22:18.180 --> 01:22:22.717
opportunities too. Did you ever think
of actually making acting your

01:22:22.750 --> 01:22:27.635
career? Oh, yeah. I went over to the
coast in 1953 before I went to work

01:22:27.668 --> 01:22:35.425
for KO I, right after I graduated and
it was really difficult. I

01:22:35.458 --> 01:22:41.187
auditioned for a couple of plays at
that time. They didn't the film

01:22:41.220 --> 01:22:44.976
industry was kind of dying. They
didn't know what was happening with

01:22:45.009 --> 01:22:50.567
television. They weren't producing yet
for television. So everything was

01:22:50.600 --> 01:22:56.015
at a standstill and I was offered a
job at channel five. So I came back

01:22:56.048 --> 01:23:00.456
from the coast to take this job. A
friend of mine, Tom Sherlock had told

01:23:00.489 --> 01:23:05.925
me they had an opening and uh I
auditioned, got the job, went back to the

01:23:05.958 --> 01:23:10.015
coast to clean up for some of the
material that I had over there. I was

01:23:10.048 --> 01:23:14.675
working for, uh, Northrop at the time
Northrop A Aviation came back and

01:23:14.708 --> 01:23:19.317
they filled the job and, uh, I was out
of work, but that's when I went to

01:23:19.350 --> 01:23:27.350
KO, I, so he might have gone to work
at KKPHO. Yeah.

01:23:28.930 --> 01:23:31.946
Oh, yes. Yes.

01:23:31.979 --> 01:23:35.836
If, if you hadn't chosen your career
path as it turned out, was there

01:23:35.869 --> 01:23:41.706
anything else you would have liked to
have done? You know, uh, I did go to

01:23:41.739 --> 01:23:46.397
work for, for the Cleveland Electric
Luminating Company to be the 3rd, 3rd

01:23:46.430 --> 01:23:51.086
generation. I worked there for ones,
uh, one summer in the survey

01:23:51.119 --> 01:23:55.805
department. And then they asked me to
stay on and I stayed on for a full

01:23:55.838 --> 01:24:02.635
year after that before I came back to
a ASU, I think I would have stayed

01:24:02.668 --> 01:24:10.668
there. But for the advice of one man.
Hi. Hi, his name was Ralph Rolfe and

01:24:11.220 --> 01:24:15.217
he asked if I was going to stay on and
I said, yeah, you know, the salary

01:24:15.250 --> 01:24:19.536
was pretty good and I enjoyed what I
was doing. And he said, you know,

01:24:19.569 --> 01:24:22.976
I've been here 25 years

01:24:23.009 --> 01:24:27.187
and let me tell you, after you've been
here 20 or 25 years, there's no

01:24:27.220 --> 01:24:33.796
place to go. Said you can't go up and
you can't go down and you're stuck.

01:24:33.829 --> 01:24:36.967
And, you know, I thought about that
when I came back here and went to

01:24:37.000 --> 01:24:42.546
work for Koy and he was right. I've
never been really stuck in a job. I've

01:24:42.579 --> 01:24:47.717
been in a job at Channel eight for 30
years that I love. But I was never,

01:24:47.750 --> 01:24:53.237
I never felt like I was really stuck
there as something I had to do

01:24:53.270 --> 01:24:55.270
pretty.