July 29th of 2002. And we are here at a su at the visitor information
center at Rural Road and Apache uh doing a series of interviews for the uh
Arizona State University Retiree Association, uh Living History video
project. And I'd like to have you introduce yourself so that we get your
name uh pronounced correctly. And um maybe just tell us what your title
was. Uh When you retire at a SU, we'll go back to the beginning or later.
When you go back to the beginning, you go back a long way. I'm Bob Ellis.
And when I retired, I was associate vice president uh at a su
in University relations.
Um And then why would you start it start at the very beginning and tell me
when you were born and where, where you were born? Well, my sister and I
were born in Cleveland, Ohio. We're Children of the depression. I was born
in 1928 and she was born in 1921. My father worked for the Guardian Bank
in Cleveland and uh FDR closed all the banks and my dad lost his job and
was out of work six years. And during that period of time, I don't know
how my parents managed to do this, but I never lost a meal. I never, there
was never a time when we didn't have food on the table, there were always
gifts and presents at Christmas time and on my birthday. But sadly, my dad
died when he was 46 years old in 1938. So my sister, my mother and I went
to live with my grandparents and we lived there for six years. I graduated
from high school in Cleveland and went in the army. And if you'd like to
hear about my army exploits, there weren't many. It sounds like you're
growing up here were a difficult time. We talk a little bit about what you
remember of those years. They really weren't that difficult because my
grandparents really took care of us. And as I say, I don't know how my
parents did it. But during the depression, we lost our houses. We had
three houses. Uh We had a 1929 buick, a brand new buick that wound up on
blocks in the driveway. We, uh my dad had a boat that we uh took to Lake
Erie every summer and we lost that. Uh But he managed to keep our 16
millimeter camera and, and tapes and uh well, they were films then. And so
I have uh films of when I was 2 to 67 years old. And uh my sister and I
are very, very grateful that they didn't sell those not, not very valuable
, but uh we also had um, a great family. Uh, and my uncles, my aunts, uh I
was supposed to be the third generation to go to work for the Cleveland
Electric Luminating Company. My grandfather started with the company and
worked there for 55 years in the same position. He was superintendent of
the electrical division. My uncle worked there for 30 years and I was
going to be the third generation. It didn't quite work out that way. So
how did it work out differently? Well, after I got out of the service, I
came to Arizona to visit my, my sister who had married a Phoenician and I
took my uh severance pay $60 or so, got on a Greyhound bus and came out
here. There was a fellow that I went through school with that also went in
the service with me at the same time who contacted uh rheumatic fever and
he was going through recuperation at the Pacco Hospital which no longer
exists. And he told me about Arizona State College. So I decided to come
out and take a look. So I drove from 28th Avenue in Van Buren and I
stopped at this huge campus and there were, I don't know, four or 5000
kids there, but they were kids. They were like, you know, 1415, I thought
what kind of a university is it? I stopped off at Phoenix Union High
School by mistake and went on to Arizona State College and there were only
2500 students here. So I started school in 1948 and with the exception of
a couple of years, I never left, uh, never left Arizona
a little bit about growing up. Were you a good student? I was a terrible
student but I loved high school. I was kicked out of high school five
times. Very, very terrible things that we did. The basketball team came
out of practice one day and went up to the cafeteria and there were some
pies out and you couldn't resist them. We started to eat the pies. We got
caught. That was one time I got kicked out. Um, I loved, loved high school
and I still have friends that I played ball with and, uh, we, we stay in
contact with each other. What sports did you play in high school? I tried
to play football and I managed to get hurting my knee. So I wound up not
playing football. I tried to play basketball. That was a vain attempt. I
was too small. When I graduated from high school, I was 5 ft two and I
weighed about £120
and now I'm 510 and I'm not going to tell you how much I weigh. But uh I
did know all the kids that played ball and, uh, hung out with them and had
a great time. And how did you get kicked out of school the other? Well, I
, uh, did, uh, manage the football team and I got a letter for that and
one day I was, uh, shooting pool at the local pool room with my letter
sweater on. And, uh, the dean of students, uh, saw me there and that was
another time I kicked out. I don't know if you had study halls. We had
study halls. You had to go to the study halls. But there were ways of
getting out of study halls. For instance, you could sign up for chorus and
you could get out of study hall. And I got called into the office one day
and they must have had 100 study hall slips that I had presented and never
went to the study hall. And I never went to the classes. I said I was
going to. So I was kicked out again. Now, you may wonder how I managed to
stay in school. They always said you have to bring your mother. And I said
, well, you know, I can't do that because my mother is working in the
defense industry. And this was during the first part of World War two. And
so they kept excusing me because my mother was working in the defense
industry. When I graduated, the assistant principal said to my mother, how
is work at uh General Electric. And she said I don't work there. I work at
Southam Jewelers. Uh, I had got my diploma by that time.
What year did you graduate from high school? I graduated in 1946. I went
in the service right after I graduated. So he missed World War Two as a
serviceman. I, but it was, I was still drafted and because of that, I was
eligible for the G I Bill.
That's one of the things I could take advantage of coming to AC I had the
G I Bill. So where did you serve during your years in Fort Knox, Kentucky
? That's it. I was there for a year and a half.
No, thank goodness, no combat duty.
So, through these years of high school, what did you plan to do when you
grew up and graduated? I was going to work for the Clean Electric
Luminating Company. That's what the plan was. But as I say, it didn't come
out that way because I came out here. Um, tell us again, why did you want
to come to Arizona? Because my sister was here and uh I just came to visit
her and wound up going to school in 1948 and it was quite a different
place then than it is. Now, you describe a little bit what it was like
when you first, you said you went to Phoenix Union by mistake. What was
the issue like when you finally found it. Well, the great advantage of
going to Arizona State College then was, it was small. There were about
2500 students. You got to know practically everybody in the student body.
Uh You really got to understand what your professors were like. They
invited you sometimes to their homes for dinner. Um
And I think that uh you, you, you really realized that what camaraderie
was all about, the great disadvantage was that it was small and the
faculty was good but not really distinguished. And uh because of the
sudden influx of GIS it was sometimes hard to get in the classes you
wanted to get into. Um And I, if you were from back east, like I was, and
you told somebody, you went to Arizona State College at Tempe, the
reaction was where's temp or is that the University of Tucson? We really
were not well known in those days. So the advantage was, it was small. The
disadvantage was that it was small. And what, what were you majoring in?
II, I majored in speech and drama. Another disadvantage was that this has
been a uh teacher's college and uh there wasn't much research going on in
the university. And as a result, you probably would wind up majoring in,
in elementary or secondary education. So I was in secondary education uh
with an emphasis in speech and drama. And what did you intend to do with
that? I had no idea again, I just enjoyed myself because it was small and
you wanted to go in and extracurricular activities, you can participate in
the choir, which I did. You could go into debate with Dean mcs Slowy as
your professor or you can go into drama with Frank Byers. So I've tried
all of them.
What did you think of Arizona? When your first experience? It was
wonderful because I came in November and then I went back to Cleveland in
May. So I didn't experience those terrible summers for three years. And
then when I finally experienced those terrible summers, I thought this is
an awful place to live. But other things happened to me at that time,
unexpected consequences that made me want to stay here.
Um Well, why don't you tell us about some of those things? Why did you
decide when you, you were going to school for four years? Three years or
five?
I graduated in 53. And uh I went to work for KO I radio and unexpected
experiences consequences. I was hired to work in the continuity department.
I had no idea what that meant. I found out later. It meant writing
commercials. It just so happened. There was a very attractive, beautiful,
smart woman who was single that ran that department and I was immediately
attracted to her and I have no idea why she went out with me. But uh
Frankie Joe Lanter was my boss. Wound up fortunately marrying her and uh,
next week we'll be celebrating our 48th anniversary. So that's why I
stayed here. She was from this area. So, when did you marry her? I married
her in 1954 August the 7th, 1954. And that's a date that I don't want to
forget.
Um, and so you, you met her working at, at Koy, did you plan to make radio
your career by then? Yeah. And, uh, I had, uh, I worked there for seven
years. What, what happened was a friend of mine that I went to school with
a, graduated in 1953. Jim Loper stayed on in what was known as the
broadcasting department. Then the Bureau of Broadcasting and his boss was
Doctor Richard Bell. They had this great idea to start a television
station, other public. Well, it was non commercial educational television
stations then had been started. The first one was at the University of
Houston. They had one at, uh Lincoln. Uh, most of them started at
universities and the idea was they would be able to offer tele courses on
the air and students wouldn't have to come to campus to take those courses.
So it was a really a non-commercial educational facility. Jim asked me if
I would come over and help in the radio area and I took a cut in salary,
but they were getting the station on the air. So I came over here, station
, went on the air. I came over in 59 station went on the air. January 30
1961 you might say why January 30 why not? The 31st or February 1st? The
semester started on January 30. Surprisingly Dick left in June. He went to
the University of Colorado. He spent several years trying to get the
station started and then he suddenly left. Jim had left to go back to, to
go to us c where he did some of his uh master's degree work and wanted to
get his phd, he left and never came back and guess what? I inherited, I
inherited channel eight and that was in 1961. And I stayed on as general
manager until 1987. And actually, the station reported to me from 87 to 90
when I was in university relations. So I was affiliated with the station,
the beginning of it for about 30 years. Let me back up a little bit and
start back at when you went to work at Koy. Tell me what was Koy like?
Then there were two major radio stations in town Ktar and Koyko, I had
been a CBS affiliate and they lost the affiliation to a new station. Cool
, that was run by Tom Chauncey. So, Ko I became a mutual Don Lee affiliate
and they had to re invent themselves. They had relied on network
programming up until this time. But when I got, came on the scene, the
reason they needed more staff is they went to a local format. We had rise
and shine in the morning, we had Bob Caps and this from midnight to six
o'clock in the morning, Frankie Joe and I had a program called his and
hers. So it was a lot of local programming and you learned a lot about
talking to the community at, at that time. Uh The other interesting thing
was ko I was going to go into the television business. They finally did,
they and uh Cool, merged for a television facility, Channel 10 and
eventually Cool bought them out. So, yeah, it was a different station and
a wonderful place to live in in the morning from six o'clock until nine.
Our ratings at that time were over half of the ratings in town. In other
words, more than 50% of the audience available audience listened to us in
the morning. And if you made a mistake, you got letters who were some of
the key people that were on the air at that time. Well, Bill Close, who
later on went to channel 10 and became a news anchor there. Bill was the
news director, Paul Ribbon who you probably never heard of was also in the
news department. Bill Lester was assistant program director and he had
several programs on the air. Uh Johnny Holiday, which was a pseudonym. His
name was Johnny Hetherington. But Jack Williams was the owner and program
director of the station and Jack later became governor. There's another
story there that maybe I'll have time. I'll tell you, um, Bob Caps, we had
a lot of John Johnson, Jim Murdock. Uh, we had a lot of disc jockeys on
the air at that time.
Um, so you were there for what, five years? I was there for seven years. I
was there from 1953 until, um, 1959 when I came over here. But I went back
and worked part time for them for two or three years after that. And so
was that a big decision and to leave that? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we
had, uh, two Children by that time. And, uh, I told Frankie Joe that I
really wanted to try a hand at television and I took a cut in salary, but
I said I could make that up for that if I worked at Koy part time. So I
wound up working seven days a week. I rarely saw the kids. I worked over
at the university and then on Friday night I, I worked at, uh, Koy on
Saturday morning and Sunday morning. I worked there. I did the dog races,
the greyhound races with Bill Close. I did those three nights a week. So I
wasn't home a lot during those first few years that I worked here. So you
took a cut in salary? What were salaries like that? I think that I was
making, I probably was making around $7000 a year and I probably, I would
guess it four or $5000 a year to come over here. But tell me again, why,
why you were willing to take the cut and sell. Well, as I say, they were
getting television stations started and that, that, uh, enticed me and I
thought there was some opportunities here and I thought maybe I could take
a hand at teaching and eventually, maybe I would get tenure and uh all
that happened. So tell me about the, the station when, how it got started
and how it got its call letters and its station number and all that. Well
, the station number was assigned by the FCC. Uh Now you have to go back
and recognize that at that time in 1959 the only stations on the air were
channel five, which was KPHO channel 12, which was uh K VA R and then
channel three came on the air a little later and channel 10. So those were
the stations, four stations, channel eight fit right in the middle of that
spectrum. So we went on the air and we're on the air five days a week with
mainly with tele courses. And since we were located where we were located
and there wasn't remote control, you had to flip the dial past us to get
from 5 to 10. And every once in a while people would stop and we managed
to get an audience even though we didn't have much of a signal out there.
That was in 1961. And we were offering tele courses. We were successful
with only one course. And that was um Kno Martinez, Spanish 101 and 102. I
think there were maybe 15 students registered for it, but he sold 5000
syllabus. So there were people watching us at that time. Not many but a
few. Yeah, at that time. Yeah. How did you get the call letters, call
letters Dan. We didn't want Kaet. We wanted Kasu
and uh that was not available because that was a FM station in, at
Arkansas State University. So we settled for a ET which stands for Arizona
Educational Television. Nobody realizes that. Now it's a hard call letter
Kaet.
But uh we're still stuck with it. Now, at that time, the, the commercial
stations, now you said there was a battle between Koy and, and cool trying
to get one station. How did the university get a station
when the station went on the air? Well, let's go, let's go back a minute.
Brady Gamage was president. And as my understanding, he told Dick they
could apply for a license once they had a foundation of uh funding from
other than university sources. Dick managed to get a grant from the mccune
Foundation. I think it was maybe $80,000. And Grady Gammon said they would
match that. So they had enough money to get on the air. They applied for
the license, got the license and as, as I said, went on the air in 61. Now
, the interesting thing to me is they didn't have enough money for a new
tower or transmitter.
Channel 12 was going to increase power. So they had to get a new
transmitter and uh tower and antenna and Dick bought their old tower
transmitter and antenna. I think he paid $35,000 for it. The signal wasn't
very good. And later on we had to take the transmitter out and put in a
new transmitter tower and antenna. But KKTARK VA R, Dick Lewis at that
time really helped him get on the air.
Now, you're saying there were just a few other stations, there wasn't the
kind of public television that we had. No, it was, it was non commercial
educational television and there were a few programs that were produced uh
around the country and they were recycled at Ann Arbor. The uh the uh
National Educational Television Radio Center was in Ann Arbor program was
produced by, let's say W GB H in Boston, it would go to Ann Arbor and they
would make copies. They couldn't make enough copies for all the 40 or 50
stations that were on the air. So maybe they make five or 10 copies and
they would go to one station by the mail. We weren't interconnected and
then you would take that program and you would send it to another station
that would send it to another station. But as a result, you couldn't have
a lot of good promotion because you couldn't say that such and such
program. The Age of Kings, for instance, was going to be on the air
nationwide on Monday night at nine o'clock because it might be on the air
in New York at nine o'clock on Monday night. And it might be on the air
here at Friday night. So it was uh a cumbersome system, but somehow it
seemed to work. Uh, uh, you may understand that this was all really
difficult and uh shoestring operations in many places. It wasn't until
Lyndon Johnson became president that they were able to get a bill through
Congress to support uh public radio and public television. That was the
Great Society Act of 1967. And that as a result of that, the Corporation
for Public Broadcasting was formed and that was followed by PBS.
Tell me about what it was like when you first came. What, what was your
title?
You see, I think my title was news director or something. And my job was
to, to produce radio programs for radio stations throughout the state. And
so we produced maybe five or six programs, a U News Sports Western
Business round up a College of business program. These were recycled to
the 50 or so radio station throughout the state. And that was my job. Um,
you know, Arizona State was a quaint operation at that time. Yeah. If you
, if you go back to the fifties and you walk down College Avenue at 945 at
night and there'd be cars parked in front of the quadrangle, that'd be
north, south and West Hall and there would be some nicking going on in
those, that's what we call it. Then in those cars and smoke would be
filtering out through the windows because the thing to do was to smoke.
And then about five minutes of 10, the girls would run into the dorm
because there was a curfew. Uh, I it's hard to believe that that really
happened and these were, these were not co ed dorms and every once in a
while you would hear a shout man in the hall, which meant some guy had
wandered through one of the halls and they was caught, uh, then the guys
in the cars would leave at 10 o'clock and they would wind up at a local
pub, maybe the hut downtown or someplace, the whole school operated that
way for a number of years. And even in the late fifties and early sixties
, when Channel eight was going on the air, it still was a relatively small
campus. And because the faculty was interested in going on the air, some
of them, we were able to offer 10 or 15 tele courses every semester, it,
it worked out fairly well, but the tele courses were not to the students
liking, they just hated the idea of taking a course via a television
station and not seeing the professor. And now you take a look at what's
going on on the internet. A lot of, a lot of the courses are offered that
way. Now, finally arrived. How did it change when the TV station went on
the air? How did your job change? Well, when the station went on the air,
as I say, I was news director and we did have a half hour newscast every
evening. And I did all the announcing for the station. We couldn't hire an
announcing. We only had about, well, maybe five or six staff members. We
had uh Chuck Allen who is now manager of the station. Uh Shell Siegel
myself, Lynn Dryer, an engineer and uh maybe a producer and a couple of
secretaries who were very small staff, but we relied on the students and
we always had 20 to 40 students that worked at the station. And uh we put
a lot of them on the air. Al Michaels who now does the Monday night
football games, uh was a student and he did some of the sports programming
on, on channel eight. It, it was a very different at that time and then it
progressed because the tele courses has started fading. PBS. Came on the
air. We got interconnected and we kind of forgot about tele courses on as
an over the air medium and not too many stations are offering them uh that
way anymore. Tell me, describe for me what the station was like when the
TV station went on the air, where was it located? What was the studio? It
was located in the engineering center in a very small studio. Uh Again,
Dick took advantage of what was available. The engineering center was
being built at the time he applied for the license. So the end result was
he talked them into building a studio in the engineering center and it
wasn't a large studio, but it was large enough to do some local programs.
And uh since we had to rely on, on local live programs, we didn't, we
only had one tape machine at that time. Uh A lot of the programs were uh
pretty bad but uh they were, they were interesting. The um the offices
were in the engineering center and then as the staff grew, we added uh a
trailer in the engineering center that I managed to get from one of the
Indian education programs. They were going out of business and they had a
double wide trailer. So we hauled that over the parking lot and the
offices, part of the offices were located there. And then we also
convinced the administration to build another studio. So we had two
studios in the engineering center later on when President Schwa was here,
we managed to get a bill through to build a mass communication center and
we went over to the present facility that's located where Forest Avenue
used to be on Myrtle and Forest on the campus. You mentioned that you only
had one tape machine, everything was live. So sort of describe what was
the day of programming? Like how many hours? I think that when we started
out in 61 we had five hours weekdays, we didn't go on the air, Saturday or
Sunday. We stayed off the air during the summer time during summer
vacation.
We just didn't have the staff to stay on the air on a continual basis and
it progressed gradually. We finally were able to stay on the summers, we
were able to stay on weekends. And as you know, it's now on the air 24
hours a day, seven days a week. So what, what those first programs, what
kind of programs and who did them?
Well, there were tele courses. Uh as I say, we did Kno Martinez Spanish
program. We did the Basic Physical Universe course with Doctor Yale. Uh
Doctor Stony had been on local television stations. Uh He was the Scorpion
uh uh man and we did uh the Living World with him, which was a biology
tele course. Bueller Crouch did a program in secondary education. We had
uh Glenn Wilt offered uh business math. Those were the programs and then
we had the one newscast we did at, uh, five o'clock, 5 to 530 every
evening.
What was the newscast? Like? Terrible. It was just awful. I'm glad we
don't have any tapes of that to show you. Uh, I did, uh, News Shell Siegel
, did the stock market and sports and Chuck Allen did the weather. Chuck
Chuck built a lazy Susan and he would have a map of the United States and
he would talk about what was happening in the United States. And then he
would physically turn it and there would be a map of Arizona and then he'd
physically turn it again and there would be the, the forecast a couple of
times, we taped it down so he couldn't turn it. Uh Shell did the stock
market. Then we had a, a lantern slide behind him similar to the one
you've got here. But this was a lantern slide and we had a picture of Wall
Street behind it. When the lantern slide got hot, it would disintegrate
from the center and we burnt Wall Street four or five times a week. You
know, it just disintegrate. So the, the, the newscast was terrible, but we
thought it was terrific. At that time,
we didn't have any visuals. You know, if I was doing the news in a plane
crash tw a constellation crash over the Grand Canyon, I would put up a
picture of the flying fortress that my wife had cut out of life magazine
and would say a plane similar to this, crashed at the Grand Canyon today.
It's a shame there aren't any tapes of that and, and the, the courses they
taught, they just taught them live for an hour or so. Well, this was one
of the problems you had trying to do a tele course on a university campus
television operates in 15 minute segments or half hour or hour segments.
Tele courses is operate in 50 minutes segments and the professors
insisted that they do 50 minutes. So we had to fill 10 minutes at the end
of every, every tele course. I warned Doctor Stony. I said, you know, you
don't have students to talk to, you're on your own. You'll finish up
before the course is over with all your lectures. Let's do a half hour,
four or five days a week rather than 50 minutes, four days a week. He
insisted on doing 50 minutes and guess what? He ran out of materials at
the end of about 13 weeks on a 16 week course. Uh, after that, they
decided it was better to go with the television format of a half hour
rather than uh 50 minutes,
but they weren't taped. So they had to just do it again. No, they weren't
taped and I'll give you an example of what can happen when you don't tape
a program. Dr Stony wanted to show that rattlesnakes
uh, can break a balloon with their fakes. And so we had to warm up
balloons because he said they won't strike, um, a cold balloon. So we
warmed up balloons and we put it down and I think he spent 15 minutes
trying to get this snake to strike the balloon and without success and
since it was alive he had to give up. And I think he probably said this
shows you that, uh, rattlesnakes are not that dangerous or, or they don't
like to lose.
Um,
you probably have lots of other stories. Do you have any other particular
events that stand out in your mind? Well, there's after PBS got started,
uh, he recalled that Nixon was president. Um, he did not like public
television. We found out later when the tapes were released before he
resigned that he had told neither Haldeman or Ehrlichman to do away with
public television. The reason he didn't like it is there were some
programs that criticized him. I don't know how this, possibly his, his
hatred of public television could have filtered down to Arizona, but it
seemed to me somehow it did. And in 1970
well, I think it was probably 30 years ago in 1972
the president of the border regions, Paul Singer, testifying in front of
the Senate Appropriations Committee accuse channel eight of broadcasting,
leftist programming, left wing programming. And that was a, a nice way of
saying communist inclined programming. I never could figure out what he
meant by left wing programming and they never identified it, but the
committee had a couple of uh solid uh right wingers on it. Uh And uh they
implied that the university budget would be held up and possibly they
would find some way of censoring programs that were left wing programs on
, on channel eight. Naturally Republican, the gazette got a hold of this
and it was front page news. I got calls from all the television stations.
Uh It was, it was very serious. Um I went to President Schwa and offered
to resign if that would help. He knew that Jack Williams and I had been
friends that I had worked for him and he suggested I go down and talk with
Jack and see how if, if this was a serious program. So I went down to see
the governor and told him what had happened. He knew what had happened.
And I told him that I had offered to resign that we thought it was a very
serious problem. If that would help the budget situation, I would resign.
And he said, oh, don't do that. And you know, that made me feel happy.
Then he said something like I don't want you to resign because if you do,
they'll turn that station over to some nutty professor. So, uh uh I, I
accepted his admonition and came back and told the President Dewade that I
didn't think that the problem was going to be that serious. It didn't
quite go away. But the budget, the university budget was passed and it did
have channel eight's budget within that umbrella. Another interesting
sidelight to that uh uh Justice o'connor was in the legislature during one
of these periods of time when we were having some problems and I had
talked to her about it. She was a friend of Channel eight and she said,
never lose the university's budget umbrella. By that. She meant as long as
you're raising funds out that side, that's fine. But keep that basic
foundation with the the university because that's an umbrella that can
cover you in case some legislator or some governor doesn't like what
you're doing. And she was so right. And even today, the university uh
grants channel eight budget every year and it hasn't been shrinking, but
the other part of it has been growing. So Channel Eight's been able to
survive very well during these last years.
Um I think Roy mentioned about the sixties being a kind of volatile time
on campus with protests. Did uh Channel eight get involved in? Yeah, you
know, and uh these things seem so important at the time. Uh There was a, a
demonstration on campus and the students came through the engineering
center with their flags and uh one of the students leading the parade was
uh one of my students, I was his advisor and they came through the office
and we had glass windows in there and they pounded on the windows going
through and they scared one of the secretaries I thought she was gonna
have a heart attack and I was really upset with this. Uh, his name was I a
Opper and I called Ira Opper in and I chewed him out. Like you wouldn't
believe him. I told him there wasn't anything I can do about his grades,
but I didn't appreciate what he was doing years later. I'm in Las Vegas,
looking at broadcast equipment at, uh, uh, uh, broadcasting, uh,
convention where all the equipment was displayed. And a fellow comes up to
me and says, you don't remember me. And I said, no, he's got a three piece
suit on and he's standing next to some production equipment that he's
selling and he says, I'm Ira O, I mean, he had changed completely and he
was part of the capitalistic system now. And we laughed about what had
happened during the sixties at a su, they weren't nearly that serious. Of
course, they were at places like Kent State. But I think the most damage
that was done is when the students wanted to lower the flag at, uh, in
front of the administration building. It's not there any longer and there
were pansies around it. The governor had said, no, we're not going to
raise, we're not going to lower the flag at half mast. And this was to
honor the students at Kent and uh the students gathered around that and
our A su police also gathered around this pansy place and the students
picked all the flowers, they let them pick the flowers, but they never
lowered the flag. And you know, that was about as serious as it got here
on campus, destroying pansy beds. Yeah, tell us about, you know, as, as
the station grew, I'm sure your responsibilities grew. Um Well, you
mentioned that after the station got on the air that everybody left and
you were left in charge. Um, tell us about how the station grew and got
its new building. Well, it, it grew, uh, not in leaps and bounds but in
small fractions. Uh, you know, we, we went from maybe 10 to 15 to 20
stations and then I have 20 staff members when the Corporation for Public
Broadcasting was formed and received funds from the federal government.
Every station got a piece of those funds. And then we had the basic
foundation with the university. We managed to get funds from the federal
government through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. And then we
started fundraising locally. Now we were told I was told that this was not
possible. You could not raise underwriting funds. You couldn't get com
businesses in the community to underwrite programs unless you gave them
commercials. Well, that proved wrong, they were willing to help us out.
And at that time, we had a lot of local enterprises here. All the banks
were local, the savings and loans were local and we could go to them and,
and ask them for support. So we did get support for Wall Street Week and
Sesame Street and Masterpiece Theater. Then we started fundraising
directly to the public and we weren't the first to do this other station
had done this and we were told again, we couldn't do this and this was
amazingly successful. So we had these three or four different pots of
money coming in and we could hire staff. We hired staff through the
corporation for public broadcasting and through our local funds, the
university budget didn't grow that much, but it again had gave us that
foundation so slowly but surely we were able to, to gain more staff, hire
more staff. And then, uh we convinced the administration to put up a new
building. The building
supposed to be, I may be wrong in the footage, but I'll be close 144,000
square foot building. There were going to be the mass communications
department, the speech departments and channel eight, and we were going to
have five studios in the building. And our portion of the building would
have been about 72,000 square feet. About half of the building was going
to be channel 81 of the studios was going to be completely dedicated to
the mass communication department.
We wanted a three story building and we wound up as you know, with about
74,000 square feet in a two story building, I may wonder why is it so
important to have a three story rather than a two story building? Well,
the studio is a two story building uh in a two story building about 24 ft
high. And that's really too small to do the kind of production we wanted
to do. But we managed to get three studios. Uh and uh although the, the,
the main studio, it was only two stories, it still was sufficient for us
to do local programming.
I might mention one other thing, maybe not important. The corporation for
public broadcasting contribution to the stations was based on your local
income. So the more nontaxable income you receive from businesses and
membership, the more money you got from the corporation for public
broadcasting. So uh if you were successful in raising money that way
through the local membership and sponsorship underwriting, then you got
more money from the federal government.
Tell us about how you started getting the local uh people involved in the
first uh fun drives. The first pledge drives you did. We uh had um friends
of channel eight group that we successfully got together. And the reason
we were able to do that,
I had known Hugh Downs and I went to, to Hugh and asked him if he would be
the chairman of the formation of a, of a friends group. Uh And I thought
with his name, we would be able to attract people. Uh He said he would, he
was willing to do that. Uh I talked with the president and, and the
president of the university and uh Mrs Gamage Catherine Gamage and we
invited some special people to a dinner with uh Hugh Downs. And that's,
there were 13 or 14 people that came to dinner and that was the start of
the friends of Channel eight. And from that, we went into local on the air
fundraising. I think the first time we went on the air, we maybe had 10
phone operators. I remember Irma Bombeck was one of the founders of the
friends group and she, she came down to answer the phones. It was rather
embarrassing. They were not ringing.
What, what year was that? You remember? Oh, gosh, I think we were in the
new building. So it was probably in the late seventies. Mhm. Um,
that must have been quite a move into the new building. It was a wonderful
move and of course, we also were able to add new equipment. Um, and we had
more than one tape machine when we moved into the new building. Where did
you get? Your equipment was a lot of it donated. At first, at first it was
donated. Uh The cameras were donated by uh channel 12 and they were dumont
Cameras and then they replaced their cameras and we, we managed to get, um
, some a couple of cameras from them. Uh We applied for federal grants
outside of the corporation for public broadcasting and we were able to get
cameras via the, the federal grant proposals. Um So we were able little by
little to add, add equipment.
Why don't you tell a little bit there? Those cameras that was black and
white and then it transitioned to color. Yeah, we had, we were the last
station to go color. And uh again, I went to the vice president and told
him that I, I, we really needed to, to go color. And uh he went into to uh
President Durham, the vice president at that time was Joseph. She beer. He
tells his story much better than I do. And uh I'm not sure it's all
completely true. But I went into uh with him to see the president and the
president wasn't that interested in funding color because we had to change
all the tape machines, the one or two tape machines we had and all the
cameras, the tower uh and antenna transmitter, all that had to be changed
and converted. So, uh I went out and rented a color television sta uh set
and I asked the president to keep that in his home and just watch us and
watch the other stations. And he had said to me one time when he was
watching the age of kings, I can hear the kings but I can't see them. And
that was because we had a terrible signal. And I mentioned that to him.
Well, when he saw that there was such a difference between what we were
airing and the other stations were airing, he said, let's see what we can
do. And,
uh, and the other part of that is I'm red green, color blind. And he
thought it was rather ironic that a red green color blind station manager
was asking him to convert the station to color. We did get some grants for
that and he did get uh some extra funds through the university to have us
convert to color. It was quite an enterprise.
So, talk a little bit more about, you know how the station changed the
university grew and in your career kind of grew. Well, again, I think I
can't think of any university that has grown as fast as Arizona State. If
you consider that when I came here in 1948 there were 2500, maybe 3000
students. And today there are 50,000 students, you'd say, how did all of
that happen? Well, you have to take a look at the community at the same
time. I don't know how many people we had in Tempe. When I came here. I
would guess there would probably no more than 50,000 here and maybe
100,000 in the whole area, there are 3.5 million people here. This is a
large community. So this, it was only natural that the, if the university
was to grow that, that fast and that dramatically the station latched down
to those boot straps and was able to, to build itself up at the same time.
Um Why, why this happened? Well, I think the main cause of the growth in
this area is refrigeration. I don't think that without the advent of
refrigeration, we'd have this many people wanting to come here. The other
thing was the GIS guys that had been stationed here, came back after the
war and the G I Bill helped. So all of these things going together
mushroom the growth of both channel eight and the university. And of
course, the other interesting thing is we became a university. A lot of
people didn't think that was desired.
Looking back over your career. What, what do you see as the most memorable
landmark sort of of your career? Marrying Frankie Joe? I really mean that
um uh you, you, I needed that support to come over here to a su from Koy
to help me with my degree. I went back in the summer time to Case Western
Reserve to get my master's degree. She took care of the kids. I went in
the basement of my parents' home, they were living there, my stepfather
and my mother and I studied all summer. She typed all my papers, she did
all of that work. And then when we came back here. Um, she took care of
the house. I took care of the, the finances, the, the huge finances like
what was going on at the university and the channel eight budget, she took
care of the small things like the house payment, our checkbook and I will
say this no matter what my salary was, she always managed to save some
money. So when I retired I was in pretty good shape because of the
university retirement program and because of what she had done for with
our own savings. So, yeah, that was the most important thing in my life.
Looking a little bit more at your career at the university. Are there?
What is the most notable? Well, I think, you know, Dick Bell leaving and
becoming general manager of the station. And then later on, Brent Brown
asking me to come into the university relations office.
That was a, a wonderful three or four years because I went over there in
uh 8687.
And you'll recall that we went to the Rose Bowl in 87 when we came out of
the California game, Frankie Joe and I went to, to uh the Mission Palms.
They had alumni celebration. We beat California and that meant we were
going to the Rose Bowl President, Nelson said I want to talk to you and I
wanna talk to you and Brent Brown. So we went over to the alumni gathering
and the president asked me if I would help coordinate the rose bowl
activity. And the first time the university had ever gone to the rose bowl
, I thought this was, I didn't know if I wanted to do that, but he didn't
have to convince me, I talked with Brent and he, uh the president said,
you know, just ask me what you want and we'll see what we can do. And I
was able to pick the staff to help me with that rose bowl activity. And he
told me that there were a couple of things. He said, I don't want any
financial problems with this and I want it to be a first-class event. And
I think we accomplished that, but I took off from nearly everything I did
for several months and we went back to, we went to the rose bowl and, and
uh I think though everybody that was there thought it was a pretty good
event. And uh I, I think that was working for Brent helped me immensely.
What would you explain for, for people that weren't really immersed in
the university, what university relations was and uh how you came to move
university relations was formed probably in 1984
or 85 somewhere in there. Uh Paige Mulholland appointed uh Brent Brown to
be in charge of community relations and then expanded into university
relations. The following activities, departments reported to Brent the A
SU Foundation channel eight Publications
Public events and they're um
we, we didn't the alumni association and he handled all the political
activity that the university was getting involved in. So those were some
of the enterprises that reported to Brent.
When I came over, he parceled some of those out. He, he kept the
foundation and the publications and the alumni uh channel eight and public
events reported to me. So uh he um was responsible for the whole activity
, but he was so busy with uh the legislature and bringing the Cardinals to
town. Uh Brent was responsible, maybe he does want to admit it now for uh
the Saint Louis Cardinals coming to, to Phoenix. And uh he had to work out
agreements with the uh university for the use of the stadium. And then he
had to work out agreements with uh some of the community leaders to build
a press box and the uh the uh boxes that uh that were sold to e
enterprises in the area. So that's what university relations was then it
became after he left institutional
advancement, institutional advancement. Thank you. And now I think it's
public affairs. It's one of those vice presidential offices that can
change depending on what the president wants. Well, we just saw that um
looking back over your, your career, what, what are the things that you're
proudest of?
Well, I think one of the things is um the retirees organization, um I uh
retired and Brent said there are a couple of things we haven't done. We
want a, a visitors center and you've talked about forming something for
the staff, a retirees organization for the staff. So he hired me back for
a year to see if we could put some kind of organization together. And uh
now the Arizona State University Retires Association has both faculty and
staff involved and I think they've got over 1000 members and they're real
going concern. So that's one of the things I'm proudest of. I think the
other thing of course is channel eight, but it's been in great hands with
Chuck Allen and I left in 87 or 88 to go to university relations. He took
over and the station has just done marvelously well with Chuck when you
stop and think there have only been three general managers of the station
, Dick Bell for six months and then myself and Chuck and I just hope when
Chuck retires, they find somebody else that can carry on that tradition.
Those are a couple of things I'm proud of. That's pretty incredible to
have just two station managers. I think, I think nationally uh I don't,
can't take full credit, but I think I can take partial credit for the form
formation of uh PBS. I was one of the original board members and the
chairman of the station management group. And then out of that, we formed
uh the Pacific Mountain Network. So we've had a couple of enterprises that
have been formed because uh people from the West and from this station
have been involved.
Were there any challenges over the years that, that you? Well, for funding
for channel eight was the mens channel challenge and still is and will,
can you continue to be uh I don't know where the future of Channel eight
lies. But again, remember when we came on the air, we were one of five
stations and today channel eight is one of hundreds of cable opportunities
available to people that have cable and satellite. So, you know, the
fragmentation of this business and the uh uh entry of high definition
television is going to change the channel eight in the next few years. I
don't know where they're headed. But I just, I just hope that nationally
and locally they can find their own niche in this uh fragmented spectrum.
Um I, I also think that uh the university is uh got to find its own niche
and the new president is going to have to work on that um community is not
what it used to be when, when I worked at the university. And um they're
gonna have, they're gonna have their, their problems trying to continue to
be a research university and have 50,000 students that they need to take
care of. It's gonna be a real challenge for the new president. It's
definitely of a challenge to run a television station within a university.
But you know, again, it's a great foundation having it with the university.
I mean, you've got the faculty resources that are available and it is
true that sometimes the there are people that criticize the university
system that budgets uh channel eight when the money is short on campus and
probably could be used for good causes elsewhere. But I I do think this
station helps the image of the university with the community. Uh Every
station break says a service of Arizona State University and that's what
the university is. It's a service to the community. And in the true sense
, I I hope that Channel eight continues that service of the university to
the community, not necessarily in, in courses anymore, but in broader
services than tele courses. Some of the PBS stations though that started
at universities left that and became community stations. Yeah, quite a few
of them. Um University of Washington station became a community uh station.
Um uh Even W GB H started at Harvard and then quickly became somewhat
independent. Um A lot of the stations had decided to become, they were
university stations become community stations. Now, I think the reason for
that is the university decided that if they could uh the station could
operate on its own and didn't need university support. So um that's
probably one of the reasons why some of these stations have become
community stationss. Channel eight has resisted that. Uh And I think
rightly so
was there ever a move to do that? Was it? What a move by people to try to
take it away from? Well, there have been several efforts
and one of my was in the seventies when it seemed like that the
legislature was going to curtail the station's operation. Uh But
fortunately that didn't happen there, there have been a couple of efforts
and maybe the station would have been better off with a growing community
to have been the community station. But I kind of doubt it. I know one of
the sort of challenging times was during the impeachment of Governor
Meacham and can't wait, broadcast that talk about how that decision came
about that came about because um we had a program called Horizon that was
on the air that was on the air every night, every week night. And Michael
Grant had uh been the host of that and it still is when the impeachment
process came along. Chuck Allen decided to contact the other stations and
see if channel eight could be the station of record. We would broadcast
all of the impeachment hearings and other stations could use whatever we
had available to them any way they wanted to. So the station became the
station of record for the impeachment hearings. And it isn't that Chuck
didn't get criticism. A lot of people thought this was a terrible mistake
that we were trying to show up Governor Meacham. And uh again, the left
wing accusations came, came up a little bit, but it proved to be a very
wise decision, another wise decision. And this was Chuck Allen's and Dan
Dun Burger's baby. Chuck came to me and asked me if he could look into
broadcasting live, an open heart operation. And this was in the early days
when open heart surgery wasn't that prevalent.
And he had gone down and seen TED trick teach a class of doctors on
television in a closed circuit system. Well, he came to me and asked me to
do this and I said, no, we're not gonna take that. We'll tape it. Well, he
didn't want to tape it. You do it live to show people that this can be
done and it is safe or if you want to tape it that, that shows the public
that it's not that safe. Well, after a long period, not a long period of
time, we decided to do it live and, uh, we offered it to PBS. They turned
us down, but I think 14 or 15 stations picked up the live telecast. And I
tell you, I sat in the office with, uh, Chuck and Joe Zesbaugh, who was,
uh, uh, president of the Pacific Mountain Network who helped fund this
broadcast. I sat on pins and needles throughout that whole operation, but
it really was a breakthrough operation. And now heart operations are
commonplace. I'm a recipient and that tape is still used by hospitals to
show what the operation is all about.
That was a big deal at the time to do that online. I remember that too.
Any other major, um, events like that that you haven't talked about? Well
, there are a lot of what one was, um, the death of a princess.
Uh BBC had broadcast a docudrama about a princess in Saudi Arabia that had
an affair with a commoner and both of them were either stoned or beheaded
in public.
The Saudi Arabian government didn't like that broadcast at all. PBS picked
it up
and before the program aired, we were urged not to broadcast it. PBS was
urged not to broadcast that people thought that the Saudis were going to
embargo the oil if we aired it. I received a letter from Senator Goldwater
urging us not to broadcast this and he was a great friend of public
broadcasting and channel eight and we went ahead and aired it and of
course, it wasn't nearly as bad as people thought it was going to be. It
always bothered me that people would call us and, or write us and say,
don't air a program that they had never seen, but it happens time and time
again.
Um
We've covered most of the questions I have. Could I ask a question? Uh can
you remark on the Association of Kaet to the Cronkite School? What?
Ok. Um Back in the sixties, well, fifties there were in the, the I I
started teaching and advising. Uh, in 19 59
first year. Well, I guess it was 1960 the first year that I was here
during a school session. I don't know how many students we had maybe 40
students
suddenly that major in the radio, television, major in the mass
communications department mushroomed and I at one time advised 100
students and taught three or four courses every semester, we were short of
faculty. Um The mass communications department changed titles to become
telecommunications. And then Walter Cronkite was encouraged to lend his
name to the school and that was done through Tom Chauncey at channel 10.
Um It became the Walter Cronkite School of Telecommunications and
Journalism. Um Channel eight had always had students that worked at the
station for a while. We had them working for credit and we decided that
wasn't a very good idea because then they had to work there whether they
wanted to or not. So we felt it was better to have the students come on
their own. And every semester, we've had 40 to 70 students that have
worked at the station in Cooper with the Walter Cronkite school. The uh I
I taught up until the time I retired station management, but now the
school has its own faculty. And uh they, they have a superb faculty.
They've got a nationwide um attendance to the program and acknowledgment
because of Walter Cronkite every year. They have um a huge luncheon where
they honor some journalists in, uh, nationwide. They've honored the, the,
uh, 60 minute staff. It's just a great school. I think the one problem
they have that this is not, uh, from an outsider's viewpoint is limiting
the number of students that enter the school because they can only handle
so much effectively. And, uh, I think they have over 1000 students that
are in the curriculum now just in, in, in the telecommunications
curriculum. But they've been able to keep pace with what's going on and
telecommunications is changing and they have to be able to teach their
students what's happening currently.
Um How do you see your, your legacy that you leave my legacy? Is there a
legacy? I don't think so. I, I don't think there's a legacy. How would you
like to be remembered then? Um
uh on my, on my epitaph, you can say buried here is the husband of Frankie
Joe Lander.
No mention of the issue. Well, you know, there's been so many people that
contribute and it's very hard for one person to take credit for anything.
You know, I can't take credit uh solely for uh the formation of the
Retirees Association because Brent was involved initially, I had to have
his legacy, his, his permanent mission. Uh Then we had a group of, of
wonderful retirees that got together. They did all the work. It was just
an idea and I can't take responsibility for starting Channel eight, Dick
Bell did that. And Jim Loper, and there's been so many people that
contribute to these things that I don't think it's fair for one person to
take credit for anything that, that they may, myth, mythological think is
their legacy. But you kind of headed up Channel Eight for almost 30 years.
Yeah, it's pretty incredible in this day and age. Yeah. But again, you
know, a lot of times I was in Washington at PBS meetings and somebody was
running the station here. And, uh, well, we always had great staff member.
Um, and I think Chuck would feel the same way. He's had great assistance.
So you can go out of town, you can go to luncheons. You, you can do, uh,
fundraising for the station without being right there because somebody
else is running the station and, you know, if you ask me to produce a show
, it would have to be the worst show you've ever seen or to direct. That'd
be terrible.
But you used to do this. No, no, no, no. Only when I had to when somebody
got sick or something.
Um, we talk just briefly, we've seen broadcasting really change from the
days when you got in and then those radio stations and TV stations were
owned by one man or one family and run kind of as a family operation to
today. They're all being bought up and owned by big corporations. Well,
channel eight is the only local station now,
all of the other local stations, I mean, local ownership, all the other
local stations are owned by conglomerates. And when you think that uh
channel three, I may be wrong by a million or so sold for over $300
million you realize why a local owner can't resist the temptation to sell
the station and all of them are sold. And when, when I started out at uh
Koy, the radio stations were locally owned, they're no longer locally
owned. Um What's going to happen? I have no idea. But I think
the demise of local ownership has been a detriment to the community. I
think it's been a detriment to channel eight. I think it's been a
detriment to the university. Um because, you know, if you're going to go
to Bank one for underwriting, who do you see there was a time when I could
call Walter Bhimsen. And he would say, well, see so and so, or I could
call the publisher of the paper. The paper didn't like us initially, but
later on I could call the publisher of the station and they would say,
well, see, Bill Scho and we could, we could get underwriting directly. Now
, it's my understanding, you've got to go locally and then nationally and
sometimes you don't go get through those channels. So it's, it's uh it's
gonna be continuing the problem for the university to raise funds
nationally. Uh They're probably going to have to uh have some, several
people in that, that position to go to Chicago and New York and L A to, to
talk with the national organizations that are, that are now owned by
stockholders.
You say the paper didn't like channel eight? Why was that, Mr Pulliam
didn't like any tax money going to support television. He thought it was
an encroachment on uh the taxpayer this state to have any funds going to a
television station.
Initially, when we went on the air, we were not listed with the other
stations. They boxed channel eight's programming and they would put it
over by the obituary page or maybe in the classified ads but not in the
television section. And it was my understanding from one of the, the
reporters that uh resigned from the paper that a memo went out from
channel eight from uh Mr Podium saying make channel eight obscure. He
really didn't like us, but somehow we survived. We survived Mr Pulliam.
And later on, we got all kinds of support from the the paper. Even though
it was locally owned by Pom's son. We, we got all kinds of support. Uh
I'll, I'll give you one example.
The name Duke Tully may be familiar to people. Duke was a publisher of the
paper and unfortunately, he had expanded his resume to include being a
pilot, an air force pilot in uh Korean affair and he never was. But anyway
, I will chuck Allen and I went to Mr Tully for, uh, support and, um, he
said, no, I, I won't give you a grant for any of the programs. But if you
ever need anything on a one time basis, special event basis, like if you
want to do, uh, uh, something from the legislature or nationally, give me
a call. We had Robin mcneil come to town. The mcneil Lehrer report was on
the air at that time and we wanted him to meet some of the contributors to
the station. So I called Duke Tully. He talk to Bill Scho and they let us
use their ranch. You know, they have their Republican and, uh, Arizona
Republic ranch. It's located in the area and they furnished all the food
and all the booze for over 300 people, 300 guests that we had, uh, to
visit with Robert mcneil. That kind of support was just marvelous to get.
Just the one question I've asked everybody and, um, is to talk a little
bit about advice that you give young people today that are trying to
decide what they wanna do with their lives or their careers. What I have
three grandchildren, four grandchildren. Uh, Ellis is 15. Wendy's 13.
Avery is nine and Kate is eight. And, uh, I have found out that I don't
give them advice, um, if they ask for it, maybe, you know, if they ask,
can I have the ice cream tonight? Yeah. But to give them sound advice. I
think that's their parents' job and I just don't feel capable anymore of
giving advice to uh students. I, I'll tell you what, what can happen to
you. I had Al Michaels in class and when the Cardinals came to time town,
he invited me to go to the broadcast booth because Monday night was airing
a game between the Cardinals and the Dallas Cowboys. I went up there and
Dan Dierdorf said to me, I understand you were al's advisor. I said, yeah
, I said, what kind of a student was he? And I said, well, let me put it
this way. I gave him a B in radio television announcing. Now, am I capable
of giving advice to students when I give the premier sportscaster in the
country? A B when he was a student? I don't think so. Well, he might have
been a baby then.
Well, he didn't go to class one of his problems so that could motivate him
to improve. Ok. Anything else that uh either of you want?
Well, he didn't tell anything like, you know, with bright buyers and stuff
when we were students, but that's ok. I can't,
you can, you can cut this out.
June Payne and I were in the drama workshop. Now, as I said, when you went
to school here in the fifties and the sixties, early 60 s, if you wanted
to participate in dramatics or the choir
or debate just show up. I showed up and uh got a small part in the doctor
in spite of himself or one of Modi's plays. And after that, Frank Byers, a
drama director helped me get into every one of the plays that I I
auditioned for. But he also helped me get the job at Koy because he called
Jack Williams and said I have a young man that I think would, would be a
help to your station. Now, Dean mccloy was a debate coach and I went to
him one day and said I was interested in debating and guess what? I wound
up on the debate team. Not a very good debater, but those were the
advantages that you could really have in a small school. I hope that
students can still take advantage of extracurricular activities and I'm
sure they do. If you go to any of the, the music presentations on campus
and here, the symphony orchestra or the concert band, they're marvelous
much better than they were when I was a student. And I guess the same
thing is true with the drama department. A big school offers a lot of
opportunities too. Did you ever think of actually making acting your
career? Oh, yeah. I went over to the coast in 1953 before I went to work
for KO I, right after I graduated and it was really difficult. I
auditioned for a couple of plays at that time. They didn't the film
industry was kind of dying. They didn't know what was happening with
television. They weren't producing yet for television. So everything was
at a standstill and I was offered a job at channel five. So I came back
from the coast to take this job. A friend of mine, Tom Sherlock had told
me they had an opening and uh I auditioned, got the job, went back to the
coast to clean up for some of the material that I had over there. I was
working for, uh, Northrop at the time Northrop A Aviation came back and
they filled the job and, uh, I was out of work, but that's when I went to
KO, I, so he might have gone to work at KKPHO. Yeah.
Oh, yes. Yes.
If, if you hadn't chosen your career path as it turned out, was there
anything else you would have liked to have done? You know, uh, I did go to
work for, for the Cleveland Electric Luminating Company to be the 3rd, 3rd
generation. I worked there for ones, uh, one summer in the survey
department. And then they asked me to stay on and I stayed on for a full
year after that before I came back to a ASU, I think I would have stayed
there. But for the advice of one man. Hi. Hi, his name was Ralph Rolfe and
he asked if I was going to stay on and I said, yeah, you know, the salary
was pretty good and I enjoyed what I was doing. And he said, you know,
I've been here 25 years
and let me tell you, after you've been here 20 or 25 years, there's no
place to go. Said you can't go up and you can't go down and you're stuck.
And, you know, I thought about that when I came back here and went to
work for Koy and he was right. I've never been really stuck in a job. I've
been in a job at Channel eight for 30 years that I love. But I was never,
I never felt like I was really stuck there as something I had to do
pretty.