KSLM indeed was a fine radio station, probably the best in the Willamette Valley outside of Portland, in the '40s and '50s when I lived in Corvallis. The fellow who broke me into radio, Ted Carlson, then at KCOV-1240 as a salesman-sportscaster, moved to KSLM in that capacity in the mid-1950s (and remained for many, many years the Public Address announcer for Oregon Station basketball games at Gill Coliseum.) I did color for Ted's high school basketball and football and men's summer league fast-pitch softball games for several years.
Then, ironically, when I came out of the Army in the summer of 1958, and became news director/chief announcer at KPAN-860 in Hereford, Texas, the man I replaced moved from Hereford to KSLM and eventually became KSLM's general manager. Terry Mc(Something) was his name ... memory doesn't fully serve me on that one. But anyone who learned local radio from Clint Formby, owner-operator of that 250-watt station in a tiny town in the Texas Panhandle, learned from a master. Clint, in his 80s, still operates KPAN with his son Chip. I remember the name Cal Applegate, but never met him. Another well-known chief-engineer in the Willamette Valley was George Hathaway at KUGN-590 in Eugene, who also did air work, running a 5 p.m. country music program as "Skipalong Hathaway." When I was at KCOV-1240, we did block music programming ... the 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. pop music show was called "The Rose Room," with Frankie Carle's version of that song used as a theme song. I had that shift, and segued into our 5 p.m. country show, renaming it the "San Antonio Rose Room," changing my voice to a pseudo Texas accent as "Lazy John" running opposite to Skipalong's program. Lots of strange things we did at KCOV. Ted Carlson, in addition to doing sales and sports, was the sign/on man, 6 to 9, I was on 9 to noon and 1 to 6, and in the morning, I had ran a 15-minute Bingo show, where empty Bingo Cards "Zingo," I think we called our game, were printed in the local newspaper. The listener would fill out two copies of his card, keeping one and sending the other to us, we would call out the numbers, the would-be winners would call in and I would pull the copy they'd sent in to us to check it off. I used another voice, patterned after Jim Hawthorne's character Skippy but named for a Steve Allen-invented surname, "Heinie Fangschleister," as the "magic number selector" to call out the Bingo numbers. (It amazed me at my 40th class reunion when one of my classmates asked me how Heinie Fangschleister was doing!) It was at KCOV, also, that I invented a show that ran from 10 p.m. to midnight sign-off, called "Rotinom," named for the NBC magazine program, "Monitor." On "Rotinom," the DJ, who at first was Bud Dellar, the Big Round Feller, did some no-holds-barred silliness, with a request program format. We printed membership cards in the Royal Order of Typical, Idiotic, Overeating Mastodons, (a take-off on Hawthorne's Royal Order of Hoganites) and had quite a run on them. Monitor's slogan was "Going Places, Doing Things." Rotinom's was "Going Places, Doing Things -- To People." These programs were about as close to free-form radio as one could get in the mid 1950s, I suppose. The owner-operator of the station had absolutely nothing to do with the formation of these shows. We, the announcers, named them, we programmed them, and as long as we got the commercials in, there were no complaints. In fact, there were no comments, good or bad, from the owner-operator, who did all the commercial remote broadcasts himself, so he had to hear his cues! Every remote was a numbered special event, I recall ... and this is going overly long, but Willamette Valley radio a half century ago was fun ... I could do it again, if anyone would let me. Maybe I can buy a couple of hours on a D-FW station on Saturday or Sunday! Qal R. Mann, Krumudgeon ----- Original Message ----- From: Patrick Martin<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: Mailing list for the International Radio Club ofAmerica<mailto:[email protected]> Sent: Saturday, July 28, 2007 12:08 AM Subject: Re: [IRCA] KGA degrade Mike, Are you asking from a DXers point of view or a broadcasters point of view? I don't like to see any old station go away, or change calls, but unfortunately that is reality in today's world. To me, the FCC blew it allowing so many stations on the AM band. If we had a 1,000 or so, there would be room for everyone and the stations would be making money. One station comes to mind, the 1390 station in Salem OR that used to be KSLM. They were a classic Middle of the Road station with lots of local personality for years and years. No one in the Salem market could touch them in ratings. Now they are a relay for 1080 Portland (Sports talk). What a real shame. Of course the old KSLM calls are gone too. I have a neat old QSL card from the station in the 60s signed by Cal Applegate, the CE that was there for years. He is gone now, but what a history. 73, Patrick Patrick Martin KAVT Reception Manager _______________________________________________ IRCA mailing list [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> http://montreal.kotalampi.com/mailman/listinfo/irca<http://montreal.kotalampi.com/mailman/listinfo/irca> Opinions expressed in messages on this mailing list are those of the original contributors and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the IRCA, its editors, publishing staff, or officers For more information: http://www.ircaonline.org<http://www.ircaonline.org/> To Post a message: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> _______________________________________________ IRCA mailing list [email protected] http://montreal.kotalampi.com/mailman/listinfo/irca Opinions expressed in messages on this mailing list are those of the original contributors and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the IRCA, its editors, publishing staff, or officers For more information: http://www.ircaonline.org To Post a message: [email protected]
