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Milton Smith interviewing Chuck Moore for the Black Archives of Mid-America. The date is March 29, 1976. OK, Chuck, tell me where were you born? Topeka, Kansas. What year? 1934. 1934. That's, uh, right after the big depression, huh? Well, I imagine I didn't know too much about

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it. Uh, although we weren't wealthy, we certainly, uh, we're not the poorest. I always had a lot, a lot to eat. And, uh, I really didn't feel it. What did you like the way we live. What did your parents do? My father was a tailor. My

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mother was a homemaker. Did your father have his own business? Yes. Mhm. OK, so you were born in 1934. That makes you 42 now, right? Can you tell us a little bit about your childhood? You know, education, schools that you went to, how it was for.

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For people in Topeka, Kansas growing up there. OK, in Topeka, uh, there were 4. All black elementary schools that you had to go to no matter what part of the city you lived in, after that, when you got to junior high, uh, the school system was

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basically integrated and even into high school they had one major high school which was Topeka High School and some outlying high schools which were called rural high schools, but basically anybody who went to school in Topeka, the Topeka city limits, went to Topeka High School. It

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was kind of a melting pot. And, uh, 11 odd thing about going to Topeka High while we were in an integrated situation. We were not integrated as far as playing basketball is concerned. We had a separate basketball team called the Topeka Ramblers and They have their

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own uniforms, their own schedule. And uh they had a bus that they chartered to send them around to various uh areas and even into the Kansas City area to play basketball. Now you could play on the football team and, uh, you couldn't go out for swimming

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or golf or baseball, but you could play basketball on your own team. And uh I think just prior, well, it was prior to the 1954 school decision, they did, uh Changed that and eliminated the all-black basketball team and blacks could go off for the regular basketball

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team. So then everything was integrated from that point on. But the school still remained the same until after that 1954 decision. So the 1954 decision was in Topeka, Topeka versus Brown versus Topeka Board of Education. She filed that suit in 1953. OK, let's go back a

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minute. I wanted to come back to that, but You know, what kind of education did you get as an elementary school kid? You know, would you say it's it was a good education or? It's kind of hard to judge when you're going through it. The only,

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the only yardstick I can measure it by would be when I went to junior high, I felt that I'd been denied. Certain scholastic, uh, things because, uh, the kids that came in from the white elementary school seemed to be further ahead than we were, you know,

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and if I were to judge it, I would say maybe about 1 year ahead. There were a lot of things they knew we didn't know and it took almost 1.5 to 2 years to catch up. And of course, you know, once you got into the integrated

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situation, it wasn't that difficult because in those days teachers were kind of devoted. I didn't, uh. See any teachers that overtly were, uh, uh, prejudiced, you know, they seem to, to treat you all the same. So, you know, basically, uh, from that point on it was

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kind of OK, and I really, that's the only yardstick I can go by is that I seemed to be behind once I got to junior high. OK, so when the Topeka Topeka, Topeka Board of Education versus Brown decision or Brown versus Topeka Board of Education decision

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went down, you were still in high school. No, no, I had come here then. See, that, that, that was done in 19. In 1953 and I had come here in February of that year. Uh-huh. So when she filed that suit, it was that year when I

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was when I was down here. Of course, the decision was handed down by the Supreme Court the following year. I see, but you finished up your last couple of years of school here, or no, I finished high school in, right. See, I graduated in 1952. I

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see. OK. And then I came down here in February of 1953. Uh-huh. All right. Um, Experiences as far as, you know, your younger years that that shaped you in some kind of way that What you think affects you now? Well, let's see. I guess, you know,

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you, you kind of talk about careers when you talk about shaping your life. At first, I had wanted to be a professional baseball player. And, uh, of course, uh, we were all very proud and me especially because I was a baseball fan and loved to play

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baseball when Jackie Robinson was first signed with the Brooklyn Dodgers in '947. That's when I really became interested in Major League Baseball. You know, I was thinking about that the other day that Jackie Robinson became such a household where that people when I was a kid.

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It would say, quick as Jackie Robinson, you know, that's right. It was a source of pride for, you know, for black people really didn't have anybody they could look to as a national figure and be proud of. There were a lot of people they could be

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proud of, but here was a man making headlines, you know, and, and, and, uh, really setting a milestone for other blacks. Because he was the first in Major League Baseball. While he may not have been the best, when did Robinson break into baseball? Was it like

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48, I think it was 46 he broke in and, uh, I guess Branch Rickey signed him in 146 and he went to a Brooklyn Dodger farm team as I remember. But the first year I remember him actually playing with the Dodgers was 147 because they subsequently

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went on to the World Series and lost to the Yankees. But, you know, I was interested in baseball. Uh, I had one time had thought about being a detective. Uh. And then all of a sudden I decided I wanted to be a sportscaster, so I used

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to listen to some of the sportscasters of those days, uh, and, and, and really Harry Carey, well, no, Harry Carey, well, he may have been around, but we couldn't get him in Topeka. I, I'm thinking about guys like Bill Stern who's dead now. He was a

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long old time sportscaster, Harry Wismer, and, and guys like that, uh, who were doing sports on a national scale on the radio. Of course there was no television back then. And I used to admire those guys. In fact, I remember having written a letter to Bill

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Stern. He was the, the sports director of NBC in, uh, in New York, and I wrote him a letter asking him for advice on how to become a sportscaster. And he wrote me a very, in fact, I've got the letter to this day. He wrote me

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a very nice letter in, in which he said, it's, uh, it's nice to receive a letter from you and nice to know about what you want to do and all that, he says, but unfortunately it's hard to advise someone you don't know. So he suggested that

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what I should do is go to school and, and, and learn all I could, learn all, get all the English grammar I could, learn to speak and write the English language as fluently as possible, and then just keep pushing from that point on. And, you know,

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I, I thought that was great to receive even receive a letter from him he actually signed himself. So I had made up my mind from that point on, I want to be a sportscaster, didn't really know how to go about it. And, uh, I did hear

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about KPRS going on the air down here in Kansas City because my sister lived here. And, uh, I had gone to Detroit in 1952. That my sister was, that was what, 1718, and, uh, had gone to Detroit and came back here because I had to borrow

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my sister's luggage. I came down here to get her luggage and I went to Detroit on the train and spent Christmas there of 1952. And came down, uh, to Kansas City, uh, I guess it was January of 1953 to apply for a job. And at that

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time the KPRS was owned by a guy named Ed Pate and his wife Psyche Pate and a guy named Skip Carter who was the engineer at that time, but he was a third partner. Uh, Ed said that since the station was a daytime station. They would

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be, uh, on the air longer in the summer months than they would in the winter months. And this being the winter months, I think they were signing off in January something like 5 o'clock, but he said at that time he had two guys on the staff,

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Jimmy Jones and Dave Butler. He said, Well, we're going to need somebody, he says, so I'll keep you in mind, and he gave me an audition and all. And, uh, so I went back home and I figured, well, and, and I'd never applied for a job

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like that before, but I just kind of had the feeling, well, you know, he's giving me a snow job. He'll never call. And at that time I was working for a radio um repair and sound shop in Topeka after school and uh Of course, I had

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been, I, I had graduated, uh, in the, in the spring of '52. Now, this is 53 and I was still working, but I was working full time by this time. So I was back home for about a week and I got a call from him and

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he said, you want to start? And I said, well, yeah, great. This was like a Friday and I'd been down here that preceding weekend. He said, You want to start? I said, Yeah. I said, you know, he says, Well, when can you start? I said, Well,

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I'd like to give the man I'm working for at least 2 weeks' notice. He says, I said, when do you need me? He says, Well, as soon as possible. Could you start Monday? I said, Well, I said, yeah, I can, you know, try. So I told

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the man that I worked for, who was a white fella, and, uh. He was kind of behind me, but he knew of the times, you know, we're talking about 1953, and he said, first of all, the business that you want to get into the radio business,

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radio medium, he says. It's highly competitive. First of all, he says, and secondly, you know how it is for blacks. There's just not many blacks in it. So I told him, I said, well, it's an all-black station. I said, so it's a great opportunity. He says,

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well, you know, it's really a great opportunity because you're young, no experience. Usually, he says, they don't hire you unless you've got experience. So he says, well, go ahead and try it. So I finished up my work there that weekend and came down here that Monday

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and started, but I didn't start on the air directly. I was filing records and, and filing, yeah, so that's how it started, yeah. Uh, OK, you said, you know, that Bill Stern advised you to go to school, which I think I remember something about him. He

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has a book called Famous Baseball Stories. He wrote a couple of books, but, uh, he said that he advised you to go to school. Did you eventually do that? Did you go to No, I never did. I never did go on to get any formal education.

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I, I, I've taken courses. I took a course in, in marketing at Donnelley College, but as far as a formal education, I don't have a formal education. Most of it's, uh, all my education is based on experience. I see. Was it possible then in 1952, 1953

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to really get a good job without much formal education? I wouldn't think so. I, I don't, well, I don't know. Maybe it was. It probably was more then than it is now. I never really thought that much. I mean, do you contribute? Do you contribute you're

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getting a good job to luck, or do you contribute to special, I think it's skills. I think it's luck. I think it's luck. I think it's luck even now, even when people are saying you got to have some schooling, even if you got it, it's, you

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know, it's got to be luck. You got to be at the right place at the right time and you got to keep pushing. And, uh, you know, of course, the education, there's no doubt about it, the fact that it helps you. It really does. Because most

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stations will ask for experience, you know that. OK, you talk about baseball, you know, was this just wishful thinking that you were going to be a pro baseball player? Were you pretty good? Oh, I thought I was pretty good. I, I wasn't that good a hitter.

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I was a hell of a fielder, uh, but, uh, I wasn't. I played baseball in high school for one year and then I had to start working. Because at that time, uh, my parents both had had been deceased, uh, since, uh, well, I guess since I

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was a sophomore, my mother died, and, uh, so I was working part time and staying with my grandparents, so it was a necessity I get a job and I did play baseball, I think in my junior year, but of course I had to drop out of

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the program in my senior year. Uh, it was more of a dream than anything else. I really wanted to be a Super Bowl player. And then when I heard about Jackie Robinson, naturally, I figured there was an opportunity to really go to a lot of kids.

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Oh yeah, oh yeah, and you know, like most kids, I changed my, my ideas on a career on a career several times. OK, you mentioned your father, and you mentioned the fact that your mother died very early. How old were you exactly when your mother died?

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Well, let's see, I had to be about, uh, 15 or 16 as I remember. And, uh, when, uh, my father died, I was like 6 years old. So I really don't remember that much about him. I do remember him taking ill. When I was really a

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young kid in, in elementary school, in fact, he had a kidney ailment. And of course, they didn't have the modern, uh, medical treatments for kidneys in those days, and I guess they couldn't correct it, but, uh, he was bedridden for a long period of time and

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subsequently he died when I was 6 years old. So your father died when you were 6 and your mother at 15 or 16. Um, And what, what could you do in that kind of, that kind of circumstance for models for, you know, for what you wanted

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to be? You know, we're seeing Jackie Robinson, but I really didn't have, you know. You know, times were different then. You really didn't have a whole lot of people you could look up to except your brothers and sisters. And, uh, none of my brothers and sisters

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are professional people. Uh, in fact, most of them, uh, the majority of them are in Detroit, and, uh, I'd say probably the majority of them work for the post office. And, uh, I do have one brother-in-law and, and another brother who is, uh, working for a,

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uh, pharmaceutical firm in Detroit. So I really didn't have that type of a, a yardstick to be, to, to measure anyone by, you know, uh, I guess in our family, we kind of did what we wanted to do and we looked, you know, if, if we

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wanted to pursue a career, we just did it. And in those days you did because you got to remember this is back in in the 1950s when blacks didn't have a whole lot of rights and it was just a foregone conclusion that, you know, you, you

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don't raise a whole lot of hell about it, you know, you just kind of go along and do the best you can. So I guess in a way I'm kind of lucky because I did, I did really want to be a sportscaster. I, I, I definitely

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wanted to get into radio and I really wanted that awfully, awfully bad and I was willing to do anything to do it, you know. So I guess it was just one of those things. How many brothers and sisters do you have? OK, now I've got, uh,

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2 sisters and I've got 6 brothers. There originally was a family of 10, and I have 2 brothers who are, who are deceased. I see, I see. And most of them are in Detroit. Were they born in Topeka and eventually moved to Detroit and that kind

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of thing? I see. OK. I guess maybe we can talk a little bit about, uh, You know, you're professional, um. Adventures, actually, um, because they seem to be numerous. Um, you came instead of working for KPRS and how long did you work for them and what

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kind of things were happening at the KPRS then? OK, as I told you, I was, I was hired in 1953, February of '53, and, uh, I didn't go on the air immediately. But, uh, you know, about a month or so later, I did, Get on the

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air, and I, I'll never forget reading my first commercial. It was the first experience being on the air. I was given a, a minute commercial and I, I was so damn scared. I read it in 40 seconds and I took a, took a pause for breath

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after each sentence. I'll never forget that. And I'm really sorry now we didn't record it for posterity. So subsequently I became a we we liked in those days to be called uh announcers as opposed to disc jockeys. I don't know why because we just felt there

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was a bad connotation to disc jockey, you know, you didn't sound important enough I guess, but, uh, at that time there were two guys already on the staff Dave Butler, who's primarily the news guy but who also did, uh, some disc jockey shows, and of course

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Jimmy Jones who was, uh, the teenage idol. He did a request show, yeah. And uh I started actually as I remember doing a two hour show in the afternoon from 1:30 to about 3:30 till the news came on and uh Ed Pate at that time was

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doing the morning show and he was the owner of the station, but he did shows and he did remote shows from stores advertising sponsors products and all and uh subsequently, well this is 1953, so in in 1954, just about a year later, he asked me. What

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I would like, I like to get up early and come and do the morning show, and I told him, yeah, yeah, sure. So subsequently I did do the morning show. And uh We had a great time in those days. In those days, uh, every 15 minutes

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you did a different show and you played a little bit different type of music, uh, you know, we, we, we went from rhythm and blues to a hard sound, which was really still rhythm and blues or even an instrumental show. And each show had an open

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and a close and a theme song. If you can imagine how cumbersome that would be now, you know. Oh yeah, every 15 minutes, everything was different. And, uh, it was a lot of fun, you know, records were really becoming popular. Uh, we were extremely popular as

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a station because, you know, it was a source of pride for blacks in this community, a first of its kind. Well, well, KPRS is black owned and right, right. It initially started out black owned. Yes, uh, actually, well, not KPRS itself. Uh, the station itself was,

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uh, owned by a bank. banker in Olathe, Kansas, along with some partners. Was he, and he was black or what? No, this banker was white. Ed Pate, who was from Kansas City originally, married a Psyche Pate who was from Chicago. Ed had an idea about doing

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some black programming, so he decided to come back home to do it. And he approached several black businessmen in the area. This is, now we're talking about 1951 and 199592. He came back. He had gone to the University of Chicago and had gotten a, uh, master's

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degree in business. So he decided to start a radio station. Couldn't get anybody interested in the black community. Finally came upon a bank in Kansas City, Kansas who floated a loan for him and, uh, he bought some equipment. And uh he negotiated for some space in

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an old radio school uh it was called the Pathfinder School and it was down on Oak Street in those days. Now this is prior to my coming here so I'm repeating to you stuff that's been repeated to me. He did get space in that place. He,

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he contracted with KCLO, which is out of Leavenworth, Kansas, and was owned by Alf Landon, who was a former governor of Kansas. And if you remember, Alf ran for the presidency in 1936 and only carried one state, didn't even carry his own state against Roosevelt. Well,

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Alf Landon owned KCLO. He, uh, allowed Ed Payton, that time you could broker time. Broke brokering time is like you buy time from the station and then you can resell it. You can't do that anymore. So he bought 2 hours a day and they broadcast from

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the Pathfinder School, I think it was 14th and Oak in those days, 2 hours of black programming. They, they ran a remote telephone line over here and broadcast. Subsequently, they upped it to 4 hours a day. They then moved from there to their own studios at

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23rd and Benton. In a place that was owned by the Catholic Church out there, Dominican fathers, and, uh, they heard about KPRS being up for sale in Olathe, Kansas. It was in Olathe, Kansas at that time. So they bought it from Paul Markham, who was a

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banker out there. And they, I don't know what the price that we, we've been told the price was ridiculously low for now, $40,000. It was probably high for them. It, it was a 1000 watt daytime station. They bought it from him and his partners and moved

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the transmitter to Kansas City to behind the old blues ballpark or or municipal stadium now. And uh they operated uh from there and they went on the air. Now they, they were still operating on a remote line from KCLO till they got KPRS. They officially went

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on KPRS November 2nd, 1952 as I remember, and that was still prior to my coming here, but that was the beginning of KPRS. Listen. That's some interesting history. It is. We, we better stop here. We can tell. OK, Chuck, uh, when we stop, um. The other

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day, you were talking about KPRS and your experiences there, uh, how it got started and everything. Can you go on a little bit with that? Yeah, this was 1953 when I started with them. The station went on the air on November 2nd, 1952, uh, as a

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black owned station. Uh, there were three guys on the staff at that time myself, Jimmy Jones, and Dave Butler, and 1/4 person who was the president of the company and, and also the general manager of the radio station, Ed Pate, who also did did air work.

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We primarily were of course in those days, we like to call ourselves announcers as opposed to disc jockeys, and I really don't know why, except that maybe announcers sounded a bit more important. Right, right. Nowadays it doesn't matter, you know, a disc jockey has his prestige

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too. And we had a lot of fun in those days because you know this was the beginning of uh black persons actually in media not working for someone else and even the beginning of those who were working for other stations but primarily there were no blacks

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all across the country working for what we call general market stations, white owned stations. If they were working for white owned corporations, the, the, the radio station itself was black. But it was white owned and black programming. Well, KPRS was one of two, maybe three stations

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at that time which was black owned as well as operated, and, uh, we did, uh, primarily music and news. OK, since this, you know, was a new experience, uh, for blacks, you know, it's a real bit of history, but it seems like there would have been

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a lot of pressures and a lot of, you know, added kind of problems with, you know, first getting the station started, getting, getting the first black station in this area started. I'm sure there probably were for the owners, although I didn't see any of those problems

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primarily because all the stuff, the prior work had been done before I came here. Thanks. OK, you're welcome. All the prior work had done had been done before I got here and uh the station was actually on the air when I started with them so I'm

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sure that there were a lot of problems with getting started primarily with getting proper financing to buy equipment and things like that. I've heard stories. Uh, of when Ed Pate first started the station that he wanted to get a recorder so that he'd go out on

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remote broadcasts and do in-store interviews and things like that, and he couldn't get financing and he finally went to a bank, as I told you a little earlier, which was a white bank who granted him some monies and uh it's, it's also alleged that he came

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here with $500 in his pocket with this idea to start this investment. So I'm sure that there were a lot of problems, but uh. It was a lot of fun. There was no pressure on us as announcers. Uh, we obviously didn't make the kind of money

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that, uh, flight announcers and disc jockeys were making at other stations, but uh. We did all right, you know, and for the times, uh, we had a heck of a lot of fun, and of course you got a lot of prestige, you know, and uh we

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were kind of doing what we wanted to do. That's something I wanted to ask you about. Did people in the black community really receive you well? Oh yes, you know, we were like what a TV star would be likened to now, you know, uh, everybody could,

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could see you, and if, you know, you went out in the community and talked to people, they'd recognize your voice and they'd say. You're on KPRS. Well, hell, I was starstruck. I was 19 years old, you know, and this was, uh, people recognizing me, and I

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thought it was pretty cool, you know. But then after, after a fashion, you begin to settle down and realize it's a job like anything else, and, uh, you would obviously would not be that popular were you not, uh, on the air, and, uh, that, you know.

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You have to take it on an even keel, you know, you don't you don't get overly ill. And overly inflated ego as a result of doing it, so it was an opportunity really to do exactly what I wanted to do, to get into the field I

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wanted to get into, although I didn't, you know, go on. And pursue the idea of becoming a sportscaster which probably would have been almost impossible in those years. While they've got blacks on as commentators on television now commentating on sports and hosting shows, they still don't

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have black play by play man on any of the national networks, you know, they have some guys that are that are, like I said, commentators and analysts, but that's all. But in those days we had a lot of fun. We played music and Dave Butler did

00:25:23.150 - 00:25:39.180

the news and I eventually started doing a sports show where I just gave sports news in the evening. But primarily it was, uh, disc jockeying, playing the top records of the day, playing all soul music, and, uh, Jimmy Jones, of course, was a teenage any religious

00:25:39.180 - 00:25:52.910

music. Yeah, we played religious music as well as soul music. We had religious programs. We always opened up the station with religious music and signed it off because it was a daytime station with a religious music and then we had a mid-morning religious show which was

00:25:52.910 - 00:26:10.560

extremely popular called The Inspirational Hour. And on that show we not only played gospel music. And what we call inspirational type music, but we also, uh, gave, uh, free church news to, uh, those, uh, churches that sent in their news of events that were going on

00:26:10.560 - 00:26:24.800

that were going to be happening at their church. You know, it's, it's very interesting. Have you ever thought, for instance, about writing a book about, you know, the developing days of KPRS, or, or, you know, I'm not much of a writer. I guess it could be

00:26:24.800 - 00:26:39.829

interesting. I guess, uh, any station, any black station that started around that time could probably do the same thing, you know, they, I'm sure like substantial subject matter for, you know, no book or a movie or a documentary or that kind of thing, or, uh, Ed

00:26:39.829 - 00:26:57.939

Pate, he isn't alive anymore. Yes, he is, as far as I know, Ed Pate is, uh, in Chicago, has his own marketing and advertise advertising and public relations firm. And doing quite well. Who has ownership in Cape Skip Carter, as far as I know, who was

00:26:57.939 - 00:27:13.969

the third party of that triumvirate who started the station, and, uh, Psyche Pate, who was formerly married to Ed Pate, she has interest as well as Skip's, uh, present wife. And, uh, at, at the time I was a Associated with them there were some other small

00:27:13.969 - 00:27:28.849

stockholders but I don't know whether they're still associated or not. So I take it that the that the radio station has been fairly successful, you know, financially since it's still in existence now, you know, some 23 years later I'm sure. The odd thing about black radio

00:27:28.849 - 00:27:46.880

then as well as now, and it's really not odd when you stop and think that Radio makes its money from advertising, and there are obviously not that many black businesses to support a radio station, but we're consumers. Yes, we're consumers. So as a result, Black radio

00:27:46.880 - 00:28:01.890

now then as well as now is supported primarily by white advertisers. That that seems to me to me to be pretty natural in that blacks consume from these white advertisers. But let's go on from there, you know, from cape your ass, which you're not gonna cap

00:28:01.890 - 00:28:20.329

your ass anymore, are you? No, I left there and uh. 19 66 I guess it was March and went to KCMO, which was a general market station and so you're talking about television now. No, no, radio about the radio. I did some television but not, not

00:28:20.329 - 00:28:37.459

on the air. I just uh Did what we call booth work. My voice was on, but I wasn't on camera at at KCMO. They had a large desk because it's a, it's a multiple operation. It's radio, television, and FM. And at that time they had all

00:28:37.459 - 00:28:53.290

of their announcers rotating on all three of the mediums. So, uh, as an announcer I went to KCMO radio as a vacation relief artist, which meant in effect that. Whoever went on vacation, I sat on his shift and so I virtually worked around the clock, worked

00:28:53.290 - 00:29:13.430

that entire summer of 1966 from April through September and was wanting to get on full time, obviously, and of course I was told a week before I was really hired full time that there were no openings, but the time was right for blacks and. They eventually

00:29:13.430 - 00:29:28.420

came back to me a week later and asked me would I be interested in the full-time position and of course I said yes. Now, while I was the first male black male on. Um, general market, uh, media in Kansas City. I was not the first black

00:29:28.420 - 00:29:45.390

on, uh. Lena Rivers Smith, who had been a writer for the Kansas City Call newspaper, was actually the first black on, and she worked for Channel 4. She first went on as a news writer, and uh, they, they had a shot where they showed her in

00:29:45.390 - 00:30:00.430

the background whenever the anchorman was on doing the news, and eventually she became an anchor person herself and anchored the news, and of course she, uh, met an untimely death about a year or so after that. So, uh, she and I were virtually the first to

00:30:00.430 - 00:30:15.400

work for major market radio and television. Do you know any of the circumstances of her death? Seems, uh, she was found in bed as I remember, uh, uh, I, I don't know whether it was a heart attack or what. Night shift and worked there for about

00:30:15.400 - 00:30:27.050

2 years and then I was asked to work an all night shift, which was a midnight to 6 o'clock shift where they asked me would I'd be interested in playing jazz and I, I did. I started out playing a little jazz music and then they decided

00:30:27.050 - 00:30:44.849

they wanted to change the format to what the station was doing overall. What they called a mixture of pop music along with country music and this was like 1971. It was during that time that across the nation all stations had gone to this type of format

00:30:44.849 - 00:31:00.640

because country music was becoming very, very popular. So country music artists and their records were crossing over and becoming popular with popular record artists and and and lover music lovers and vice versa. So as a result they went to that format and they wanted the station

00:31:00.640 - 00:31:12.689

to sound alike whenever it was on so that. We went into that format and I, I was on that for 4 years and uh I really enjoyed. I never really got used to staying up all night. Uh, when I first started, I guess it took me

00:31:12.689 - 00:31:22.369

about 1 month to get adjusted to staying up all night and sleeping in the daytime and then when I'd go on vacation, uh, it would take me a couple of nights to get used to sleep at night and it was no problem, but I'd come back

00:31:22.369 - 00:31:34.050

on vacation, take me another week to get straightened out, you know. But I enjoyed it and uh it was a lot of fun and uh during that time or just prior to that time I used to go over and work on television and uh I would

00:31:34.050 - 00:31:46.750

uh so what so what year are we talking about now OK now let's go back, let's go back a little bit because I started there in '66 and in '68 as I remember, I started uh doing a television show called my, uh, it was called 30

00:31:46.750 - 00:32:00.829

Minutes at that time and this was on camera. But uh as an announcer during the day I just did booth work where I did station breaks and stuff like that on television. The show that I'm talking about 30 minutes was primarily a black show. It was

00:32:00.829 - 00:32:17.229

a public affairs show. I interviewed the community leaders, talked about community issues, for instance, for instance, uh, people from the school board or people who were on the city council. Bruce Watkins around that time had become a city councilman and I'd interviewed people like that, people

00:32:17.229 - 00:32:32.140

who were in the news and doing things for the community, as well as presented. Some musicians, uh, from the Kansas City area, gospel choirs and things like that, yeah, they came in and got a chance to get exposure, and I thought it was super from that

00:32:32.140 - 00:32:46.640

aspect because there's a lot of talent in this area, and we got a chance to expose some of it on local television, people never who never before would have had the opportunity to be on TV, so. Let's go back just a second for one question about

00:32:46.640 - 00:32:59.689

the music. Do you find it's necessary to like all kinds of music as far as, you know, being a disc jockey, you know, in order to be able to float in that kind of market, you know, to go from one station to another? I think it's

00:32:59.689 - 00:33:17.060

important. I think it's very important. Especially as it relates to primarily black to to primarily all white, which you see times have changed since, you know, I've been off the air and I've been off since 1973 now uh. White stations in the days when I started

00:33:17.060 - 00:33:33.260

at KPRS would not play black music. They would only play the top pop artists, maybe mix in a little country stuff if it was extremely popular, but even then they hated country music, so what was called. Popular station and what eventually became a top 40 station

00:33:33.640 - 00:33:48.140

in the 50s would never play what we call rhythm and blues music, which is soul music today. But all that's changed now because in the Billboard, which is the bible of the music world and the media. Uh, when I first started, there was a chart in

00:33:48.140 - 00:33:59.170

there that listed the top rhythm and blues tunes. It was a chart that listed the top country and western tunes, and there was a chart for the top pop tunes and all of those stations that played those different types of music, that's all they played, different

00:33:59.170 - 00:34:13.300

types of music. So as a result, there was no crossover. But then all of a sudden the kids in the latter 50s and early 60s decided they wanna hear original artists doing songs and I can remember in the 50s, latter 50s especially, when Patti Page, who

00:34:13.300 - 00:34:25.864

was a pop artist. White pop artist recorded a song. Oh what a Dream. OK, well she actually covered in the music business. When you cover a song, that means one artist puts the song out originally and then you cover it. You put another song out. You

00:34:25.864 - 00:34:37.745

put the same song out, but maybe just a little bit different, uh, styling. OK, well, Ruth Brown, who was a very, very popular, uh, rhythm and blues artist in those days, put out a song called Oh What a Dream. Patti Page covered it and it was

00:34:37.745 - 00:34:56.969

played on all the white stations. Well, of course, Ruth Brown's obviously was played on the black stations. Pat Boone. Did a thing called oh what a shade that Fats Domino had already done and uh as a result. So as a result, those kids from that era

00:34:56.969 - 00:35:09.330

decided, well, hell, you know, because they had been listening to soul music on the soul station, they decided, well, hell, we want our favorite station to play the same type of music, play the original artist, don't play the cover tune. So as a result that then

00:35:09.330 - 00:35:23.679

and only then did the top pop stations, the white stations, begin to play black artists on their air. So then the thing meshed together so it was extremely popular and I guess it still is important for a disc jockey to be able to appreciate all types

00:35:23.679 - 00:35:37.040

of music, although when you find yourself being a disc jockey, you find you really don't have that much time for listening because you're constantly preparing, excuse me, for the next thing you're going to do. I see. Things have changed so much, you know. Uh, there was

00:35:37.040 - 00:35:48.760

a time when, when you were really loose when you were a disc jockey and you could just kind of, you, you, you took your time. You were what was what we called a personality. You, uh, you were a performer. You were on the air. You were

00:35:48.760 - 00:36:00.239

recognized because your, because of your name and because of your ability to select good music, yeah, you had your own style. And you kind of played what you felt. You played some of the top stuff, but you just kind of played what you felt. Well, radio

00:36:00.239 - 00:36:13.800

is more formalized now. Most stations have a set formula of music and the order in which it's to be played. So the only thing that you're concerned with is. How to get into the song if it's got an intro, an instrumental intro that tells you how

00:36:13.800 - 00:36:24.020

much you can talk before the vocal comes on. So look, you got 10 seconds of, uh, instrumental intro, but you've got 10 seconds where you can talk and then you get out of the way and let that artist go ahead and sing, and then you know

00:36:24.239 - 00:36:35.389

what the out cue is, what his last words are, and you get out of it. See, music in the old days when records were first being recorded. They just used to chop them off on the end and then in the 50s and 60s they started fading

00:36:35.389 - 00:36:48.830

music out. Well, radio stations didn't want dead air. Their idea was that there had to be something on the air all the time. So a disc jockey, when a record began to fade, started talking over it and he wouldn't let it fade out and let there

00:36:48.830 - 00:37:02.399

be dead air. So they wanted everything tight because we were moving into a fast moving society and they figured people were on the go. They didn't want to listen to dead air, so that type of thing. Did you find that that simplified your job, you know,

00:37:02.510 - 00:37:16.040

when they went to it does, yeah, it does simplify because eventually you became not necessarily a personality or a disc jockey, but you became like a time and temperature man. Virtually that's about all you had time for between records. Give the time and temperature, talk no

00:37:16.040 - 00:37:27.949

more than 10 or 15 seconds, and get out of it and go to your next record. I see. I can imagine in the old days there were a lot of times when you came home with a with a sore throat. Well, not really, but you really

00:37:27.949 - 00:37:50.020

enjoyed yourself in the old days, uh, you, uh. You could be leisure leisurely about it. Uh-huh OK, so you're at, KCM and this is still, this is 19. OK, let's up, we're up to 1968, so I started doing the all night show, did the all night

00:37:50.020 - 00:38:06.290

show, and once a week I was taping the, uh, television show which was called 30 Minutes, uh, which eventually became Minority Matters, and, uh, oh, I joined the first, well, the first co-host I had was a guy who was a newsman at Channel 5, even now,

00:38:06.379 - 00:38:19.419

Ed Hunt. He and I co-hosted the show. He did most of the film interviews. And I did studio interviews and I did a few film interviews when I had time, but you know, with working an all night radio show, going to sleep in the morning and

00:38:19.419 - 00:38:32.219

sleeping to about 1:30 or 2 o'clock in the afternoon, I didn't have much time to go out and film, so Ed did most of that. Ed eventually got off the show. They hired Chi Chi Williams, who was not Channel 9. She co-hosted the show with me

00:38:32.219 - 00:38:46.969

for a couple of years, and then 9 offered her a job at higher pay, so she went back to Channel 9, and she's over there now. So, uh, it left me doing the show by myself for a while, and they hired another lady, Jerry Gosa, who

00:38:46.969 - 00:39:01.969

had worked for the Kansas City Star as a journalist, and, uh, Charles Thomas, uh, who graduated from the University of Missouri, who was a radio newsman, he began to co-host the show. Now he is the host of the new Minority Matter show, which is strictly an

00:39:01.969 - 00:39:19.760

interview show now. We do no entertainment on it at all, very rare occasions we have entertainment. OK, a couple of things, um. As far as you know the the kind of competition between the different shows, it seems like it wouldn't be that easy for uh announcers

00:39:19.760 - 00:39:37.449

and personalities and commentators, you know, uh, to go back and forth you know between. You know, the different television stations, you know, but is there some kind of friction? Uh, let me see if I understand what you're saying. I'm saying, you know, they're, they're all, they're

00:39:37.449 - 00:39:53.520

all competitive, you know, these, these radio stations and whatnot. But you know you've been at KPRS and then you went to KCMO, then you went to KCMO television, yeah, right, then WHP, and now you're at WHB. Well, see, in this business. It's not a sin to

00:39:53.520 - 00:40:04.780

get fired and it's not a sin to move around. Usually when you do move to another station, it's because you've got a better deal. Either you got a chance to do something in an artistic sense that you really want to do, or you got more money.

00:40:05.679 - 00:40:20.889

It's very seldom do people just make a lateral move with the status quo, not up themselves either in position or money. So it's not a sin to be fired because of the high turnover in this business and because now it's become a rating thing, you know,

00:40:21.300 - 00:40:38.570

because I told you radio stations and, and, uh, and television stations subsist on the amount of money they get in with advertising revenue and if they don't get the ratings. Then their avenue that the advertising revenue is not forthcoming because agencies buy stations who have top

00:40:38.570 - 00:40:52.879

ratings who can who can attract more viewers who can attract more listeners. So, uh, as a result, If a guy should happen to go down on the ratings and the revenue is not forthcoming, then it's time to get somebody else, so it's common to be fired.

00:40:52.919 - 00:41:07.439

It's not a sin to be fired. OK, so that, that happens very often that people are fired. What, what kind of like, what's in them. What kind of reason is there that you know somebody who has a good rating should go down or somebody who has

00:41:07.439 - 00:41:21.324

a bad rating should go up, you know, who has a lesser rating should go up? The only reasoning is, like I said, the, the advertising, uh, revenue, uh, the fact that uh the ratings bring in the bucks because advertising. I mean, I mean, but, but, but

00:41:21.324 - 00:41:34.274

your rating, you know, that comes from the, comes from the audience, the listening audience. OK. There are what can you do? What can you do to mess up, you know, so to speak, you know, so that, so that, so that, so that your rating with the

00:41:34.274 - 00:41:50.330

audience goes down, you know. Nothing really because people are, I won't say fickle, younger audiences are fickle. So it's just a matter of your job is dependent upon kind of the whims of, of your audience, either, either the audience or, or, or the management, because there,

00:41:50.409 - 00:42:02.560

there are two factors here. Stations change managers and they decide that, uh, either they don't like your voice or you're not the type of jock they would like to have on the air, so they hire someone else and let you go. So you were at the

00:42:02.560 - 00:42:19.010

women fancy not only of people and ratings but management people too, you know, there have been some, been some great disc jockeys, you know, uh, I suppose what's the wolf man, you know, that wolfman Jack, yeah, that, that he was one, that everybody likes, you know,

00:42:19.469 - 00:42:33.629

you know why and how and you know how can you develop that kind of personality and, you know, why does it happen that that some people are so popular, you know. That can be being at the right place at the right time is one factor. Offering

00:42:33.629 - 00:42:48.439

something a little bit different is another factor that attracts people. He became awfully popular when he was in the Southwest working for a station out of Del Rio, Texas. See, in the United States, you're only That the highest powered stations are those who have 50,000 watts

00:42:48.439 - 00:43:02.719

of power. You cannot have any more than 50,000 watts of power. This particular station, X ERG or something like that, had their transmitter in Mexico where they could up their power to enormous watts of power and beam all over the United States. They were sending out

00:43:02.719 - 00:43:18.270

like 100,000 watts of power. So virtually he was heard all over the United States. Oh, I see. He happened to to to change his voice to a distinctive style which everybody kind of dug along those times and uh the fact that he would advertise those stupid

00:43:18.270 - 00:43:31.310

little products where you send the dollar in and uh you get this, that and the other or send down here and get some records. Uh, people, kids, kids and people are constantly dialing around to hear something different, and you know, it's kind of hard to explain

00:43:31.310 - 00:43:42.830

a phenomenon because, you know, if you could explain it, you know, you could go out here and be an instant success tomorrow. But, uh, he became popular because people could hear him all over the country and because he had a distinctive style because he played the

00:43:42.830 - 00:43:58.469

type of music they wanted to hear. OK, so now you're not at KCMO anymore, you're at WHB. When did you go to WHB? OK, in, uh, November of 1975. What happened, you see, when I, uh, before I left KCMO, I went off the air at 73.

00:43:58.590 - 00:44:13.310

I was offered an opportunity to move up into sales, uh. At one point in your life you decide that you don't want to be a 50 or 60 year old disc jockey, doing the same old thing and obviously being on a set salary you're limited, you

00:44:13.310 - 00:44:27.330

know, as to what you can make. So the opportunity was given to me to come up to sales to be a commission only employee with the sky at the limit, you know, depending on how much I sell, I can make whatever I want to make, so.

00:44:28.189 - 00:44:39.830

I accepted the opportunity because I was getting a little tired of disc jockeying, so I went to sales in 1973. Well, at that time, the station was doing very well in the ratings and bringing in a lot of revenue, and the economy was good because we

00:44:39.830 - 00:44:57.530

had the Vietnam War going. The war began to wind down. Along about 7475. But prior to that, the economy began to go to pot and the stations were not bringing the revenue that they formerly had brought in. Well, the corporation that owned the station I worked

00:44:57.530 - 00:45:08.770

for brought in a new general manager. He changed the format completely and every time you change your format, you're going to lose people because first of all you're going to lose those people who have listened to you and thought you were doing the type of thing

00:45:08.770 - 00:45:25.949

they like to hear. You're going to gain some other people who like now what you're doing who didn't like it before, but in the interim. When the rating is taken, this audience is on on a shifting basis, so it's gonna show your station on a decline,

00:45:26.290 - 00:45:37.350

so as a result they were not bringing in the money as uh because they had gone down in the ratings and because they were changing formats. It became a situation where I couldn't make the type of money I wanted to make. I was given an offer

00:45:37.350 - 00:45:47.870

to go to WHP a year before I went, but I turned it down because I felt things were going to be OK, and I'd been with KCM for so many years. But there comes a time when sometimes when you know the offer came up again a

00:45:47.870 - 00:46:04.784

year later and I couldn't turn it down. It was a golden opportunity because WHB, of course, is one of First top 40 stations in the nation, it's enjoyed tremendous success for over 20 years doing virtually the same thing, keeping up to date with music and promotions,

00:46:05.354 - 00:46:22.969

but virtually doing the same thing, playing perhaps what we call top 40 music, and it's still a number one station today. So as a result, I couldn't turn it down. I went over there in November 1975, um, as far as. You know, people are changing. I

00:46:22.969 - 00:46:39.330

mean, you know, when the, when the management changes and you go to a different format, you know, you pick up different kind of people, right. You know what is the explanation, you know, for that, and how do you feel about that, you know, you pick up

00:46:39.330 - 00:46:51.689

different kind of people, but, you know, I mean, well, you might, you might get shuffled out in the whole process. Yeah, you got to look into the rating system. First of all, there are 3 basic rating systems. Perhaps one of the first in radio was what

00:46:51.689 - 00:47:06.530

we call Hooper, and that was done by people sitting down and calling people on the telephone asking them what station they're listening to. That was one of the first ways of listening. Now you gotta remember in ratings, you don't interview everybody that's a potential listener. Yeah,

00:47:06.610 - 00:47:23.600

you have a sample, and then you base that. You, you prorate it and say, well, for every 5 persons that I talked to, uh. We can say that they spoke for 200 people, OK, you see what I mean? So as a result, yeah, and then that

00:47:23.600 - 00:47:35.270

became not as sophisticated as some of the later ones. Pulse came out with a survey where they actually sent a questionnaire into the home where people actually had to sit down and fill it out, which was a bit more sophisticated but still was not the criteria.

00:47:35.949 - 00:47:49.729

The most accepted way now is the arbitron, or ARB as we call it, which comes out twice a year in this market. In some markets it comes out 4 times a year. Stations subscribe to ratings. They pay them a fee for conducting a rating in your

00:47:49.729 - 00:48:04.330

area. The ARB is the most sophisticated that I know of because it's all done with computers except for the questionnaires. They determine they're going to send out so many questionnaires for a given area. It's in the form of a diary where a person and every member

00:48:04.330 - 00:48:19.610

of the family who decides to whatever family decides to accept it, they put a diary in the hands of just about every member of the family. They record what they do, what their listening habits or their viewing habits if it's television every day, sometimes in quarter

00:48:19.610 - 00:48:37.165

hour. Increments so that they can not only determine a cum audience, a total audience of a station with unduplicated listeners or the average quarter hour listener, and that's that's another story, but it is a real sophisticated. OK, all of the, all of these diaries are sent

00:48:37.165 - 00:48:50.209

out over a 2 month period. They're gathered up. And uh sent to their computer headquarters where it's fed into a computer and then they come up with all these figures determining how many listeners the station's got, how many what they call cue listeners, how many quarter

00:48:50.209 - 00:49:04.239

hour listeners and all and like that. So to date that's the most sophisticated. So you got to realize that it's important, as I told you before, for a station to make money by virtue of selling advertising. That's how, you know, some people think radio stations sell,

00:49:04.550 - 00:49:17.260

sell records, but they don't. Records are only played as a means of providing programming, you know. My son asked me the other day, he thought, you know, that as long as he knows that I've been in radio, he asked me, he thought radio stations sold records.

00:49:17.300 - 00:49:31.860

I said, no, they sell advertisement. That's how they make their money, so. A manager is required to make so much more like any business, you know, you make a profit this year. You make so much profit. Well, you're. You have a quota that you have to

00:49:31.860 - 00:49:44.300

meet next year, which is usually 10 to 20% more. You've got to sell more next year. OK, well, usually he's working for that corporation and that corporation stockholders want him to make more and more money. And as a result, if he doesn't get the ratings and

00:49:44.300 - 00:49:59.300

doesn't get the revenue in from advertising, his job is gone. So if pressure is put on him, he's going to change his people on the air because he's, he's trying to find some reason that he didn't get the ratings, see what I mean? OK. You don't

00:49:59.300 - 00:50:10.550

want to be a 60 year old DJ. Why not? Oh, there's nothing wrong with it. I really got, I really got tired of it and I thought it was a golden opportunity, you know, if you're given an opportunity to get in sales because it's, it's the

00:50:10.550 - 00:50:22.699

highest paid profession in the world, uh, a man really shouldn't turn it down. I, I didn't really want to go into sales because I'm not the type of person that can go out and ask for, you know, things to, to try to sell things, but, uh.

00:50:23.360 - 00:50:34.310

It's a different type of sell nowadays than it used to be, you know. If you've got a good product, you don't really have to go out and give a hard sell. You have certain appliance that you're that you and only you from that station can call

00:50:34.310 - 00:50:55.639

on. You're given what we call an advertising list. OK, um, There's something else, something else that occurred to me, we'll, which we'll come back to in a minute. Uh, you're still at, You're WHB now, OK. You have a, a little different kind of audience, a different

00:50:55.639 - 00:51:08.790

kind of forum. How did you like that and what was it about? OK, uh, I had, it, it really wasn't anything new because I've known about the station ever since I've been in Kansas City. It was, uh, When I first came here in '53, I guess

00:51:08.790 - 00:51:23.439

it was owned by uh Cook Paint and Varnish and ultimately was bought by Stores Corporation and uh they turned it into a top 40 station. Well, it's been successful in that format for over 20 years, so I knew I was going to a top rated station,

00:51:23.790 - 00:51:34.919

so I was really looking forward to it. The only thing that really mattered was what kind of list I would have a list of accounts that I would call on, which turned out to be a very, very good list with the potential for making very good

00:51:34.919 - 00:51:47.530

money. Uh, so I was really looking forward to it. I knew what I was going into, and it's the type of thing that most sales people aspire to, uh, no matter whether, whether he's selling media or whether he's selling industrial products. If he knows he's got

00:51:47.530 - 00:52:06.050

a list of clients who have, uh, track record of having bought well for the past several years, he knows he's got a good list of people to call on. So you've gone from, you've gone from announcer to sales, uh. OK. You're making more money, so things

00:52:06.050 - 00:52:23.590

are looking better. You're more successful. Um, Something that I'm interested in, you know. You weigh economic factors pretty heavily, you know, in the, in the decisions that you make, you know, but at the same time I see some kind of social commitment from you, you know,

00:52:23.929 - 00:52:40.010

and I'm, I'm wondering about, you know, whether you do things like, you know, uh, work with kids or that kind of thing. Yeah, I do, uh, I'll tell you. I'm a firm believer that uh whatever you do in life, you owe something back to other people

00:52:40.010 - 00:52:54.260

who are less fortunate than you and uh even if they aren't less fortunate, at least you owe something to your community for having given you a good life. So, About 3 or 4 years ago I got involved with several organizations. I know you can get top

00:52:54.260 - 00:53:07.739

heavy with belonging to organizations and not really do anything that's effective, so I decided to limit the amount of organizations that I belong to and try to work very hard on those that I did belong to. So I broke it down into 3 categories. I worked

00:53:07.739 - 00:53:23.639

with the Niles Home for Children on their, their board, and, uh, at present we're in the process of trying to build a new home for the kids over on 23rd Street across from the old from the Lincoln Junior High School. I, uh, Handle the day care

00:53:23.639 - 00:53:37.719

center at my church, the Saint John Lutheran Church at Forty-fifth and Benton, and, uh, work with those kids, you know, a lot of them come from inner city homes. Uh, they're not all poor. Some are children of teachers and all, but, uh, they're primarily black kids,

00:53:38.280 - 00:53:57.389

some from disadvantaged homes. So I devote a lot of time to that, and, uh, I belong to an organization called what we call YUMA, it's United Minority Media Association. It's, uh, Basic idea was to help those people who are already in media work such as radio

00:53:57.389 - 00:54:24.360

and television, newspapers, those who are working in public relations for various firms around town. It's designed primarily to help them. Get the type of training and schooling they need to Accede to upward mobility. OK, Chuck, I know you've got something going with Numa called a book

00:54:24.360 - 00:54:38.560

scholarship. Can you explain to me what that's about? Well, the lady who was the head of our education committee, uh, Rosa James, who works for the Kansas City School District, she's a reading specialist, came up with the idea of giving some kind of scholarships to youths

00:54:38.560 - 00:54:57.270

who are going to college to study journalism. And since in our first year we didn't have that much money to really put up what we would call a nice scholarship, we decided to give $500 and break it up to $100 book scholarships. And we went through

00:54:57.270 - 00:55:19.870

a selection process where we talked to school counselors of basic 5 black schools in the Kansas City area who selected students, uh, that they thought would be uh. The student to best represent A journalism class who were going on to take journalism in college and I'm

00:55:19.870 - 00:55:38.520

not really sure how the selection process went, but we did select 5 black minority, uh, kids who were going on to college. We gave them $100 scholarships to help them with their books, right, right, and the, the, the checks, uh, in, in increments of $100 each

00:55:38.520 - 00:55:53.590

were sent to the various. Colleges that they were going to attend and that was our first effort in that area. How are those students getting along? As far as I know, to my knowledge, they all entered school now. One girl apparently we thought had not entered

00:55:53.590 - 00:56:09.939

school and the school apparently made an error and sent the check back to us. But I understand that the girl is in school and is doing quite well, as are the others, and so we're preparing to send that check back. You said. Nima's first year, maybe

00:56:09.939 - 00:56:26.929

you were talking about, uh, how old an organization is you Yuma is about a year old now, this is actually your first year of the scholarship? What do you hope to do with, you know, giving students scholarships and You know, what do you have to do

00:56:26.929 - 00:56:51.939

by doing that? Well, it follows through with one of our basic objectives and uh Uh, our objective number 5 to help train and employ more minority directors, projectionists, engineers, editors, reporters, public relations specialists, salespersons, disc jockeys, photographers, anyone interested in entering into mass communications, we'd like

00:56:51.939 - 00:57:11.580

to, uh, do whatever we could to help them. So not only are you working with people who are established already in mass communications, but you're helping to train them too, but this book scholarship came. Um, OK, you've been, you know, involved in communications for a long

00:57:11.580 - 00:57:38.909

time, um. What kind of things would you say to people about going into communications? You know, for people, for people who are interested. And communications. First of all, There are, ah, it's, it's a limited field. Yeah. and highly competitive. And I would suggest for anyone to

00:57:39.709 - 00:57:57.439

select the area or areas that he or she would like to work in. Try to get as much schooling. In that particular area is possible, but, but not restrict themselves to a particular area. In other words, they should take a general communications course or a journalism

00:57:57.439 - 00:58:14.120

course, not only in writing, news gathering, but in all facets of media because you never know what you might be doing. Uh, I mentioned that there is a limitation of jobs, you know, a station can only employ so many people and, uh, sometimes you have to

00:58:14.120 - 00:58:37.080

start at the. The level maybe maybe of a secretary or something like that and then work yourself up but at least you're around it and that gives you some some sort of experience it's in itself just being around it. OK. When I got into uh radio,

00:58:37.199 - 00:58:55.100

uh, it was, I was told that Basically they were looking for someone with experience and most patients do uh they want someone with about 5 years experience this is this is the norm but They will tell you to go to an outlying area, a small market,

00:58:55.580 - 00:59:10.800

Kansas City being like the 21st radio market. The nation is considered a large market. So they tell you to go to a small market and, and try to work for a small radio station or television station and get some experience. But nowadays Those patients too are

00:59:10.800 - 00:59:27.110

looking for someone with experience. So you know, the average kid is wondering, you know, where do I go and what do I do? So, if you can't get the experience, try to get as much schooling as you can. And try to hang around, try to, try

00:59:27.110 - 00:59:42.570

to latch on wherever you can. I, I know a lot of guys come out of college with journalism degrees and they end up as, uh, uh, floor directors, a TV station, or at least they start out. That's the guy who, uh, takes directions from the director

00:59:42.989 - 01:00:00.320

and, uh, sort of handles the talent in the studio. He, he directs them to whatever camera they're on and things like that. He guides them. While it's considered a menial type job in media, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's important, probably more important at the network level

01:00:00.320 - 01:00:13.439

than it would be at the local level, but it gives you some experience. It gets you around where the action is. And, uh, the only fallacy with, with going to college and getting it, and I would not, I would not ask any kid not to go

01:00:13.439 - 01:00:25.520

to college. I think it's important. I think all kids should get as much education as possible, get as much, get as much theory. The only, the only drawback to getting the theory is the fact that once you do go to work for a television or radio

01:00:25.520 - 01:00:48.350

station, basically all the. During the civil rights heyday in the 60s. How did the behavior of blacks nationally affect what was happening with blacks in media? And then secondly, what was happening around the local scene and civil rights that affected blacks in media in this area?

01:00:49.459 - 01:01:17.689

Well, That's really one question because uh it all fell in love. During the Primarily in 1968 when Martin Luther King was assassinated. Uh, And there was an outbreak of what were called riots, but I termed them civil disturbances. All across the nation. Blacks began to. Wondered

01:01:17.689 - 01:01:33.070

why they had not really had a piece of the pie. It really brought it home to them that they really had been denied a lot of rights. And when white reporters were sent into the areas where the riots or civil disturbances were going on, people began

01:01:33.080 - 01:01:44.649

questioning how come black people couldn't do the same thing. If you got to cover black news, if it's that important, why not, why not sending black reporters in? So all of a sudden the network started rushing out to their affiliated stations trying to find someone who

01:01:44.870 - 01:02:01.860

had been hired on a local level, a black minority, and, uh, they started hiring them, and, uh, the local stations did virtually the same thing. I can remember. During that year 1968 when we had the civil disturbance in Kansas City, I was working for KCMO radio.

01:02:02.340 - 01:02:14.290

I worked on TV, as I've told you before, TV as well as radio, but I was not on camera on television. I was only a booth announcer. OK. I was also in the National Guard at that time and I was called out to duty during the

01:02:14.290 - 01:02:35.370

civil disturbances of 1968, and that week that King was slain just prior to Easter. And The governor was concerned about getting citizens on to try to get people to calm down. To, to reason together, to stop the rioting. And as a result, the station called me

01:02:35.370 - 01:02:51.709

back and asked me to do a public service announcement. I could write my own copy, asking people to uh Try to calm down and not to, not create disturbances, not to, not do the burning and uh just, just in general, to, to, to quell the disturbances.

01:02:51.790 - 01:03:10.389

So as a result, Most local stations decided that they had better get black people on their staffs, and as a result, it helped the employment of blacks probably more than at any time in the history of mass communication. It also was a bad thing because instead

01:03:10.389 - 01:03:24.270

of trying to get kids who had come out of school who had been well trained, they virtually pulled people off the street. And uh by, by that I mean they, they did get some people who had been college trained but were not the best candidates for

01:03:24.270 - 01:03:36.310

being on, you know, you, you, well, people study, you go to the school and study various things, it doesn't mean that they're experts at it or can do a good job at it, you know. So as a result, they hired a lot of bad people. And

01:03:36.310 - 01:03:50.300

to me, to this day, there's still that tendency instead of trying to pick out the best black, they have a slot that they call a black slot. They just spell it with a black, the first black virtually that comes along. I see. In what kind of

01:03:50.300 - 01:04:05.800

situation like what was going on in the latter 60s. You know, I would think that a journalist would have a real problem with objectivity versus involvement and commitment and that kind of thing, um, you know, even to the point where you have some kind of ambivalence

01:04:05.800 - 01:04:24.060

about your role. Here's blacks out in the streets rioting and whatnot, and you're covering them. Did that kind of thing affect you at all? Yeah, it sure did. Uh. Because I felt, uh, a part of the injustice. I had been discriminated against also. But you, you

01:04:24.060 - 01:04:38.620

not only have that pressure from feeling some sort of sympathy with the rioters. But you also had the thing pulling at you to try to do the best job you could because there was the first chance you had to be on and you knew you had

01:04:38.620 - 01:04:56.060

to prove that you're worth. So there you got all these, these two things tugging against you up against the wall, a lot of pressure on you, but black people have always been able to withstand pressure. They've had it all their lives, you know. Um, Objectives of

01:04:56.060 - 01:05:17.770

union. You skipped over that. Uh, you mentioned one of the objectives. I mean maybe briefly you could just run through the To withhold objectives of this is united. Minority Media Association. Right, I'd be happy to. It's basically a not for profit corporation which came into existence

01:05:17.770 - 01:05:35.159

because of the need for more minorities in all areas of the media. Its priorities are to develop a communications network which will inform minorities of job openings in the media. It will also assist media employers in locating minority candidates who are qualified for specific job requirements.

01:05:36.699 - 01:05:52.510

We would like to provide in-service training for all personnel involved in gathering, reporting, and disseminating news to help make them more sensitive to the needs of the minority community. We would like to become a cohesive unit within the city and help in the development and growth

01:05:52.510 - 01:06:12.699

of the minority community. And more specifically, we intend to offer assistance to minorities wishing to enter mass communications. To upgrade qualifications of minorities who are presently employed in the media through college degrees and on the job training and for internships. To involve more minorities in local

01:06:12.699 - 01:06:36.840

advertising, to develop minority production projects. To help train and employ more minority directors, projectionists, engineers, editors, reporters, public relations specialists, salespersons, disc jockeys, photographers, artists, and so on. We intend also to affiliate with other organizations across the nation interested in minority media development. And to set

01:06:36.840 - 01:06:53.729

up a library and information center. And as a result, we did obtain a couple of years ago, a certificate of incorporation from the state of Missouri with at that time approximately 50 charter members and the board of directors and also an advisory board. The objectives of

01:06:53.729 - 01:07:12.800

the organization are rather sweeping, you know. Yeah, they are. It's, uh, awfully ambitious. Yes, yes. Uh, how is the organization functioning so far, you know, in carrying out the objectives that, that you've set down. Not as well as we would like, you know, uh, I think

01:07:12.800 - 01:07:26.780

basically, you look way down the line and, and you encompass, as you said, it's, it is a sweeping group. And you find that you can fight on too many fronts. So then you decide at some point in time that you have to hone in on specific

01:07:26.780 - 01:07:46.100

things and accomplish them and then go on to something else. We attempted to set up various committees, and we still have those committees functioning. And get them into the various areas. But because of the nature of our organization, which, which means we are in effect an

01:07:46.100 - 01:08:04.209

association, people who belong to the organization have jobs. They can't devote full time to Yuma. We do not have any full-time employees. It's awfully, awfully difficult to, uh, Get people to give the amount of time that they would like to give and we'd like to have

01:08:04.209 - 01:08:20.759

them give. So as a result, we just have to pick where we can and uh urge and shove and push and Uh, cajole them into, into action and I think basically our committees have done a good job for the uh time limitation that they have, uh,

01:08:21.109 - 01:08:35.039

and the, you know, the restrictions on their time. But, uh, obviously we're not doing all we'd like to do. We were able to accomplish in our first year, which is something that, uh, a lot of groups have not done, uh, and that is to give the

01:08:35.039 - 01:08:53.789

scholarships. We also that first year went into the high schools, took a group of people and assigned them to various high schools to, uh, give what we call many MINI seminars to, uh, students who were interested in entering into mass communications and who were already enrolled

01:08:53.789 - 01:09:09.089

in drama and things like that. So, uh, we've been pretty visible in the community, uh, like I said, not, uh, I guess you never, if, if you ever get satisfied with what you're doing, you're really not doing anything. So we're not really satisfied, but, uh, we're

01:09:09.089 - 01:09:29.959

still working hard and, uh. Trying to keep everybody busy. OK, to direct you to a more personal question. Uh, you were talking about Humor and its objectives and the reason that you know it's established in the kind of philosophical sense you know I'm interested in things

01:09:29.959 - 01:09:50.950

in your own personal history that you know are responsible for you being involved with you know. You know, or the particular incident, you know, which, you know, and we said, OK, well, I've got to do something. You know, because of these particular incidents. First of all,

01:09:51.069 - 01:10:06.899

I I'm the type of person that believes that you have to give some kind of a public service. I think everybody should feel they should give some kind of a public service sometime to someone else. If you've benefited from life or your profession at all, you

01:10:06.899 - 01:10:20.500

should devote some kind of time somewhere to somebody. Either who was less fortunate than you or who was trying to accomplish the same thing that you're trying to have there been any unfortunate things in your own career that make you want to go back and make

01:10:20.500 - 01:10:36.950

it easier for other people going into journalism and not extremely so. There have been, yes, obviously when I was at KPRS and I had gotten out of the army, I had gone, I left there in 1957, went to the army, came back in 1959. Uh, I

01:10:36.950 - 01:10:54.720

applied at KCMO, the station I subsequently went to work for. I applied there in 1959. They would not accept my application because I was a minority. At that time they didn't have to. Now, uh, they have to accept the application whether they're high or not, uh,

01:10:54.959 - 01:11:10.870

because of the fact they're regulated by it was at one time solely white. Yes, originally KC KPRS was right. I think you said that right, originally they were, and then they were bought by blacks. Well, I'd, I'd applied and try to get into, uh, what we

01:11:10.870 - 01:11:25.089

call a general market station like KCO. They, they refused my application. And uh I realized then that uh if it was ever going to be done, uh, and if I ever ever was ever able to succeed in getting on a general market station that I would

01:11:25.089 - 01:11:41.430

do everything I could to make it easier for someone else, uh, who was a minority to get on. Uh, and that's probably the basic thing that that drove me to an organization like this at this point in history, so many blacks have stories like that and

01:11:41.430 - 01:11:59.350

they're kind of pulling themselves up by their own bootstraps and then helping other blacks, and, which is particularly admirable. But let me say this now, uh, the primary reason I was hired by KCMO was because the time was right. The civil rights disturbances were beginning to

01:11:59.350 - 01:12:12.529

peak. So you can't is 1966. You can't divorce yourself from the whole no, no, I was swept up in it, man. The time was just right, and, uh, I, I know why I was hired because it was time, you know, and I, so I, I got

01:12:12.529 - 01:12:23.000

in on the fringe. I really did. So it really wasn't a thing where I pulled myself up on the bootstraps. I was determined. I wanted to get in, you know, and I would have gotten in, you know, any, any way I could have, but that's certainly

01:12:23.000 - 01:12:37.839

helped me, no doubt about that. It really did. So I figured, you know, why not? I, you know, it could help me, so why not, you know, do whatever I can to make it easier for someone else. Another kind of similar question that I have is

01:12:37.839 - 01:12:56.700

about memorable kind of occurrences throughout your career. But anytime in your career, things that you remember today, you know, that are somehow or another important uh to you personally or that you think You know, you have been involved in that are important to blacks and minorities

01:12:56.700 - 01:13:10.350

in this country, in this area. Well, I guess the first thing, yeah, the first thing I had to remember, and I think I told you about this earlier, the first commercial I ever did on the air, that was memorable because, uh, I wanted to get on

01:13:10.350 - 01:13:23.330

the air so badly and I had no idea that I'd be as nervous as I was, and I read a one minute spot in about 40 seconds and paused after every sentence, you know, swallowing, uh, I guess. And I'm just taking these off the top of

01:13:23.330 - 01:13:37.450

my head, not in any particular order. Uh, during the 50s when I first came here, 18th and Vine and 12th and Vine were swinging in places. And of course, now that everybody's going through a big nostalgia kick and looking back at those days, the city was

01:13:37.450 - 01:13:53.439

really alive and I guess it's becoming alive again, but in those days there were a lot of top artists coming into clubs like the Orchid Room and the Rose Room. For instance in the blue room. Uh, oh gosh, artists like Chuck, uh, Chuck Willis, uh, Dinah

01:13:53.439 - 01:14:10.129

Washington, Moms Maley, George Kirby, Dakota State. Uh, any number of artists, and you got to meet Arthur Price, yeah, got a chance to go down and talk to them. We used to interview them on the station and usually at KPRS we used to have people come

01:14:10.129 - 01:14:21.770

out if they were appearing in town. They'd come out and make me perform in our studio. We'd interview them and if they had a band or something, they would play. I remember, I remember very vividly for Little Richard. When he first came to town and he

01:14:21.770 - 01:14:33.379

was just starting out, it was called Little Richard and the Temple Talkers. He had a group and he played the piano and sang, and this was just before he hit it real big with things like Long Tall Sally and things like that. They came and performed

01:14:33.379 - 01:14:47.020

in the KPR studios. And so, you know, I got a chance to meet people like that, people who were recording artists, you know, Ruth Brown, people like that. That was extremely interesting. At a very impressionable time and some of those people are dead and down in

01:14:47.020 - 01:15:02.640

Washington, but do you still keep personal contact with those people? No, I don't mean because I've moved into another, uh, area of communications which is sales, and you don't normally come in contact with a lot of personalities. I still do interviews on, you know, television, but,

01:15:02.680 - 01:15:14.270

uh. Usually most people come to town like that, it's like on a weekend and it's a little bit more difficult when you're doing an interview type show to get camera people out to, uh, do interviews and things like that. I was just, I was just kind

01:15:14.270 - 01:15:29.404

of interested in the nostalgia of it, you know, whether you, you know, kept in contact with them. You know, you, they, they, they're traveling, you know, doing one-nighters and going across the country during the time when I was playing records. Usually disc jockeys do keep up

01:15:29.404 - 01:15:41.765

because the disc jockeys play their records and things like that and make them hit records for them and make it possible for them to work. Uh, they will send you Christmas cards and things like that when remember you, but, uh, it's, that's if I said Chuck

01:15:41.765 - 01:15:55.549

Moore, if I said Chuck Moore to any of these really famous people, you think they would remember I'm sure they would. I wasn't, uh. What you would call one of the top jocks in the nation or anything like that. No, no, I'm sure they wouldn't. Uh,

01:15:56.379 - 01:16:12.770

I guess is one of the things that I want to ask you. Are you basically satisfied with your life and your career? Has it been rewarding. Yeah, I think at this stage, I must say that uh I am, uh, when I was approaching the 40s, uh,

01:16:12.850 - 01:16:29.839

I went through that. 40 scared syndrome as most men do where you feel that. You haven't accomplished all the things you want to accomplish in life. And uh A bit of panic sets in because you, you realize that life is going by pretty fast and you're,

01:16:29.930 - 01:16:42.290

you know, you're in the middle ages and then all of a sudden I realized with Canada, if I'm not here, I have to be somewhere and I have, you know, I guess really I got into radio when I was 19, probably one of the youngest disc

01:16:42.290 - 01:16:52.959

jockeys ever. And I've done a lot of things. I've seen a lot of people, I've met a lot of people, I've had a lot of fun. I've got a chance to do exactly what I wanted to do and make money at it and have fun. So

01:16:52.959 - 01:17:06.430

I really am happy and, and I've moved on from that and gone into an area that's, that's brand new. It's an area where you can make Make money and, and, uh, be fairly secure and so I guess I really am kind of satisfied, uh, in that

01:17:06.430 - 01:17:19.529

respect as far as a personal thing. The, the other personal thing that is an overriding factor in my life now is the fact that I want to help other people as much as I possibly can. You you seem to be doing that. You seem to be

01:17:19.529 - 01:17:36.029

doing good. I guess we could go on, you know, and talk about so many things, you know, it's all been very interesting to me. No we need to cut it off here, I suppose. So it's been good talking to you. Thank you very much. I thank

01:17:36.029 - 01:17:37.790

you for the opportunity. Right, thanks a lot.