Radio Articles

Garnett A. Marks, born March 21, 1899, at St. Louis, Missouri, educated in and graduated from St. Louis grammar and high schools, enlisted in the 138th U.S. Infantry shortly after graduating from Soldan High school in the class of January 1917. Served in this regiment until discharged because of prolonged illness at Camp Doniphan, Ft. Sill, Oklahoma. Returned home and after return to health joined the ambulance corps of the American Red Cross, serving as a driver of this unit in France until after the Armistice.

For several months after returning to the states was engaged in newspaper work as a reporter in Philadelphia, then became interested in aviation and served as an observer and photographer with the 13th Squadron, Surveillance, at Kelly Field, San Antonio, Texas.

First entered radio with KFI, Los Angeles, as a “song plugger” for a Los Angeles music publishing house. Later he became staff baritone and announcer.

In the autumn of 1926 he returned to St. Louis, and joined the KMOX staff.

He was offered the position of sports announcer for KMOX, and throughout the seasons of 1927 and 1928 Garnett broadcast every game played in St. Louis, and on rainy days and open dates he could be heard giving play by play accounts furnished by ticker of the most important out of town game on such days.

Thousands of letters attested to his popularity and outstanding success as a baseball announcer and the opinion was almost unanimous that he was without peer in this line of endeavor. As a reward for his untiring and exceptional efforts to faithfully serve the vast audience with accurate, up to the minute and interesting baseball dope for 1928, Garnett was given a trip to New York to witness and help describe via the Columbia network the opening games of the series between the Yankees and the Cards played in the Yankee Stadium there.

In 1929, he returned to the Pacific Coast, singing in numerous sound productions created on Hollywood lots.
When work before the movie microphone was slack, he free lanced among several of the Hollywood and Los Angeles radio stations as announcer and singer. Late in 1930 he received an excellent offer from WENR, Chicago, to come on there as an announcer, and immediately installed himself as a favorite with the listeners of that station, which was absorbed by the NBC on March 1st, 1931.

So it was not long after that his friends throughout the land heard him as a network announcer on programs emanating from the Merchandise Mart, Chicago.

Because of the uncertain health of his father, Garnett returned to St. Louis late in November of 1931. He became an announcer at KMOX.

Recently he joined the staff of WIL, where he has taken over the Breakfast Club Express and can be heard every week day from 7 to 9:15 a.m. He also acts in the capacity of WIL news reporter. His hobbies are writing and aviation, the latter not altogether meeting with the approval of his family. His favorite sports, many of which he still indulges in, and the order of their popularity with him, are swimming, football, baseball, and horse back riding. He is married and has a charming young daughter.

(Originally published in Radio & Entertainment 7/16/1932).

(Unsigned article)

Katherine McIntyre’s desire for the original and something different, together with her unusual qualities as a violinist and business woman, have been responsible for her steady rise to the eminent position she now holds in the field of radio broadcasting – Program Director of Radio Station KMOX, the Voice of St. Louis.

Miss McIntyre has had wide and varied experiences in the musical world. She has been concert violinist, accompanist, teacher, staff violinist, studio director, program director and has appeared on the concert stage and in vaudeville in almost all of the large cities in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Italy, France and Austria, and thru her untiring efforts, musical ability and a desire to achieve something, she has earned the difficult and exceedingly responsible position as Program Director of one of the largest and most powerful radio stations in America – KMOX.

Not only is Miss McIntyre gifted with musical talents bordering on the genius but she also has the unusual qualifications of an executive and business woman. It is seldom indeed that these two qualities are found in one individual but leave it to Miss McIntyre to be different. Yes, it’s her innate desire for the original that has been the contributing factor in her rise from “just another fiddler” to the executive in charge of all programs originating from the KMOX studios.

Another characteristic which has been a great aid to the success of this unusual personage is her mild easy personality which instantly wins respect from even the most casual acquaintance. One just needs but to step into her office, engage her in conversation for a few moments to feel the effects of her winning personality, which fairly breathes of sincerity, truthfulness and understanding. There is no need for sternness in the exercising of her many duties for Miss McIntyre is so sincere and understanding that the element of force is unnecessary.

Miss McIntyre began the study of music at the age of five years at the old Horner Institute of Music in Kansas City, Missouri, where she attracted so much attention that at the age of 16 she was taken on a concert tour which lasted for about five years, in which time she visited every state in the union and played in most of the large cities of the United States, Canada, and Mexico.

Concert work became tiring for Miss McIntyre, it had lost its originality and appeal. So after her last concert tour she entered the field of vaudeville making the country on the old Kieth Circuit as a headliner. Soon too this new field lost its glamour and glitter for it bordered on the monotonous. Where then was something original? What new field could she enter? Radio then was in its infancy and did not hold the possibilities for immediate advancement. Europe was the place to go. There would be something different in the way of music. She would go abroad to study and to exercise her musical talents. So this restless lady sailed to Europe and studied in Paris, Florenz and Vienna under such noted masters as Mario d’Ancona and Kreily. Miss McIntyre stayed in Europe for over two years studying and making personal appearances in the larger cities of the old continent. Soon too this became dull and too, radio began to develop and to offer possibilities. So one day in Vienna she heard that KMOX was to be organized, right then and there came to the decision to enter the field of radio broadcasting. Quickly she sailed for home and came to St. Louis to become a staff violinist of KMOX.

Her career as a staff artist was short-lived for the managers of KMOX saw in this lady possibilities that were more valuable to them than her musical talents. Yes, violinists could be had at almost any time, perhaps not as skilled and talented as Katherine, but they could answer the purpose anyway. So Katherine was made Studio Director, a position of responsibility which required real executive ability. It was she who would see to it that all programs were broadcast at [their] scheduled time and it was she who would see to it that all artists were at the studio in time for their programs. These duties took almost all of her time but she saw improvements that could be made in various programs. She visualized new programs that could be created, so in her spare time which by the way was very spare, she tried her hand in originating new and novel programs to break the monotony in the day’s radio schedule. She was so successful in this line that she later was given this creative task along with her other duties.

Miss McIntyre did not mind this extra work, she loved it even if she had to work all hours of the night, then be back to the studios early the next morning, because it gave her the opportunity to do something different, to create new programs and new ideas.

Soon came the “break” that gave Katherine her big opportunity. George Junkin, who was then program director of KMOX resigned and went to his home back East. Katherine was the logical person to succeed him and she was instantly appointed as Program Director, a position she has since held.

Under her direction many new and highly entertaining programs have been created, both local and national. It is she who is responsible for the musical portion of the “Voice of St. Louis Program” which is broadcast for a full hour every Sunday morning at 10:30 over the coast-to-coast network of the Columbia Broadcasting System.

(Originally published in Radio and Entertainment, 10/24/31)

In the early days of radio, the nights were filled with music, but not just any music. In fact, there were very few records being played.

Those nighttime AM radio signals that skipped across the ether to far points unknown usually carried the live sounds of big bands performing in hotels, and St. Louis radio was no exception.

The first live band broadcast in the country was probably on Detroit’s WWJ September 14, 1920. Most scholars credit Vincent Lopez with being the first band leader to be heard regularly on radio, tracing his first broadcast back to November 27, 1921 on WJZ in New York. This was before St. Louis had regular local stations. He would later be heard on KSD via the NBC radio network.

By the time KSD signed on here, its featured musical group was the orchestra from the Statler Hotel. An article in Greater St. Louis magazine in March of 1923 noted, “High class concerts by bands and orchestras…are a frequent source of delight to this station’s great and far-flung audience.” Remote broadcasts in the late ‘20s originated from the Hotel Jefferson and Hotel St. Regis. Later, in the 1930s, the station would broadcast live remotes of the bands playing at the Meadowbrook Country Club in suburban Overland, often feeding these shows to the NBC Network.

That era, in St. Louis and around the country, was fraught with the economic turbulence of the Great Depression. Few people had what is known today as discretionary income, and the radio provided a cost-free diversion from life’s problems. It also provided free entertainment and escapism. Ironically, in a time of economic depression, radio experienced tremendous growth.

Talk with people who lived in that time and they’ll tell you about the importance of radio in their lives. They’ll also remember the late night big band remotes, and those who lived outside the nation’s cities would listen and dream of a day when they could witness those broadcasts firsthand. By 1934, writes Jim Cox in his book “Music Radio,” surveys showed dance music to be the most popular entertainment form on the radio.

A quick survey of St. Louis radio station listings in 1932 and 1933 shows numerous nightly big band remotes: KWK – Irving Rose’s Hotel Jefferson Orchestra, Harry Lange’s & Ted Jansen’s orchestras at Forest Park Highlands, Irving Rose & Joseph Reichman performing on the Statler roof in summer; Joe Reichman and the Hotel Chase Orchestra, Ray DeVinney’s Orchestra at Diane’s Club; KMOX – Al Lyons at Meadowbrook, Charlie Booth’s Varsity Club Orchestra from the Skyway Inn, Bobby Meeker’s Hotel Jefferson Orchestra, Joe Reichman’s Orchestra from the Hotel Coronado, Charlie Booth’s Castle Ballroom Orchestra, Ivan Epinoff’s Orchestra from the Coronado Hotel; WIL – Bill Bailey at the Canton Tea Garden, Al Roth at Majestic Gardens, and Jackson-Marable’s Syncopators at Sauter’s Park.

Of course, these broadcast did more than fill air time. They provided advertising for the venues, all of which were competing for the few discretionary dollars the listeners had. The promotion extended to predictable gimmicks like this one described in Radio & Entertainment August 13, 1932:

“It is rumored that Sauter’s Park, whose music is broadcast nightly over WIL will open a second dance floor. Two bands are presented simultaneously every Saturday and Sunday evenings and now they will open a dance floor for old time dances only. The band will feature waltzes, two steps and square dances.”

Big band remotes were standard broadcast fare through the ‘40s and into the early ‘50s, featuring nationally known groups and territory bands. Buddy Moreno, who settled in St. Louis in the ‘50s, made a name for himself on national broadcasts as he and his band headlined network shows from venues in New York, Chicago, and even the Chase Hotel in St. Louis. Harold Koplar hired him and his band in the late ‘50s as the hotel’s band.

In the golden age of radio, the live big band remotes did what radio did best. Couples would turn on the radio and dance in their parlors, experiencing a momentary escape from reality through radio’s theater of the mind.

(Reprinted with permission of the St. Louis Journalism Review. Originally published 3/06)

Ten years ago when the Benson Brothers, Lester (better known as L.A.) and Clarence (known as C.W.) broadcast their first program in St. Louis, radio was indeed in its infancy. The maximum power of radio stations was about five hundred watts. The best time for broadcasting was decided to be between the hours of 9:00 a.m. and 12:00 midnight, but many of the stations broadcasted about three hours a day, generally one hour during the day and two hours in the evening; and the chief sport was to have distance programs asking for telegrams and letters. Then there was the thrill of hearing one’s name mentioned over the air. Today the program is the most important feature but in those days distance was all important.

Most of the receiving sets at that time were homemade, even the radio transmitters were homemade. Today’s radio receiving sets are works of art and the transmitter in the station is an interesting sight.

In my interview with Mr. Chal Stoup, the Chief Engineer of WIL, and Mr. Kenneth Crank and Bill Keller his very able assistants, they recalled the microphones and loud speakers of ten years ago. At that time morning glory loud speakers were just coming out. These speakers resembled the old phonograph horns and were hoarse and noisy. The first microphone used at WIL, the oldest radio station in St. Louis, [editor’s note: Not true.] was a carbon mike with a megaphone attachment. Today there are several microphones of the latest style in each studio. Ten years ago it was customary to have a mike in the center of the room and the performer would walk up to the mike and entertain. Today’s broadcasting equipment is the latest word in convenience for the artists. Modern mikes may be placed almost anywhere in the studio and will pick up the performance with equally good results. The announcer can talk from a separate room where he has the control of the mike under his fingers. There has (sic) been great changes in radio in the last ten years. One might almost say it has been revolutionized. The Benson Brothers have ever been in the forefront to give their listeners programs of interest and entertainment. L.A. Benson realized the need of sport lovers for a play-by-play description of baseball and wrestling – while C.W. Benson recognized the need of religious and charitable organizations to broadcast their message, so these brothers’ combined efforts have been rewarded by seeing their station grow in popularity and live to celebrate its tenth anniversary.

Ten years ago the first St. Louis radio station [see ed. note above] went on the air with regular programs. This event is being celebrated exactly ten years to the day, when Radio Station WIL’s Tenth Anniversary will be celebrated at the Fox Theater the week of February 19. It is likely there would not have been a Radio Station WIL nor an anniversary celebration had it not been for a young man who years ago began to experiment with that strange phenomenon “Wireless Telegraphy.” He is L.A. Benson, President of the Missouri Broadcasting Corporation, which operates WIL. He built and operated the radiophone broadcasting apparatus that put the first St. Louis program on the air ten years ago.

Benson, now thirty years old, is a radio pioneer despite his youth, for it must be remembered that radio itself is young in years though a giant in size. Benson’s experiments with radio began when he was fourteen years old. Before he was fifteen he had built and was operating an amateur spark station, and organized the first St. Louis Amateur Radio Club which is still in existence.

In 1916 he entered Washington University Night School to study electrical engineering, with a view to making electrical engineering his life work. He remained only six months but accumulated sufficient knowledge in that time to gain for himself the reputation of being one of the best informed persons on the subject in St. Louis.

Benson, when only seventeen, was made a Marconi Wireless Operator aboard the S.S. Arizona, a passenger steamer on Lake Michigan. It was a few months later that America entered the World War and Benson resigned and enlisted in the army. He was sent to Camp Pike, Arkansas, where he became an instructor in Radio and was later commissioned a First Lieutenant. At the close of the war, he returned to St. Louis and opened the Benwood Radio Company, a radio parts and service store, at Thirteenth and Olive Streets. It was here that Benson built his first radio transmitter and put it into service, transmitting experimental programs, and in 1920 broadcast the first voice in St. Louis during the Harding election. The Harding election returns were broadcast by Benson on a home made transmitter from the basement in his home.

When the government started issuing call letters the call “WEB” was given to Benson’s radio transmitter, which was then located at the Benwood Radio Company, 1110 Olive Street, the site now occupied by a large furniture company. It was in this building that the first radio broadcast was sent out on the air. The call letters “WIL” were assigned to the station later.

During the same year the St. Louis Post-Dispatch applied to Benson to have him build them a transmitter to be located on top of the Post Dispatch Building at Twelfth and Olive Street(s). Benson built this transmitter for KSD and operated it during the month of March 1922. In 1924 Benson built the radio transmitter call letters “KFVE” located in the Egyptian Building in University City. He later sold this station to Thomas Patrick Convey, which is now KWK. In 1926 Benson built radio station “KFJG” located at the 138th Infantry and operated that station for sometime broadcasting the first “blow-by-blow” prize fight in the city of St. Louis.

Back in 1921 Benson introduced the first police broadcasting from an automobile in motion. This type of broadcasting was later adopted all over the country and is now being used in the larger cities and in St. Louis. He was also the first to introduce “play-by-play” baseball games which he broadcast from a roof opposite Sportsman’s Park during the season 1926.

He has been the guiding hand of WIL throughout the past ten years and now boasts of having one of the most popular stations in the city of St. Louis. WIL has recently been voted the third most popular radio station in the State of Missouri among twenty one other stations. Station WIL spends more than forty thousand dollars per year hiring local talent and local musicians.

On behalf of the entire staff personnel (sic) of WIL, Mr. Benson wants to thank the thousands and thousands of friends and listeners of Station WIL for their loyal and staunch support during the past ten years of progressive broadcasting by this station.

(Originally published in Radio and Entertainment 2/20/1932.)

(Editor’s note: As noted in the article several of the published claims are dubious, including Benson’s first play-by-play. No other source corroborates these accounts.)

by Yanner Alexander

If John Harrington has an ambition tucked away in his upper left hand desk drawer, it’s to be a big time sports announcer, always providing St. Louis is the home base.

Not a spectator sportsman. Looks like a football player and was. Played guard at University of Arkansas. A three-letter man at Kirkwood H.S. Basketball, football and baseball ranked in that order of his affections.
Baseball worked its way up with him. An outfielder in his senior year at high without playing at all. Now when he broadcasts Cardinal games, he yells so enthusiastically that Thomas Patrick Convey wants him to pipe down a little.

And it’s not a pose. Talking two to three hours from Sportsman’s Park is a grind, and he prefers to take his baseball on off afternoons without benefit of remote control. Believes nearly every St. Louisan is well educated in the fine points of the game, citing the diminishing number of technical queries received by him and other members of the KWK staff – most of them accounted for by the annual crop of small boys. Never misses a local football game and wishes he could announce them over the air.

Born in New York some 23 years ago, Chicago, then St. Louis became his home. Likes his “Saturday night town” better than any other. His program, if any, includes marrying, a pleasant home in the country, two good automobiles, a salary of around $500 a month, just enough work and plenty of time for play. Doesn’t think he’s bright or ambitious, but isn’t so bashful you’d notice it.

Started this interview by spiking the report that he’s engaged to a beautiful blonde. Dates more than one girl answering that description, anyhow. Also, likes them rather small and dark.

However, he’s letting all kinds of engagements slide until fall when he returns from hermiting it out on the river. Let the mountain come—. He’s living out at Drake with Sterling Harkins, whose wife and baby have gone to Mobile, Ala., for the season, and several other congenials. It’s a forty minute drive to the studios.

Working on an alternating schedule, he’s able to get in lots of swimming, his favorite sport as a participant. Was a life guard at Osage Country Club three summers, the hardest job he ever had.

Oh yes, in case you don’t already know and can’t wait for television, he has curly brown hair, nice blue eyes, turned up nose and the beginning of a swell tan. And he likes spinach.

(Originally published in Radio & Entertainment 5/29/1932)

He was a newspaper man in St. Louis. She was a much younger woman who had never heard of him until she started working with him later at a Chicago ad agency. They became the husband/wife team who literally set the broadcast standard for a programming genre.

The two were depicted as “run-of-the-mill types” in the book “Frank and Anne Hummert’s Radio Factory” by former professor and radio researcher Jim Cox.

Frank Hummert decided to leave his job as a “journalist” with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in 1911 to form his own ad agency in St. Louis. After a couple more professional moves, he took a lucrative writing position in the Chicago agency Blackett, Sample & Hummert. Anne Ashenhurst was soon hired as his assistant. Six years later they were married, and the two started Hummert Productions, which was responsible for the creation of over 30 well-known radio soap operas, as well as countless other children’s musical, comedy and mystery shows.

Surprisingly, their first truly successful soaper effort was introduced to the radio audience as a nighttime drama. “Just Plain Bill” went on the air in 1932. Network executives had wrongly believed that women were so busy during the day that they couldn’t afford the luxury of paying attention to a radio show. Moving the program to afternoons proved that theory wrong. At the height of the Hummerts’ career, they had 36 different shows on the air, which accounted for one-eighth of all national radio advertising time.

The process, once put into place, was simple. The couple outlined each plot, then turned the outlines over to their stable of writers, who incorporated knowledge of each character, along with sponsor demands for inclusion, into the plots and finished the scripts. Frank and Anne watched over their empires like the proverbial hawks, sending memoranda when performances failed to meet their standards. Writing later in “Variety” magazine, Robert Landry nailed down one of the secrets of the couple’s success: “It appears that the Hummerts were extremely astute operators in terms of giving sponsors a simple, inexpensive, unobjectionable type of program.”

Anne Hummert told a Chicago Tribune reporter that it was her husband’s vision that was responsible for their success. “The technique of these serials, she ascribes to her husband. For it was he, she says, who perfected it, taught it to her and worked with her.”

For the most part, Cox writes, the Hummert operation was one in which pennies were pinched. The writing was done assembly line style, and the wages paid were below those of other program producers. The same held true for talent fees. On the other hand, it was solid, relatively secure work. And Cox notes that, during the blacklisting associated with Senator Joseph McCarthy’s Red Scare hearings, the Hummert’s company paid no attention to whose names appeared on the lists of purported communist sympathizers, putting the Hummerts in a distinct minority in the entertainment world.

The couple were, he says, dedicated, to and consumed by their work, “These people lived as recluses, in quiet solitude with few if any real friends. They weren’t invited to parties, they seldom appeared in public for such things as Broadway shows, and they evidenced a lifestyle that was built around 14-hour workdays seven days a week.” No one, not even the Hummerts, pretended to produce a highly intellectual product. It may have been mundane, but it was successful.

When network radio withered away in the shadow of television, no effort was made to move to the new medium. Their biographer, Jim Cox, notes that the Hummerts lived out their lives enjoying the wealth they had accumulated. They traveled the world until Frank’s death in March of 1996, a passing that was kept from the press for several weeks at the widow’s request. Cox says, “I think she probably didn’t want anybody to know she was going to have to face the world alone after he died. For maybe 35 years what they shared together had been her whole life. They focused upon building personal wealth at the expense of everything else.”

Their entire collection of scripts and personal papers is held at the University of Wyoming.

(Reprinted with permission of the St. Louis Journalism Review. Originally published 2/2007)