The best-known radio continuity in this section of the country is “A Song For You and You and You” – and especially you over there. And it tells the story of one of the most successful radio programs too. Most of you know what program regularly brings that to listeners – but for the benefit of those few who may not know what that program is, it’s the series of half hours with Gypsy Joe and Bill Durney. I say Gypsy Joe and Bill Durney because since the series began the two have become almost inseparable in radio.
It’s just about a year ago that this tall, rangy fellow walked into the studios of WEW and wanted to get “on the air,” probably to get famous. He did and he did, if you get what I mean. That’s just about a year ago – and since that time Joe has received about thirty or forty thousand pieces of mail and telegrams. And if that isn’t an indication of radio popularity – trot out your own indication.
One of Joe’s latest epistles tells of the formulation of a Gypsy Joe Sewing Club – and some time ago we heard tell of the Gypsy Joe Girls’ Trio, a singing group who probably have memorized every song Joe has sung.
(Originally published in Radio & Entertainment 8/26/1933.)
In radio’s earliest days, there was a lot of excitement on the campus of St. Louis University. The school, it seems, was a pioneer in the medium’s development, long before anyone heard voices coming from their radios.
As early as 1912, the university was trying something new in wireless transmissions. Their station, 9YK, was being used to stay in contact with earthquake and seismological stations around the U.S. The university’s observatory would also transmit weather reports over 9YK, but all these broadcasts were in Morse Code, using a broadcast technology perfected by Marconi some 10 years earlier.
This sort of use of radio waves did not escape the attention of the government, but U.S. entry into World War I brought technological development to a screeching halt. All wireless stations, including the St. Louis University station, were shut down so the nation’s brainpower could be devoted to winning the war. But things on the campus changed quickly.
It seems the government realized the value of wireless in war communications, and it sent 380 young military men to the campus to what was quickly dubbed the Radio and Buzzer School. Run by the War Department, the school trained men for duty as telegraphers in the Army and Navy. There were courses in International Morse Code and the fundamentals of electricity.
Station 9YK was back on the air in 1919, being used by the government to relay weather information and livestock and grain reports across the nation. All records indicate this was still being done in Morse Code, although voice and music transmission had been accomplished elsewhere as early as 1906 by Reginald Fessenden.
Brother George Rueppel
Voice and music first came to the St. Louis airwaves over 9YK at 10:05 a.m. April 26, 1921, when the station was under the oversight of Brother George Rueppel, S.J., who was head of the university’s meteorology department. The first voice heard of WEW was that of University President, the Rev. William Robison, S.J. Regular radio service soon began, with stock market, grain market and weather reports broadcast each day.
On March 23, 1922 the station was licensed by the government and given the call letters WEW, which Bro. Rueppel would later claim stood for “We Enlighten the World.” In the interest of factual trivia, it should be noted that another station in St. Louis had been licensed earlier. The Post-Dispatch station KSD had received its license a couple weeks before, on March 8.
Credited with being the “father” of WEW, Bro. Rueppel can also lay claim to another first here: On July 16, 1921, he brought a gramophone into the campus studio, put on a record and held the station’s microphone up to the horn of the gramophone, thus becoming St. Louis’ first disc jockey. He also hosted a daily show popular with the ladies. “Aunt Sammy’s Prize Recipes,” in which he came across as a cooking expert.
WEW lays claim to being the first university radio station in the U.S., the first station west of the Mississippi, and the first radio broadcast of a quiz show, the “Question Box Hour,” in 1923.
(Reprinted with permission of the St. Louis Journalism Review. Originally published 4/2006)
“The Trials and Tribulations of a Radio Uncle” might well be the title of Bill Durney’s six months as the “Uncle Bill” of the St. Louis Theatrical School program on WEW each Saturday morning.
Hundreds of kiddies have been made “at home” at the microphone by Uncle Bill during this time and each time Bill has had little difficulty with nervous boys and girls who are facing what seems to their minds a demon in disguise.
Uncle Bill claims that he adopted the role of radio uncle easily because he’s been teaching children for quite some time. He’s known to many basketball followers as the coach of the Rock High School girls’ basketball team and that’s the only educational work outside of radio that this writer knows Bill to be in.
As might be imagined, Bill feels very paternal, or “Uncly” if you wish, with a large group of boys and girls around him. Yet despite this paternal feeling, he claims that his most embarrassing moment occurred when one of his “pals” kissed him! But how a nineteen-year-old fellow could feel paternal is a problem that someone else can solve – your writer won’t even attempt it.
This problem was the first of the “kiddie” programs that WEW has sponsored, coming into existence last September and continuing since then as one of the most popular, due, in no small part, to the work of Miss Marie Moser who directs and produces the presentations.
In the six months that this presentation has been made from WEW, Uncle Bill has not missed one scheduled performance with his pals, and the group he works with often numbers more than a score – never less than ten “pals” are on the program but most often there are twenty to twenty-five in the studio with Uncle Bill and Miss Moser. The presence of a large number of boys and girls may make a studio a pleasant place but they can certainly make it, as well, an unpleasant spot for a program conductor and announcer. Uncle Bill frequently introduces kiddies on these programs only to find that the boy and girl, or either, is not to be found – if they are, they’re behind several of their “pals.”
Uncle Bill is really in a place he likes on Saturday mornings, and you’ve never seen a happier “Uncle” than Bill when one of his “Pals” brings him flowers.
(Originally published in Radio & Entertainment 4/15/1933)
The founding of a “University of the Air” has been announced by Rev. Charles T. Corcoran, S.J., Director of the St. Louis University radio station, WEW.
All subjects presented will be offered informally – there will be no formal registration, and there will be no attendance requirements. The program is to be a series of informal lectures on University subjects and will include almost all subjects offered in a university curriculum. History, Literature, Astronomy, Philosophy, Languages, Economics, and Dramatic activities are some of the subjects already scheduled, and more will shortly be added.
The purpose of these programs is to offer such material as is of educational significance, and all the lectures will be presented in as non-technical a manner as possible. The programs will be interesting and will appeal to the casual listener; they will, however, be conducted with a view to educating.
In calling attention to these broadcasts, Father Corcoran said: “We consider radio as a medium that is frequently called new; in the dispensation of education radio is a comparatively new medium. Although a number of fine experiments have been made in radio education, most of the experiments have been highly localized, only a few being on an extensive scale. Therefore, with little previous experiences to guide us, we must regard these broadcasts in the nature of experiments. Speaking generally, we are only at the dawn of the day in broadcasting, and the response of the listeners is our only guide in presenting educational programs.”
“We not only welcome, we request suggestions, comment, and criticisms on this new program. The lecturers will all be well qualified for this work, and the only difficulty we can foresee now, is the manner, time and type of presentation that will be most effective. Of that, the audience is the best judge.”
Daily broadcasts of the “University of the Air” are made at 4:45 p.m.
(Originally published in Radio & Entertainment 3/4/1933)
When it comes to imaginative places for a broadcast studio, WEW has claimed its share: the basement of the owner’s home, the lower level of Busch Stadium, a renovated house in the Soulard neighborhood, a university campus and the front window space of a broadcast tech school.
The station’s original owner was St. Louis University.
WEW officially got its broadcast license (#560) from the federal government on March 23, 1922, although the university claimed the station had actually begun broadcasts of weather information in Morse Code as early as 1912. The station has bounced all over the radio dial, beginning with the identity of 9YK.
When it received its first government license, WEW was at 618.6 kHz, later moving to 833 kHz. In April of 1927 it was assigned to 1210 kHz, and a week later that was changed to 850 kHz. F.C.C. records show that frequency assignment was changed to 760 kHz in 1928 and then the station finally arrived at its present location – 770 kHz – on March 29, 1941.
It has been restricted to daytime operation, meaning it may sign on at sunrise and must cease broadcasting at sunset.
In 1955, KXOK news director Bruce Barrington decided to get into station ownership, purchasing WEW from St. Louis University. He sold the property five years later, but it was in 1964 that Charles Stanley bought it and began to put his indelible mark on the 1,000 watt radio station.
It was Stanley who moved it to different studio locations around the area and brought in the big band nostalgia format. Stanley was known affectionately in the local radio business as “the trade-out king” for his ability to make deals trading station ad time for merchandise instead of cash payments.
It’s been a long time since WEW made such a big splash in the local radio ratings. Current ownership is selling programming by time block, which then allows the buyers/announcers to program whatever they want.
(Reprinted with permission of the St. Louis Journalism Review. Originally published 06/1997)
One of the biggest gripes among broadcast historians is the amount of misinformation being passed off as fact in the field of radio history. KDKA in Pittsburgh is regularly credited with many “firsts,” yet historians have found other stations accomplished the same “firsts” earlier. The explanation, it seems, is the public relations machine of Westinghouse, which owned KDKA.
So it is assumed that such claims are to be taken with a grain of salt when the information is published by ownership of the station in question. That said, it’s interesting to look at the history of WEW, which signed on under the ownership of St. Louis University. In 1951, an article in The Alumni News of St. Louis University said WEW was the second radio station to operate in the United States and the first in the world operated by a university. It also claimed WEW was the first station west of the Mississippi River.
The key to deciphering the validity of these claims lies in the definition of “radio station.” It is known that station 9YK, WEW’s experimental predecessor, was active as early as 1912, originating wireless Morse Code broadcasts of weather reports to agricultural interests from St. Louis U’s observatory. The government shut the station down in 1917 because of the war, but two years later, the transmitter was humming again, this time under government control, sending out weather, grain and livestock reports.
9YK became a university station again later that year. As the industry evolved, experimenters sent sound, instead of code, through the air. Westinghouse engineer Frank Conrad broadcast concerts from his garage over 8XK, and in October of 1920, the government approved changing that license to KDKA. That station’s first broadcast as a licensed commercial operation was on November 2, 1920. At the St. Louis University radio station, the inaugural broadcast came April 21, 1921.
That morning at 10:05, University President Reverend William F. Robison read the weather forecast over the airwaves. Regular service continued with livestock and grain market activities being reported to farmers during the week. July 16, 1921 was the date of the first musical broadcast on WEW. Religious and educational programs followed. The station, since its first broadcast, had been under the watchful eye of Brother George Rueppel, S.J.
A listing of shows heard on WEW in 1928 indicates that the station stayed with that programming philosophy, with shows like: The United States Farm School Program; Students Hour (music and fifteen minutes of interesting reading); Music of High Mass; and the Question Box Hour (with answers to listeners’ mailed-in questions.)
An article published at WEW’s 10-year anniversary, quoted University President Reverend Robert Johnston, S.J. as saying “WEW is not a commercial station and sees no time for advertising purposes, hence has no fixed income…The money necessary for improvements…has been furnished by a Catholic benefactor of St. Louis who realizes the great good and advantage that such a station can do for the community.”
(Reprinted with permission of the St. Louis Journalism Review. Originally published 03/2001)
