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Announcer and Program Director Station WSBF St. Louis
Here she is, the announcer of Station WSBF, in person and not a moving picture. No she does not resemble Gloria Swanson or Constance Talmadge, but she has a lot of short, brown curls and brown eyes. She doesn’t ever have time to be quiet very long, because she has radio for breakfast, dinner and supper as it were. Station WSBF is on the air at least four times each day, noon, afternoon, early evening and midnight, so one would not have much leisure when securing talent to take care of all those entertainments and announce as well.

Miss Hatfield’s office is always welcome to visitors, and she is glad to welcome you to the studio at any hour of the day, and no matter how busy she is, she is always glad to discuss the particular phase of radio in which you may be interested. She extends you just as cordial a greeting whether you happen to be one of the kiddies who are members of her “Sandman Club” or the mayor of the city. She tells with enthusiasm of being stopped on the street by a little newsboy who asked her if she was the radio announcer and when she assented – said, “Here, have a paper, this is on me.”

Yes, roses are her favorite flower and you can send her as many as you wish.

She claims the distinction of being the first woman announcer to broadcast sporting events, such as baseball games, football or even a prize fight. While her interests are varied and she tries to present to the radio fans at little bit of everything they like, she is most interested in the progression of the musical and educational work being done by the station. Under her direction the clubwomen of the city have instituted an educational course which is given under the auspices of the Geo. Innes Study, Inc., each week. This course comprises the best in art, literature and music. The best talent obtainable along these lines is presented on these programs. A course in languages, French and Spanish, is also given. The public library is represented in weekly book reviews and on the children’s hour.

The aim of station WSBF is to serve the community, especially that immediately surrounding St. Louis. Its division of activities has been arranged accordingly so that at some time during the week persons of every age and taste may tune in and be entertained by something that particularly interests them. Its broadcasting may be divided into three groups, entertainment, information and education. Under the heading of information, the St. Louis Times furnishes a daily service which gives the radio listener the stock reports, news items, weather report, the sport events of the season and any other information desired.

Civil service talks, talks on fashion and household hints, interior decorating, Babson business reports, government agricultural information are also furnished.

The Automobile Club of Missouri furnishes a weekly road report as well as daily bulletins.

The educational work by the Geo. Inness Study, Inc., and the public library are discussed above.

The entertainment features provided are for everyone. The children are entertained by the Sandman Club programs on which fairy stories and tales of adventures are told by trained story tellers. The kiddies who are members of the club take turns at entertaining the other members from time to time.

Travel programs and organ recitals (by Tom Terry) are given for the shut-ins. Lovers of good music may enjoy the high-class artist programs and dinner concerts of classical music. For the young folks the Loew’s Night Owl and the hotel dance orchestra programs are provided as well as plenty of jazz and popular music. The studio orchestra is directed by Mr. A. B. Jefferis.

Sunday night of each week the de luxe musical program is broadcast from the stage of Loew’s State Theater.

Miss Hatfield says she conducts a regular information bureau. If someone wants a singer for their choir or if a singer needs a job they ask if she knows of any to be obtained. When a poem is desired by one of the daily readers of the newspapers they consult her to find out who recited it, or someone may want the address of an artist or entertainer whom they wish to reach, and they telephone her.

(Originally published in Mid-West Radio Magazine, 11/1925).

A palm garden with promenades, inviting lounges and chairs surrounding a cozy bungalow – an atmosphere diffusing friendliness and comfort, will be the new home of Station WIL atop Hotel Melbourne at Grand and Lindell boulevards.

While WIL is now broadcasting from Hotel Melbourne its new habitat is not yet finished. However, the work is being rushed to completion for the formal opening the first week in May. The station’s programs are being broadcast by remote control from the City Club Building, Eleventh and Locust streets, but within several weeks even the big antenna will be transferred to the Melbourne roof.

The bungalow, which will be the studio of WIL, will contain four large rooms. Two will be broadcasting rooms, one a reception room for artists and the fourth the rendezvous for visitors. Extending completely across one side of the building the rendezvous will be separated from the broadcasting studios by double-thickness plate glass which will be sound proof, but will permit visitors to look on as programs are being broadcast.

A Wicks’ pipe organ will be installed. At present, WIL’s new organist, Bill Blanchard, is broadcasting from the Wicks’ Organ Company’s studio at 3680 Lindell boulevard. These are test programs to determine the proper construction of an organ to be built for the new studio.

Blanchard, recognized as one of the best organists in the Middle West, is only 22 years old. His home is in Greencastle, Ind., where his father is dean at De Pauw University. Blanchard was a student under Van Denman Thompson of the De Pauw University School of Music and played the organ at the College Avenue Methodist Church in his home city for five years. Later he was director of Bill Blanchard’s Old Gold Serenaders, an eleven-piece orchestra which gained wide popularity through Indiana and Kentucky.

By arrangements with “The Star,” WIL will broadcast this newspaper’s daily market reports, sports bulletins and news flashes in the future. Plans are for other features to be furnished at a later date.

(Originally published in the St. Louis Star 4/20/1928).

Have you ever wondered as to the personality of WCK, when her voice, smooth and velvety as honey, comes “out of nowhere into the here” of your living room, club room or office, or wherever your radio set may be?

The radio station, WCK, Stix Baer & Fuller of St. Louis, is ever a popular one in Divernon (Illinois) and last Tuesday through the courtesy of Alva B. Jefferis, the editor had the privilege of visiting Station WCK while broadcasting was in progress at the noon hour, and meeting Miss Hatfield, the announcer, whose calm pleasant tones are identified by thousands of invisible listeners as “WCK.”

She’s just a slip of a girl, with an unconscious poise which makes her a perfect mistress of the broadcasting studio of Stix Baer & Fuller.

Opening the glass doors and pushing aside the heavy blue rep curtains with which the studio is enclosed, and rendered more sound proof, Miss Hatfield divested herself of coat and hat, greeted the performers who were to give the noon program, and conferred tactfully with would-be radio artists. Also some shoppers who had wandered into the studio, were gently escorted into the corridor and the glass doors closed upon them. Then the brief “If you are ready?” to Mr. Jefferis who was to open the program with a group of saxophone melodies, Miss Hatfield touched a button which connected that blue draped studio with the universe, struck a gong, approached the microphone, and with a pleasant “Hello folks” to the world in general  the broadcasting of the noon program was on.

Except for the little microphone on its pedestal, there was nothing to betray the onlooker that Mr. Jefferis was playing to the world at large. The studio, aside from its drapings from ceiling to floor with blue rep, contained a grand piano, a few comfortable chairs, and a small table for Miss Hatfield’s convenience. The microphone which looked for all the world like a seven-inch motometer standing on a pedestal, was about six feet from the musicians, and Miss Hatfield approached it not too intimately when speaking in a normal tone of voice. While giving the stock markets and the news of the day, Miss Hatfield was seated. For the announcement of the musical numbers, she sauntered over and simply leaned toward the instrument for the few sentences she wished to say.
From the broadcasting studio on the fourth floor, the program is telephoned to the transmitting set on the twelfth floor, from which point it goes out to the world in general. Our party was guided to the twelfth floor, and there crowded into a corner by various tanks, levers  and machinery pertaining to the elevator system, was the wonderful instrument which connects you and me with all the desirable things which Stix Baer and Fuller see fit to broadcast every day. I wish I could describe it to you, but I can’t. One doesn’t try to explain a miracle. But I can tell the feminine readers just what Miss Hatfield wore! She had on a long-sleeved dress of black velvet with a “fence-row” band of dull black on the slightly full skirt, a string of pearls around her neck and a bar pin at the throat. She wore beige hose with suede shoes of a darker shade, with buttoned straps and military heels, and her hair was bobbed – rather long, and marcelled.

Broadcasting is an old story to Mr. Jefferis. He and his pianist mulled over a pile of music on the piano, choosing this, rejecting that, and finally pulled out something they had never seen, and opened the program with that.

Mr. Jefferis signed a contract that day to play from WCK from 3 to 9 o’clock on Monday evenings, from March 3 to May 1. The performance will be broadcasted as a Freed Elsemann program, yet Mr. Jefferis, with (garbled) members of his orchestra whom he may select, will direct the music.

(Originally published in the Divernon (Illinois) News  2/27/1925)