John Harrington, popular KWK announcer and sports commentator who grew up with radio in St. Louis, has left the Mound City to go with station WGN, Chicago.
Harrington’s move to Chicago was like his sports broadcasts, swift and unexpected. The former announcer entered radio in September of 1929. At that time he didn’t have the slightest desire to enter the game but visited the KWK studios with a hankering to see the transmitter. They wouldn’t let Harrington in unless he had some business with the studio so John promptly asked for a job – more to see the station than anything else. He was given an audition and hired, and has been with radio station KWK since then until last Thursday night.
Though Harrington entered radio through an accident more than anything else, his early training suited him for an announcer’s spot in front of the “mike.” He had exercises in voice culture and oratory at the Kirkwood High School and the University of Arkansas down Fayetteville way.
Some of the assignments that stand out in Harrington’s memory are helping in the broadcast of the last two World’s Series in St. Louis.
He has interviewed such notables as Jerome “Dizzy” Dean, the most eccentric of all modern ball players, Sammy West, the leading hitter in the American League, and other notables in the sport world. He introduced Floyd Gibbons to St. Louis radio audiences on his two visits here and is christened by some the “Gibbons” of the Central States on account of his rapid fire reviews.
(Originally published in Radio and Entertainment, 6/3/1933)