Friday, September 18, 2009

Charles Nethery


Some punchlines just write themselves and some blog posts do too. I received the following communication from Tim Campbell with attached photo concerning his grandfather, one of the early announcers on KXYZ.

"I really love your site.

My grandfather, Charles Nethery, worked at KXYZ in the 1930's.

He was on of the regular announcers, etc. He left KXYZ somewhere in the late to mid 40's with T. Frank Smith, Sr. to start a radio station in Corpus Christi -- KRIS AM. This later developed into KRIS TV in 1956.

Frank Smith worked at KXYZ in upper management.

He stayed with KRIS & Frank Smith Sr until he retired in 1977. He was VP Programming, news anchor, editorial commentary, etc. He did it all.

He died five years ago --- lived a long healthy life to 93 years old.

I am sending this pic that I found and keep in my office -- he is probably in his late 20's. I figure it was early in KXYZ -- early 30's???

My brother has a box of pics /clips from KXYZ early days in the Texas Hotel and later in Gulf Building.

One story was -- my grandfather tied himself to a pole on top of the Gulf Building to provide "live" coverage of a hurricane.

If I get more-- I will share."

Thanks, Tim. We'll be looking forward to hearing from you again with more pictures or more stories.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Didn't know that Charlie had passed away. Spent my first 4 summer years, many of them on the floor (studio camera operators) crew and charlie was the editorial voice of kris tv channel 6 in corpus christi. He, Helen Dyess, and Van Johnson were the only ones to retire from channel 6 before dad died
t. frank smith iv frank@stnth.com