Milt Willis, 1929 - 2005

He was born Milton T. Willis in Houston; raised in Montrose, he graduated from Lamar High School, class of 1948, and went off to the Navy. While stationed in Hawaii he met and married his wife and they returned to Houston and raised a family of four children.  He was known to family and his closest friends as Milton but to hundreds of thousands of listeners over the years and most of the hundreds of other broadcasters he came in contact with, he was just Milt.

I have not been able to pin down when he first got into radio but for the most part he was associated with KTHT, KXYZ and KODA.  Except for a very brief stint in Rapid City, SD, he spent all his career in Houston radio and in addition to air work he did a lot of voice work for advertising agencies and film production companies.  I first have a record of him at KTHT, listed as program director, on a music survey in August, 1959.  He was also one of the deejays as were Jack London and Larry Kane.  He would have been in his late 20s by then and with a voice like his he had undoubtedly been receiving admonitions all his life that ‘you should be in radio,’ so undoubtedly he got his start some years earlier.  He would not likely have been a Program Director in his first job, either.  Good friend Gene Arnold remembers him at KTHT and says he had worked earlier at KXYZ where Gene had also worked although not at the same time.

Arnold remembers Milt did the morning show at KTHT and hated the shift.  One time when he was interviewing a new over-night talent for KTHT that Arnold had referred he told the man he’d have to be willing to hang around some mornings until 6:15 or 6:30 when Milt couldn’t make it on time, a condition the prospective hire was not happy about.  By 1960 he had found another solution to that problem; a KTHT survey published in June of that year shows him working a split shift - 8 to 10 am and 2 to 4 pm.

In the late 50s, KTHT went by the moniker Downbeat, using Ray Conniff’s ‘S Wonderful’ as an hourly ‘downbeat’ to the launch the programming.  The Chronicle had reported in June, 1958, that Robert D. Strauss’s Texas Radio had purchased KTHT from Roy Hofheinz and it appears to have been a  few months later when the Downbeat moniker began appearing in the listings.  Gene doesn’t know for sure but doesn’t think Milt was responsible for coming up with the programming. 

The station was sold again in 1961, the formal transfer of ownership to Winston-Salem Broadcasting occurring in March.  The incoming owners installed new programming they called Red Carpet Radio and GM Sam Bennett resigned.

Three months later, in early June, Public Radio Corp. of Houston took control of KXYZ-AM and FM from NAFI Corporation of Los Angeles.  Public Radio was composed of Lester Kamin of Houston, an advertising executive who had himself been a deejay in the 1940s, his brothers Max of Houston and Morris of Victoria.  They also owned stations in Tulsa and Kansas City.  They named Sam Bennett as new GM and Milt Willis as PD.  GM Cal Perley and PD Ken Collins were out and would later team up again at KFMK.  Collins told Houston Post columnist Bill Roberts he found out he was no longer PD of KXYZ when he read it in the newspaper.

During the early 1960s, KXYZ-AM and FM were outstanding radio stations.  In an era when the GM of another big Houston station described the city as just a big over-grown country town, KXYZ presented the city as sophisticated and cosmopolitan.  A big key to the imaging were the stagers which introduced musical segments with glowing audio pictures of the city.  I still think of the KXYZ of that era as one of the best sounding Houston radio stations of all time.  Gene Arnold doesn’t know much about the years Milt Willis was at KXYZ and does not know if he was responsible for the programming concept but his voice was ubiquitous on the station.

In April,1965, Billboard Magazine reported in a market spotlight on Houston radio that Milt was still PD of KXYZ but in January of the next year reported he had been upped to Operations Manager and a new programmer, Bob Winsett of San Francisco, was moving in.  By June of 1966 Milt moved over to KODA as PD; Don LeBlanc was upped to Operations at KODA and yet another new PD was named at KXYZ.

Milt continued as Program Director of KODA for some years.  Another Billboard Market profile in March of 1967 shows him still in the post but sometime between that time and the time I joined KODA in October, 1974, Milt accepted an offer from a station in Rapid City, South Dakota.  I remember him telling me the call letters and I remember they were just one letter different that KODA - I believe it was KOTA.  He realized almost immediately it was a mistake and he stayed a very short time.  He called GM Martin Griffin at KODA and asked to return, Griffin asked the staff and it was agreed they would welcome him back.  This may have been when he transitioned into sales.  By the time I got to KODA in ‘74 he was Sales Manager, having moved into that chair when Tom Hoyt was upped to General Manager not long before.

I worked as an announcer in the same building with Milt for four years until Tom Hoyt named me Operations Manager to replace the departing Jason Williams.  Just a few months later Hoyt left and Paul Taft promoted Milt to General Manager and then just a few months after that, Taft sold KODA-AM and FM to Westinghouse, Group W.  Milt and I worked together for the next three years to try to build KODA from an also-ran for years in the beautiful music war with Harte-Hanks’ KYND.  We talked everyday, went to lunch together often, but I wasn’t into radio history at that time and never asked about his career even though I had been aware of him since the 1950s.

We sometimes shared  bits of our personal lives, though.  I knew he collected movie theater lobby cards.  One Monday I remember him looking very bedraggled and I asked why.  It turned out he had spent the whole weekend on puddle-jumper flights to South Carolina and back to pick up some prized cards and he was beat.  He was as proud as a new Daddy of the cards he had scored, telling me all about them and their significance,  but he vowed never to do that again.  I also remember him sometimes beaming on a Monday morning after a weekend jaunt to the casinos in Louisiana where he apparently regularly did quite well.

Gene Arnold shared a passion for collecting movie lobby cards and got Milt into the hobby and they went to conventions together.  Gene says Milt liked to linger at the airport lounge and he warned him repeatedly he was going to miss a flight sooner or later but it was Arnold who almost missed a flight when he mistakenly boarded a flight to Seattle and didn't discover the mistake until the last minute. Gene says he and Milt also enjoyed betting against each other on college football games. 

Success in the Beautiful Music format on FM depended a lot on external advertising, chiefly on TV and billboards, to get the call letters across, since so much listening to that format was done at very low, background levels.  Harte-Hanks KYND had always had a much bigger advertising budget than KODA but when Westinghouse came to town, the tables were turned.   By the end of 1982, KODA's ratings success was so complete, Harte-Hanks pulled the plug on KYND and turned the frequency over to their wildly successful AM, KKBQ, the successor to KTHT and KULF on 790.

In February of 1983, just a little over a month after KYND called it quits, Milt was promoted to National Sales Manager of Group W’s Texas stations and he finish  his long career in Houston radio with Westinghouse.

Personal Postscript:  Milt lasted longer than I with Group W.  I clashed with the consultant Westinghouse assigned to their FM stations, all of which at that time were struggling except for KODA.  Finally I gave up and left.  The book that covered my last months as PD was the first one in KODA's history when it edged KYND but I was not there for the celebration.  I talked to Milt only once after leaving but some 20 years later, sometime in the first decade of this century, I was coming back from Austin on I-10 and decided to pull into the San Felipe de Austin State Historical site in Austin Co., the unofficial capital of Stephen F. Austin’s original colony.  I had known about the place since the 7th grade when every Texas school child took a Texas history course but I had never visited.  The town was an important commercial center before independence and  hosted several important meetings leading up to the Texas Revolution.  I walked around the grounds soaking up Texas history and as I stepped into a meeting hall, an audio track started playing.  It was Milt’s voice.  Son-of-a-gun, I thought, This guy is everywhere. I wonder how many other state historical sites have audio tracks voiced by Milt?

I am indebted to Laura Willis Hixon for the pictures above and to her and Gene Arnold for details of Milt’s life and career and their personal remembrances of him.

The 50th Anniversary of the Crash of the KODABIRD

A couple of weeks ago, JR Gonzales published this article on his Bayou City History blog about the crash of the KODABIRD.  There's only one picture but there are excerpts from the newspaper coverage of the day and more background on the individuals involved.

Weaver Morrow - RIP

I am very shocked and saddened to report the passing of Weaver Morrow, longtime Houston radio man. I first met Weaver in the first week of September, 1970, during the first days of KAUM. He was a Houston Radio Legend from the first moment he cracked the mic; his humor turned the market upside down and was a huge part of the success of KAUM - and we were the most successful of the ABC-FMs, at least at first. Radio people came from all over to hear what we were doing that had vaulted us from something like 27th to 7th in the ratings in one rating period. The ABC execs in NY suggested moving him to afternoons, when more of our audience would likely be awake; they listened regularly and so did the other ABC-FM PDs. Everyone loved him. I was so disappointed when he first left the market and glad when he returned. He had long stints at KRBE-FM and KODA-FM.

Chronicle obituary and services

A Day in the Life -

- of a Houston radio listener, Friday, June 30, 1961, and Saturday, July 1, 1961, from the Chronicle and Post. The Chronicle was an afternoon paper at that time, hence the day's listings begin at mid-afternoon.



The same page of the Chronicle carried a brief announcement that the next day, Saturday. July 1, KHGM-FM, 99.1, would switch call letters to KODA-FM. President Paul Taft explained it was just the first step in an expansion that would bring a new AM station to Houston in a few weeks, KODA-AM, at 1010 kc.


By this time the Post was running only abbreviated radio listings. As the decade wore on and TV continued its ascendancy as the primary home entertainment medium, the Chronicle would follow suit. Both papers eventually would offer only very brief mentions of developments in radio, sometimes not for days or weeks after the fact.

The 1960s - KIKK, Talk Radio, KODA, KENR

Most of the new station activity in Houston in the 1960s would take place on the FM dial; it was to be as active an era on FM as the 1920s or 1940s had been on AM. By mid-October, 1960, there were already two new FMs on the air as KARO-FM took to the air at 94.1 megacycles the weekend of the 15th and 16th. There will be more about this in the FM Chronology. Normally the launch of a new station would have had the radio industry buzzing but not only was there little publicity regarding the launch of KARO, industry types and many others were busy talking that weekend about the news of a Vice Squad raid at the offices of KILT. It was front page news in the Chronicle on the 15th with a follow-up story on Sunday. It seems the HPD Vice Squad had gotten a tip there was an office pool at KILT and, equipped with a betting slip provided by the anonymous tipster and a marked $1 bill, moved in on Friday afternoon. An undercover officer entered the station at 500 Lovett Blvd. and said he was there to place a bet. The slip and money were taken by a young copy writer, whose name is omitted here to protect the innocent. The officer then went back outside and motioned to the uniformed officers to move in. The copy writer was promptly arrested and just as promptly fainted.

The problem seemed to be that bets had been taken from persons outside the employ of KILT; one account alleged an employee of Air Call, which was located across the lobby from the KILT offices and I believe co-owned, had been allowed to place a bet the previous week and the young woman said she thought the man was an employee of one of the other companies in the building; she also had reportedly commented after the undercover officer left that she didn’t think they should be taking bets from non-employees. Felony bookmaking charges were filed; the $1000 bond was posted by the station.

Station Manager Bill Weaver was indignant. The next day Mayor Lewis Cutrer called Weaver to apologize for the raid and both men agreed the Vice Squad should have better things to do, but the Vice Squad officer who set up the raid, Capt. H. L. Ellisor, and the Police Chief both backed the action. The total netted in the raid was 11 betting slips and $9.00 (two of the bettors had not anted up). Weaver observed the Vice Squad must have been very busy the previous week during the World Series as there had been rumors of $1000 betting pools in town; Ellisor said no raids had taken place because no complaints had been filed. Weaver also said he had been told there was a betting pool at HPD the previous week.


In mid-December the Chronicle’s Open Mike column published an article headed ‘Dial a Station and Talk, Talk, Talk’ noting a growing trend of telephone talk shows on the radio. KXYZ had launched an evening program called Expressions a few months earlier and was so pleased with the results, plans were already being made to add more talk shows after the Christmas season, according to GM Cal Perley, but this did not come to pass. A change of ownership in a few months led to cancellation of Expressions and dismissal of some employees; the show would resurface later on KFMK-FM.

KTRH had noted the trend and launched a call-in program called ‘At Your Service’ which took calls on a wide range of topics. The Chronicle article opined that eventually talk, talk, talk might become so pervasive there’d be little room for rock ‘n roll on the radio. It took the rise of FM radio and a couple of other factors but that prediction, which must have seemed highly unlikely at the time, eventually came true.

Whether Expressions was the first listener participation talk show in Houston is not known and the Chronicle did not mention any other local stations that had latched on to the trend.

In the same column the Chronicle reported that KNUZ program director Ken Grant was talking about an unusual success story for that time of year, an album doing a brisk business and drawing lots of listener calls that had nothing to do with Christmas. The Humorous World of Justin Wilson had been aired on both KNUZ and sister station KQUE-FM and there were reports it was breaking sales records.

On March 19, 1961, formal transfer of ownership of KTHT to Winston-Salem Broadcasting from Texas Radio was completed. General Manager Sam Bennett resigned and the new owners unveiled a new moniker for the station, Red Carpet Radio. Within a few months the station would become known as Demand Radio 79.

On May 1, 1961 KRCT changed call letters to KIKK, again proclaiming the switch in a big ad in the Chronicle. A story in the TV section of the Chronicle the previous day helpfully noted the DJs would refer to the station as ‘kick,’ ‘for kicks.’ Owner Leroy Gloger told the Chronicle reporter the change came about because research had shown call letter confusion among listeners. By that time, the station had studios in the Montague Hotel at 804 Fannin at Rusk as well as in Pasadena.

According to Roy Lemons, who worked for KIKK during most of the 1960s as Sales Manager, the KIKK call letters were the idea of a San Antonio country broadcaster A.V. 'Bam' Bamford, who owned KBER in San Antonio. Bamford knew that the calls had been dropped by a California station. He also came up with the "boots" symbol over a drink at the Montague. The logo was designed by Don Newcomer, a Heights resident who charged $250 for the soon-to-be-famous KIKK design.


This ad in May, 1961, just used block lettering for the call letters; it is not known yet just when the familiar boots came to be used for the ‘K’s.

This image appeared in the Sam Houston High School yearbook for 1963 and is apparently of the side of the KIKK studio building on E. Sterling.  At the left end of the fence, note the partially obscured sign for the station hanging on the front of the building.  According to other information found online the building also housed a recording studio, perhaps after KIKK moved out.

This business card type ad appeared in the Pasadena High School yearbook for 1964.

I am grateful to Tori Mask of the South Belt Houston Digital History Archive who found these images and allowed me to use them.


In the first week of June the FCC approved the transfer of KXYZ from NAFI Corp. of Los Angeles to Public Radio Corporation of Houston. The new owners consisted of Lester and Max Kamin of Houston and Morris Kamin of Victoria; they also owned stations in Tulsa and Kansas City. Lester Kamin had been involved in advertising and radio since at least the 1940s when he was a disc jockey in an era when disc jockeys were often well known people who hosted shows spinning records in addition to their other jobs. Sam Bennett, formerly of KTHT, came aboard as GM and Milt Willis, PD of KTHT, came aboard as the new Program Director.

Within a few days, Bill Roberts’ column in the Post announced that Cal Perley and Ken Collins had departed KXYZ. They had been closely associated with the Expressions program and announced they were already talking to KFMK about re-launching the program there.

 

 July 31, 1961 saw the beginning of KODA-AM at 1010 kc, a daytimer and the first new Houston AM radio station in more than a decade, joining its sister station KODA-FM which had taken over KPRC-FM in 1958 as KHGM-FM and recently changed call letters to KODA-FM. KODA-AM brought the ABC Radio Network back to Houston; ABC had been dropped by KXYZ several years earlier and carried for a while by KWBA, Baytown. The station featured ‘good music’ news, sports and a traffic helicopter, the KodaBird. KODA-AM and FM were owned by Paul Taft of Taft Broadcasting who originally had been General Manager of KGUL-TV, Channel 11, Galveston in 1953. Taft also owned the Muzak franchise for Houston. Westinghouse Broadcasting, Group W, bought KODA-AM and FM in 1978 and quickly spun off KODA-AM which changed call letters to KLAT, La Tremenda, obtained permission to become a 24 hour operation, and still operates on 1010. The KLAT calls went into use on August 29, 1979.

The picture above shows the new building at 4810 San Felipe which housed the KODA-AM and FM operations.   Roche Bobois now occupies the building.  The building in back, added sometime after 1961, housed Taft's non-broadcast businesses.

KANI, Wharton, signed on June 17, 1962, at 1500 kc and those calls are still in use.

At the end of June, 1967, LIN Broadcasting of Nashville purchased KILT and KOST-FM from Gordon McLendon for $15 Million dollars. McLendon said he had plans to purchase a UHF station in the market when one became available.

January 17, 1968, KENR, ‘Keener,’ became only the second new AM signal in the market in the decade at 1070 kc. Originally a daytime only station, KENR expanded to 24 hour a day operation within a couple of years. The format was country.

Bill Edwards of Saginaw, MI, was the owner and he told Chronicle TV/Radio reporter Ann Hodges the station was the culmination of a nine year dream. Edwards, who had apparently never even been to Houston before his permit was granted, said nonetheless he had been fascinated by Houston for years and considered it the ‘most exciting and most profitable of major radio markets’ and was proud of his engineers for finding a way to squeeze the station in on the crowded dial. Jack Fiedler of WNUS, Chicago, was to be the first General Manager. Edwards also owned WKNX-AM/TV in Saginaw.

Although the station had a good run as a country station, it eventually left that field to KILT-AM/FM and KIKK-AM/FM. The station tried country gold and then aired a radio magazine format for a while. For a while it was known as KRBE-AM and carried classic rock and simulcast KRBE-FM. The call letters in use on 1070 now are KNTH; it is a newstalk station.

Brief Postscript on the 1970s

In 1974, KEYH, started broadcasting at 850 kc; originally a news station it’s now a Spanish station, still operating with the same call letters. Also that year, KACO, Bellville, signed on at 1090 kc. The station on that frequency now uses the old Houston call letters KNUZ and is a Hispanic religious station.


To be Continued.

FM Chronology - The 1950s - Part 2 - KFMK-FM, KHGM-FM, KHUL-FM, KRBE-FM and a Gordon McLendon permit

It was not until 1958 that there were any further changes on the FM dial in Houston. A list from ‘North American Radio and TV Station Listings’ by Vane A. Jones for that year has four FMs again listed for Houston: KFMK, 97.9; KPRC-FM, 102.9; KTRH-FM, 101.1, and KUHF, 91.3 KFMK-FM was the first commercial FM on the air in Houston without a sister AM. The station was apparently ready to go on the air in mid-January, 1958 but had to await regulatory approval and finally got on the air Sunday, February 2nd at 5pm. The station operated with 10,000 watts from the Medical Towers Building at 1709 Dryden. The newspaper listings showed the frequency just as 98 mc but later as 97.9; the format was popular music. Bob Gardner, who had previously worked at KLBS before it was taken over by McLendon and in Beaumont radio and at KTRK-TV, was the General Manager.

Interest in FM broadcasting was beginning to pick up around the country and before the year was over there were more developments on the FM dial in Houston. In November of 1958, Paul Taft purchased KPRC-FM and changed the call letters to KHGM-FM which stood for ‘Home of Good Music’ or ‘Houston’s Good Music.’ The call letter switch took place at 1pm on Sunday, the 9th of November. Taft had resigned as General Manager of KGUL-TV, channel 11, earlier in the year and formed Taft Broadcasting.

Just before the switchover, KPRC-FM had been operating only from 6pm to 11pm daily and the new ownership meant an expansion of broadcast hours. KTRH-FM was on from 1pm to 12 Mid, KFMK-FM from 8am 12 Mid and KUHF-FM from 7am to 9:30pm.

On April 26th of the following year, KHGM-FM moved to 99.1 mc, signing on at 12 Noon after being off the air for 24 hours to complete the changeover of equipment. The station boasted 49,000 watts and claimed to be the most powerful FM in Houston. This apparently coincided with a move to a new facility at 4810 San Felipe on the city’s far west side. Ads highlighted the station was to be a showcase of ‘tasteful music,’ 17 hours a day with the library having been selected as a result of a survey of 2000 homes. The regular broadcast day was to start at 7am.

On July 1, 1961, the call letters of KHGM-FM were changed to KODA-FM to match an AM sister station. KODA-FM is still on the air today on 99.1 MHz and as the heir to KPRC-FM is believed to be the oldest FM in Houston and either the first or second oldest FM in Texas, depending on whether KPRC-FM was on the air continuously in the 1950s. KODA-FM was later to claim to be only the second station in the nation to broadcast full-time in stereo. Meanwhile the KHGM-FM call letters were later used on a station on 95.1 mc in the Beaumont-Port Arthur-Orange area.

Taft Broadcasting was also to operate the Muzak franchise for Houston in addition to an AM station, KODA-AM, and was also involved with the first sound system at the Astrodome and as a contractor for NASA. Taft Broadcasting LLC is still in business, run by Paul Taft’s son, Philip, although they have not owned any broadcast properties in Houston since 1978.

At least two more and possibly three new FMs started broadcasting before the end of the decade. A story in the Chronicle in eary September said KHUL-FM would be on the air on September 22 but it was not until 7am on October 4, 1959, that the station started broadcasting on 95.7 mc. The call letters of this station were pronounced ‘cool’ and initially it operated 24 hours a day. Studios were located on the 15th floor of the Park Towers, a high rise apartment building at 1700 Holcombe Blvd. at Braeswood which is no longer standing. T. A. Robinson, Jr., President and owner, said the station would program ‘tasteful arrangements’ of music by George Gershwin, Cole Porter, Rogers and Hart, Oscar Hammerstein, Vernon Duke, James Van Heusen, Lerner and Lowe and Duke Ellington.

KHUL has been remembered fondly as a jazz station by many but that can not be confirmed from the newspaper accounts and early listings; it may have evolved into a jazz station later. An ad in 1963 touted ‘All Night Jazz’ and ‘Swinging Standards all day and evening.” An ad for the station in 1964 mentioned ‘Jazz after Midnight’ in addition to other special programs and did not claim it was a full time Jazz station.

A typical program schedule in the papers in late 1959 showed KHUL Start at 6am, KHUL, Calm and Collected at 12:05pm, KHUL and Refreshing at 3:05pm, KHUL of the Evening at 6pm and KHUL All Night at 12M with news 4 times a day. Those program titles could refer to easy listening programming.

The twenty-four hour a day broadcast schedule did not last at KHUL-FM. An ad for the station in early 1962 said KHUL ‘Stays up til 2am, Friday Saturday and Sunday, Midnight Monday thru Thursday’ and could be found ‘Just Under 96 on Your Dial,’ for ‘Good Music and News.’

The station changed hands and call letters in the mid to late 60s becoming KIKK-FM and operating as a country station for more than three decades before becoming a smooth jazz station, KHJZ-FM, The Wave, in 2001. It is now Hot Hits 95-7 (KKHH).

On the same day the paper announced KHUL’s impending launch it also noted KUHF-FM was installing the first stereo control room in the city and KHGM-FM had published a program guide.

At 6pm on November 8, 1959, KRBE-FM came on the air at 104.1mc. This was originally a full-time classical music station with studios in the 1400 Hermann Drive high rise apartment building across from the Rose Garden in Hermann Park. Some have asserted the calls were because the station was located on Kirby drive just north of US 59 but the station did not move there for almost a decade. Ads appearing in the papers the day the station launched indicated the call letters stood for ‘The Key to Radio Broadcasting Excellence” but it has also been noted the calls happened to be the initials of the owner’s business, Roland Baker Enterprises.

Ellis W. Gilbert was the President and General Manager and also had an air shift. Gilbert had just recently resigned as manager of KTRH-FM, which also scheduled a lot of classical music, and according to a story, had been known as ‘Mr. FM’ in the early 50s when he hosted ‘House of Music’ on the ‘now defunct’ KYXZ-FM. Other air personalities included Roy Landers, Eamon Grant and Eddie Bates. The station has had the same calls throughout its history.

According to the history of Dallas radio station KLIF Gordon McLendon owned an FM in Houston in 1959 with the call letters KZAP-FM but exactly how those calls figure into Houston radio history is not clear. Gordon McLendon was one of the first to recognize the value of ‘parking’ call letters that he wanted to use and that may be what happened in this case. When McLendon bought a San Francisco AM and flipped it to KABL, the previous call letters KROW were assigned to his proposed FM in Houston. Later, McLendon switched the KROW calls with his proposed calls for an FM in Dallas, KOST-FM, and that is the call the Houston FM signed on with. Just how KZAP figures into to this is not clear. The first mention of KOST-FM, 100.3 mc, is not found in radio listings until mid-1961 and when it actually first got on the air is not known. I have found only one listing in the Houston papers for a KZAP-FM, much later in the 1960s.

Gallery IV - Miscellaneous Ads

Published in November, 1922. Bering-Cortes was one of the forerunners of today's Bering Hardware.


Once upon a time, everything in radio was battery-powered, not just receivers but studio and transmitting equipment, too. And we're not talking a couple of AAs, either. Batteries had to be charged up, of course. Automobiles did not have generators or alternators so garages were set up to service, i.e., charge, batteries and they serviced home batteries, too. One such business in Houston was the Hurlburtt Still Electric Co. who also obtained the first broadcasting license in Houston, for WEV, and whose garage on McKinney at San Jacinto served as the station's studios.




These ads were published in the Scripps-Howard Houston Press in the fall of 1950 when the newspaper and radio station were sharing news coverage and reporting. Gordon McLendon's Liberty Broadcasting System was heard over several radio stations over the years. KATL was the first Houston affiliate.


Published July 23, 1960.








The ads for KFMK, KHUL, KODA, KRBE and KTLW all appeared in the Houston Now section of the Houston Post for August 4, 1961, which was shortly after KODA first signed on. I have misplaced my original for the Lone Ranger on KODA ad and do not know the date.

A full page ad for KULF, 790, formerly KTHT, in Houston Home and Garden Magazine, June, 1978.

A full page ad for KRTS-FM, 92.1, in Houston Metropolitan Magazine, May, 1992.

KODA-FM Outdoor, ca. 1978-9, after purchase by Group W, Westinghouse

An ad from Broadcasting Yearbook, 1964.

Following are some ads from the broadcasting trade papers sent to me by Chris Huff of the DFW Radio Archives.


KLBS, 1957


An ad for the Veterans Broadcasting group of stations; date unknown but has to be later than late 1961.


KTHT, 1956


KYOK, 1956


A business card for Utah Carl, a Galveston performer on KLUF (1400),KGUL-TV and KTRK-TV, sent to me by Dave Westheimer.

My apologies for the quality of some off the images, the result of over-inked newspapers and the impossibility of getting a decent print off of a microfilm printer sometimes.

FM Chronology Part 3 - KPRC-FM

The Houston Post reported on October 1, 1946, that Harris County Broadcasters, owners of KXYZ, had been granted a conditional construction permit for a Class B FM station on the previous day, subject to final FCC approval of engineering conditions. On December 2nd, the same day KTHT-FM changed call letters and increased program hours and power, the Chronicle reported the FCC had issued a Construction Permit for KXYZ-FM. apparently the final permit. The story said the station would probably be on ‘early next year’ on the frequency of 96.3 mc but that was perhaps a typo; the station was to operate on 96.5 and didn’t get on the air for fourteen months.

On November 28, the Chronicle reported that Tri-Cities Broadcasting had applied for an FM for the Tri-Cities area; this was the group headed by Goose Creek Sun publisher Robert Matherne. It was also reported the FCC had as yet taken no action on the group’s application for an AM. It was to take two and a half years for this FM to get on the air.

Houston’s second FM, KPRC-FM, began broadcasting on December 24, 1946, Christmas Eve, at 3pm, with a formal dedication ceremony at 5:45. That ceremony echoed in several ways the launch of KPRC-AM 21 and a half years earlier. Alfred P. Daniel was again the first announcer on the air and master of ceremonies of the dedication. Governor William P. Hobby, who had been President of the Post-Dispatch in 1925 and was now owner of the newspaper, was also on hand, as was Houston mayor-elect Oscar F. Holcombe, who had been mayor in 1925 and had retired from public office but had come out of retirement and won another term as mayor that fall.

The plan was for all programming on KPRC-FM to be live, no transcriptions were to be used. However, repeat broadcasts of programs were to be a regular feature. The first evening’s broadcast included a performance of Charles Dicken’s ‘A Christmas Carol’ at 7pm which was to be aired again on Christmas Day. It is not clear if they were going to allow themselves to transcribe a performance like that for later re-broadcast or if it was to be performed live two times.

Originally the station operated at 99.7 megacycles, FM Channel 259, but it moved to 102.9 megacycles the last weekend of October, 1947. The permit was for 195,000 watts. Studios were located in the Lamar Hotel at Main and Walker where KPRC-AM had been situated since the early 1930s. The transmitter was on the City National Bank Building at 921 Main, on the northeast corner of Main and McKinney. Studios may have later been located on the 23rd floor of that building.

The Post started printing a daily schedule for KPRC-FM programming in a couple of days and on January 9, 1947, also started printing a daily schedule of KOPY-FM programming.

In the late 1940s and 1950, radio listings indicted KPRC-FM was the only Houston FM not simply simulcasting it’s AM sister station.

KPRC-FM was sold in 1958 and the call letters changed to KHGM-FM and then in 1959 it was moved to 99.1 mc and in 1961 the call letters changed to KODA-FM.

A list of FM stations on the air as of January 20, 1947, from Broadcasting-Telecasting magazine showed the following in Texas, all of which must have signed on in late 1946 or very early 1947:

KERA A. H. Belo Corp. (WFAA), Dallas 94.3
KOPY Texas Star B/c Co. (KTHT), Houston 98.5
KPRC-FM Houston Printing Corp. (KPRC), Houston 99.7
KISS Walmac Co. (KMAC), San Antonio 100.1
KYFM Express Pub. Co., San Antonio 101.5
WOAI-FM Southland Industries (WOAI), San Antonio 102.3
KCMC-FM KCMC Inc. (KCMC), Texarkana 92.5
KTRN Times Pub. Co. of Wichita Falls, Wichita Falls 97.7

The Wichita Falls station had received a CP as of June, 1946, but that sort of information for the others is not available on line.

In the 1940 Census, Houston had ranked as the 21st largest city in the nation. By 1946, it was estimated to have risen to #17 and by the 1950 Census it would be the 14th largest. At the start of 1947 there were just six radio stations on the air here, 4 AM and 2 FM. Over the next 2 years, however, 4 more AMs, 2 more FMs and the first TV station would come on the air, plus a host of stations in surburban towns and cities.

Gallery I - People

This gallery will be a collection of miscellaneous pictures of people. Most photos will be in galleries associated with the stations they worked for or in individual posts but for some, I don't have enough material to have a separate station gallery or they occur as a part of a collection, as with the first listing here. Station galleries are listed on the respective station profile page under Stations on the sidebar; if there isn't a station profile yet for a station, there is no gallery for that station.

I am always happy to receive photos of Houston radio personnel to publish on the blog, along with some personal information, from any time period.  It is not necessary of course to give up any precious family keepsakes - just scan the image and email it to me (email address on my Profile on the sidebar).  JPEG and PDF files are acceptable (JPEG format is preferred).  Put each image in a separate file please.   Photos which include studio equipment are desirable but not necessary.

A group of photos at the University of Texas, part of the Bob Bailey Collection, concerning some sort of public expo arranged by Aylin Advertising and presenting personalities from several Houston radio stations. Some personalities and stations are identified on placards but others are not and I would appreciate hearing from anybody who can supply any names. Since one of the stations identified is KLBS the photos date from the period 1952-1957 and I would guess earlier in that time period. The first photo, obviously, has historical significance but is not related to radio history.  Note:  Checking this link out I see numerous photos that were not in this group originally now appear, only a few of them related to radio.  hrhwebmaster 1/9/2015.

Chester McDowell, aka Hotsy Totsy, KYOK, date unknown. Photo courtesy of Bud Buschardt.

Dan Shelton, Mornings, and Dan Parsons, News, KODA-FM, ca. 1980. We had formed some sort of athletic team, hence the jerseys. Behind them is the Shafer Automation unit for KODA-AM and to the right, the unit for KODA-FM.

Debra Forman, Evening announcer on KODA-FM, ca. 1980.

His name was Dave and he did evenings on KYND-FM in the waning days of that station before it flipped too KKBQ-FM but I have not been able to remember his last name. Shown is the KYND-FM control room in Greenway Plaza with the station reception area visible through the window.

Michael Sheehy (air name: Michael) in the KAUM studio, ca. 1973.  The board was a McCurdy.  Michael came to Houston from Santa Rosa, CA.  After several years in Houston he went on to work in radio in Honolulu and Los Angeles and then started a production studio.

The following 6 photos come from the May/June 2003 issue of the now defunct Inside Houston magazine.  The cover story was entitled 'Radio Active - Putting faces with the voices of Houston's top radio personalities.'  The article was written by Laurette M. Veres, identified on the masthead as Publisher/Editor-in-Chief.  The photoghraphs were taken by Pam Francis.

Donna McKenzie - Smooth Jazz 95.7, photographed at Scott Gertner's Sky Bar (McKenzie also graced the cover of the issue).  The text noted her 13 years in Houston radio up to that point including the original staff of KZFX, Classic Rock 107.5, KLOL, KHYS, and The Arrow.

Hudson and Harrigan - KILT-FM, 100.3.  The text noted their 22 years on KILT and revealed Hudson - on the left - almost became a lawyer and Harrigan began his career as an aspiring actor in a church production of 'Annie Get Your Gun.'

Heather Walters - KHPT-FM, 106.9, 80s Rock.  The text noted she was the only solo female morning show host in Houston at the time; from Houston originally, she got her start on Power 103 Abilene while attending Abilene Christian College.

Maria Todd, Psycho Robbie and Sam Malone - Top 40 KRBE-FM, 104.1.  The text noted Malone had a degree in finance and was headed to Wall Street when he noticed the girls and glamour surrounding a 'dorky' disc jockey and badgered a friend about how to get into the business.

J.P. Pritchard and Lana Hughes -  News/Talk - KTRH-AM, 740.  The text noted the duo had been together 18 years up to that point delivering the morning news block.

Tom Richards - Classical - KTRS-FM, 92.1.  The text noted he was another native Houstonian and had been hosting the KRTS morning show for 14 of his 20 years in broadcasting and also that he was officially a Deadhead, with more than 300 Grateful Dead concerts on tape.

From the 1965 Baytown Lee High Yearbook, courtesy of Tori Mask of the South Belt Houston Digital History Archive.