Radio Memories Vol. 2

Shortly after 2 PM Eastern time, the cry; “They killed Kennedy!” echoed across Davis Field from a third-floor window of Preston College. I had just crossed Green Street from the driveway between Preston and Woodrow, headed towards my room in the “H” dorm of the Towers or Honeycomb Dorms. There were just 4 at the time “H”, “J”, “K” and “L”. The “M” and “N” dorms would come later in the 60s. They eventually were named Douglas, LaBorde, Moore, Snowden, Baker, and Burney. I was walking cattycorner across the open field of grass that would later be replaced by a reflection pond in front of the Thomas Cooper Undergraduate Library. 

I couldn’t believe my ears! “This can’t be true,” I said to myself as I quickened my pace toward Sumter Street. After a few steps, I realized that I had a better option. I turned sharply to my left and made my way through the patio of the Russell House, to the elevator, and to the second floor where WUSC was located. I was headed towards the three teletype machines (Associated Press, United Press International, and the National Weather Service) located just outside the news booth in the office. I wasn’t the first to arrive; there was a gaggle of students gathered around the machine already as our news director read each story aloud as the respective news teletype printed it. The bells of both machines were ringing constantly indicating a national emergency. The most, I’ve heard until that time was one or two rings, indicating a news break or important story. 

Eventually, the office was filled with WUSC students and some faculty members, and it became impossible to hear the news director’s reading of the wire. So after each story, he began ripping the printed paper off the machines and handing them around to the people in the office. When the last person read each story it was carefully hung on the AP or UPI spike on the wall over the machines where the printout of each story was kept until it was used on the air. The pan-fold paper that fed the teletype machines came from cardboard boxes that sat on the floor between the legs of the machines themselves. The news services supplied the paper as part of the wire subscription service and the paper used by each service was different from the other. So there was no confusion as to which spike on the wall was the correct one. The Weather Service teletype’s paper came on rolls. We went through a box of paper on each news machine in less than 4 hours. Normally a box would last half a week or more. 

In case you are wondering if any of those dramatic news stories on the original paper were saved for posterity, we’ll never know. A few months ago I was talking with Rick Amme, who was a year ahead of me in school and also in that room and he told me that during the night, someone cleared both of those spikes of all the initial stories in the confusion of the evening. So my best guess is that they are now prized possessions in someone’s private collection. 

At this time, WUSC’s broadcast day, unlike WUSC-FM’s 24/7 schedule today, ran from 4:30 in the afternoon until 1 AM the following morning, with the 11 PM to 1 AM hour being a recorded show. Our music format was Middle of the Road Pop and Show Tunes, similar to what the Armed Forces Radio Network played before the arrival of Adrian Cronauer in the movie Good Morning Vietnam.

 

Sometime around 3 PM, two things happened; The University decided to cancel classes for Saturday and Monday and they decided to keep the Russell House open for that entire period to provide a place for students to congregate until President Kennedy’s Funeral which was scheduled for Monday afternoon. Our Station manager, Graeber Jordan gathered the WUSC executive staff and faculty advisor into the music library for a discussion of what the station’s response to the assassination would be. The decision: WUSC would remain on the air the entire period and play only somber instrumental music chosen by our music director along with Newscasts from the Mutual Radio Network and our own news department.  

Our chief announcer, whose name was, ironically, Jack Kennedy was charged with filling out the schedule from our cadre of 25 – 30 announcers. Unfortunately, many of our announcers went home for the Thanksgiving Holiday Break early, leaving us with less than 15 to cover the 65 hours that were suddenly on our schedule. Jack took me aside and asked if, with only two prerecorded shows under my belt, I felt confident enough to take on a live shift. I told him that I had spent some time in the Master Control with our Gates board practicing during the periods that we were off the air and that I felt that I could handle a shift or two. He wisely assigned me a pair of shifts in the middle of the night on Saturday and Sunday nights. So I wound up being the “Baby DJ” or “DJ in Training” with the shortest training schedule in the history of the station at that time. Well, at least for the crisis, I went back to doing three more prerecorded shows, after Thanksgiving, on December 6th, 13th, and 20th before Christmas break but still, it was a very short training period. 

The next semester, I’d be doing my first remote broadcast, all the way from the patio out behind the Russell House. 

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Photo Credits: 
Teletype Machine: The Daily Journal