30 Years Ago, Part I

August 20, 1979..... A date to remember, at least for me... That was exactly 30 years ago... It was my first day as an employee of KTAB-TV... We didn't actually sign on the air for a month and a half, but it was a brand new tv station in a brand new building... Like any new business, we started with nothing... When I walked into the newsroom that day, there were no desks, only folding chairs, and the phones were on the floor... News Director Larry Fitgerald and I went about the task of putting together a news department... NewsTAB 32... But owner and GM Bill Terry was the spirit of KTAB.... He had given those of us who applied, the unique opportunity to get in on the ground floor of a new tv station... That rarely happens... Most tv stations signed on in the 1950's or a little earlier...
Here we were in 1979, putting on the third tv station in the Big Country... A majority of the crew had followed Bill from KRBC where he was station manager... I'm the only one still around KTAB that made the move, although chief engineer Glen McCandless started work on the same day, August 20th...
Larry Fitzgerald taught me about the news business... Bill Terry taught me about the broadcasting business and how to manage and work with people... It was a real family atmosphere... Both of these great leaders and broadcasters are no longer with us...
I was the assignments editor, selecting the stories the reporters were to cover... Of course, they also came up with their own ideas... And Larry as news director guided all of us in what and how to cover the Big Country...
As a new tv station on UHF (Ultra High Frequency) channel 32, we were a strange duck... The other local channels were VHF (Very High Frequency)channels 9 and 12...
It was very similar to the confusion surrounding HD tv in 2009... Many tv sets didn't have a UHF dial, and if they did, nobody knew how to use it because they had never had to...
To promote the station, Bill put together a traveling caravan which took us to almost every community in what would be our viewing area... We had the opportunity to talk with people who would be in our tv audience... We had a booth at the West Texas Fair, handing out free antennas and explaining how to receive channel 32.. Working in our favor to attract viewers, besides good CBS network programming and a well known local news team, was the Dallas Cowboys... In 1979, CBS televised the Cowboys games and people would do almost anything to figure out how to watch the Cowboys... And they did...
We signed on in October, and in the November ratings period, we were the number two station in a three station market... We became the number two station in less than a month... It took a while longer to be rated #1, but we did that in 1984 and '85, and that's where we've been ever since...
Bill Chaney was our first weatherman (he moved from KRBC too).. Bill Bourland was sports director for a year until David Bacon joined us...
Fran Adkins and I co-hosted NoonTAB 32... Natalee Powers joined me at noon when Fran became pregnant... And Fran rejoined us later... I did news and weather at noon, plus the 5 minute cut-ins in the CBS Morning News, along with co-anchoring the news with Larry and the weather on NewsTAB 32 at 6, and assignments... It was a full day...
When I started, the transmission tower was in pieces on the ground... It had not been erected... The control board to select the studio cameras or video tape or commercials had not been delivered... The studio was like a big barn with no lights, no news set, no cameras... The cameras ended up being old ones which had been used and used and used to tape the Grand Ole Opry on WSM in Nashville... It took every engineer we had to coax true color out of those cameras, we often looked green or red... But everyone worked together... All the departments: news, production, engineering, sales... All to help make KTAB The Spirit of the Big Country...
I've rambled enough... But thanks to all of you many loyal viewers who have been so nice to invite me and my co-workers into your homes these many years...
There are many stories to tell, and I will in future postings...
I would like to thank my family, too, for putting up with news calls in the middle of the night, family outings cut short by breaking news or weather, and most of all, the police scanners which are constantly on at my house and in my car..... I Love You...
To Be Continued.....