JOHN SELLARS: It was very palpable, the energy of it.

And the way these people worked and worked together over the course of time, it was just-- it's amazing.

[music playing] [clanking sounds] [soft insects buzzing] [faint hawk screeching] [saw buzzing] [faint train horn blowing] Radio's a long, historic, popular and effective source of communication of information and entertainment.

And through the years, local radio has always been a source of community pride, engagement, and often memories.

This is unquestionably true with the variety of radio stations in Springfield, Missouri.

Joining me today are two long-time Springfield radio veterans, John Sellars and Malcolm Hukriede, who share many great memories of this storied past.

PRESENTER: Ozarks Public Television and Missouri State University are proud to present OzarksWatch Video Magazine, a locally-produced program committed to increasing the understanding of the richness and complexity of Ozarks culture.

Visit our website for more information.

As you know, an anthology is a collection of poems, or writings, or music, or stories.

And usually, they're right from the heart whenever you have an anthology.

The Greek called an anthology a gathering of flowers , or a bouquet.

And, man, do I have a bouquet for you today.

Hi.

Welcome to OzarksWatch Video Magazine.

I'm Dale Moore, and I'm glad you're here.

And we're going to be talking about a book that is out now called the "History of Radio: In Springfield, MO".

And I'm delighted to have two guests on that have been dear friends of mine for years, both colleagues.

And I'm just tickled to death.

Malcolm Hukriede, good to see you.

Good to see you.

Thanks for having us.

DALE MOORE: Always good to see John Sellars.

How you doing, John?

Good to be here.

DALE MOORE: Good, good, good.

Yup.

Malcolm, the book is called the "History of Radio: In Springfield, MO."

And it is-- it has to be, for you, a work of love.

Well, back several years ago, about seven years ago, I had the idea that no one had ever written a book on the history of radio in Springfield.

And as I was getting closer to my retirement, I thought now it would be a good time to do it.

DALE MOORE: Yeah.

So Dan O'Day, who co-authored the book with me, um, we got together and decided that we'd write a book.

And then it took us several months to figure out what form it should take.

Should it be, this station was on the air, July 4th, whatever.

And then my sister-in-law gave me a book that's called The History of World War II, individual soldier stories.

And so that just kind of rang a bell and seemed like easy enough to do without doing a whole lot of research.

So I just started-- we started calling people and just saying, this is a book that we want, we'd like for your stories.

DALE MOORE: And you had the idea because you were retiring and thought something ought to be put to paper about the-- The history of radio, yeah.

Well, I read the introduction.

And I got to tell you, after I read the introduction, I could tell that this was something that really was important to you.

And I started thumbing through the pages and saw some names that, uh, boy, did I know, this guy included, who contributed one of the chapters to it.

Mhm.

Well, not really-- I guess it's not a chapter.

It's just a-- MALCOLM HUKRIEDE: Story.

--a story.

Mhm.

Yeah.

And I know that you had some help editing on this from Holly Atkinson.

She did a great job.

You can imagine-- DALE MOORE: What was her role exactly?

She was the editor.

She got it published through Amazon.

And you can imagine working with Dan O'Day and myself.

And you know Dan and you know me.

But it was just like, well, just do it, just do it, you know?

DALE MOORE: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And so she shepherded us in the right direction.

So how did you go about gathering up all of these old people?

[laughs] How did you do that?

That was the most fun of all.

Yeah?

Just get a phone call, hey, we're all going to meet at Family Broadcasting-- Mid-West Family, yes.

--Mid-West Family Broadcasting in the board room and just chat.

And it was people I hadn't seen in years, and we just sat there and talked for hours and hours.

It was a hoot.

We had such a great time, sharing stories and putting stuff down on paper that we wanted to make sure was in our chapter and just wrote as best we could from these meetings.

DALE MOORE: You know, when I read this book-- and I've read it.

I've lost track because I'll thumb back through it.

I've read the whole thing more than once, but I'll thumb back through it and just get a kick.

But what struck me was that the stories were very raw.

They were very-- I mean, it just-- and when I read these stories, and I'm going to mention some of these names here after a while, I could hear their voices.

I mean, these were stories that were written in the voices of the people that actually did this.

Mhm, yes.

Nothing fancy about it.

I think one of the first accounts in the book is from Holly, writing about her dad.

John Stevens.

John Stevens.

And it was just such a-- Magnificent, wasn't it?

--walk down memory lane is really all you can attribute to that.

How long was this?

This was a long project too.

We started it in 2016 and ended at the latter part of last year and got it published in, what, March or April of this year.

That was four or five, six years.

We were doing pretty good.

It took us a while to get going, and then we did it pretty good.

And then we wanted to finish it up in March of 2020.

Well, that's when the world quit working.

JOHN SELLARS: We couldn't meet.

Yeah.

And everybody was lost about that because we were having so much fun meeting that the book became secondary to just sitting around and talking.

[laughter] DALE MOORE: Almost like a club.

Yeah.

MALCOLM HUKRIEDE: Yes.

DALE MOORE: Yeah.

And then COVID hit, and that was the end of that.

I think one of my favorite parts of this book, oddly enough, and it would be me to bring up something this obscure, but after your introduction, there's a disclaimer.

And it says something to the effect that we didn't fact-check any of this.

[laughter] And I'm thinking, boy, with the characters in here-- JOHN SELLARS: Oh, yeah.

--that's a good disclaimer to have.

Yeah, I had an attorney friend of mine who just maybe, you might want to put that in there.

Yeah, and maybe put it after each one of the episodes.

Because they're great, great stories.

MALCOLM HUKRIEDE: Yeah.

And I counted, if I counted right, about 49 people, give or take one or two.

Because there were some that were in a couple of accounts together.

MALCOLM HUKRIEDE: Yes.

How did the interview-- so there were-- you had two or three stories in here that were interviews that were done.

That was a great idea and a great format.

Who decided to do the interview format?

We just-- some people wouldn't write.

And some people we knew, and I won't mention their names because they're being interviewed, would come into our meetings and then I'd say, well-- John Kimmons, who did the interviewing on most of them, did a great job of taking them into another conference room and just sitting down and talking to them.

So John Kimmons did a great job doing the interviews.

You know, I was remissed that I didn't get anything in the book.

But I was in the middle of moving and this and that and the other, and now I just kick myself for not doing that.

But the next book, I'll be in the middle of it.

MALCOLM HUKRIEDE: It was like herding cats.

You can imagine.

JOHN SELLARS: Feral cats.

It's radio people, of course it was.

What were some-- were there any themes, you think, John, that popped out here?

I mean, was it-- when I say themes, I mean, we all came from a time when it was-- I still call it "radio heyday."

MALCOLM HUKRIEDE: Golden era.

DALE MOORE: It really was.

It was incredibly competitive.

DALE MOORE: Right.

It was very creative.

The people that succeeded in it were very, uh, innovative and would do things that today wouldn't-- you would think, no, don't do that.

But it was just-- it was very palpable, the energy of it.

And the way these people worked and worked together over the course of time, it was just-- it's amazing.

How did you wanted to be in radio?

How did you-- How did I know?

DALE MOORE: Yeah.

Jack Elliott.

DALE MOORE: Yeah?

Jack Elliott was the staff announcer for KTTS radio and television.

And he had a beautiful British sports car.

DALE MOORE: [chuckles] And he would drive around town with the top down on that sports car and this big scarf, flapping in the wind, little hat on.

And I thought, man, that's what I want to be when I grow up.

Yeah.

And, uh, it didn't happen, but it-- but that was-- yeah, that was what got me into radio.

Yeah, I mean, I'm like everybody else of our generation, in our era.

I grew up listening to radio.

I remember 1956, '57, listening to KWTO and listening to Hillbilly Heaven-- JOHN SELLARS: Oh, yeah.

--on my transistor radio with little earbuds stuck in my ear.

And I thought, in about 1956, '57, I'm gonna do that someday.

My practice was on-- I would listen to WLS late at night when it was clear channel with nothing else on.

I'd listen to WLS and I would practice the sounders from WLS-- DALE MOORE: Yeah.

[chuckles] --you know, just over and over just to see-- so that I could sound just like the announcers I was hearing.

DALE MOORE: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

MALCOLM HUKRIEDE: I think, Dale, to get back to your question just a little bit, I think that there were some themes in the book that weren't talked about but were mentioned a lot.

Curt Brown, just a great, great guy.

JOHN SELLARS: Huge guy.

You know, everybody just loved him.

And it's in the book how much everybody loved him.

I had a chance to interview Curt on this program seven or eight years ago, maybe.

And, uh, you talk about a walk down memory lane.

I mean, you know, Curt was-- Curt was radio.

He listened to the radio 24 hours a day.

He did listen to radio 24 hours a day.

And between him, and Mike Open, and Mike Lynch, and all of that bunch out of Wichita, uh-- and we're going to talk more about KTTS particularly here in a second because of the impact, of the stations as well.

JOHN SELLARS: Oh, my goodness.

KTTS kind of turned the market on its ear whenever Great Empire walked in the door.

There's no doubt about that.

In your book, one of the things that I loved about this, and I didn't anticipate this was going to happen, you didn't have this just DJs.

No.

You weren't really-- you didn't do much on air.

Never on air.

You were never on air yourself.

No.

So you had a lot of-- I mean, and the sales stories, sometimes, are as good as-- JOHN SELLARS: They're amazing.

Really.

MALCOLM HUKRIEDE: Oh, yes.

As the DJ stories.

And I'll tell you a quick one because this is a true story.

You mentioned early in the book, Leo Hayes, Ed V's.

Yes.

DALE MOORE: I did his ads for years.

I did his ad on TV for years.

And after I left the radio station, I continued doing his ads.

And I think he paid me $15 a spot.

And Ed V's was a great store.

And it was about Christmas time, and he hadn't paid me.

And I was waiting to get paid.

And I forget now, he owed me a whole $100 or something.

And Leo had an office all the way in the back of the store at Ed V's.

And I walked in there on a Saturday morning, and I was determined to get paid.

And I walked back there and I saw him sitting back there, and the store was full of people Christmas shopping and what have you.

And I walked over and I pulled a Hart Schaffner and Marx suit off the rack and I headed for the front door.

And I got almost to the front door, and Ed Moffatt started screaming, what are you doing?

MALCOLM HUKRIEDE: His son-in-law, yes.

Yeah, his son-in-law, what are you doing, what are you doing?

And Leo just looked out and he said, that'll be OK, you just bring that back, and we'll trim those pants for you next week.

I said, thank you, Leo.

[laughs] But there are a gazillion stories.

What are some of the great sales stories you remember?

Well, I'll tell you, the one that I remember most with the Leo Hayes incident is, you do this spot, I take it out to get it OK'd.

He never OK'd it on a first or second time.

JOHN SELLARS: Right, yeah.

And he said one time, Dale took a breath in the wrong spot, he should have talked over that breath.

And I'm going, 15% commission is not enough.

I spent two hours one day in a studio because I couldn't pronounce "insurance" the way that they wanted this company, Barker Phillips Jackson Insurance.

And I recorded that spot for two hours.

And I'd do "insurance" and I'd do "insurance."

And we went back and forth for two hours.

I said, you know, boys, for $25, I think I've used up my clock.

MALCOLM HUKRIEDE: Yeah.

But I always enjoyed the camaraderie between the sales department, the sales team.

Because we'd walk in the sales department and say, if it wasn't for us, you wouldn't have a product to sell.

And they'd say, well, if it wasn't for us, you wouldn't have anything to eat either.

It was always a great rivalry.

MALCOLM HUKRIEDE: Yes, yes.

It was great.

So some of the sales stories, some of the people you mentioned were-- Well, Mike Webb tells a great story about-- we used to have balloon races at KWTO, down there corner of Battlefield and Campbell.

And they-- we'd always have a preparty the Friday night before the takeoff on Saturday morning.

And there was always a balloon master or whatever.

And somehow, we set up a balloon and blew up a hot air balloon in the atrium of the Holiday Inn on North Glenstone.

Yeah.

Now, you can just imagine a guest walking out of the door going, there's a hot air balloon out there.

I got in a hot air balloon once with KWTO, one of them things, and that thing took off.

And I had a Marti unit.

And I think we put a 12-volt battery in there, so it was already overloaded.

And we had all this equipment in there.

And I'm going to broadcast live from this balloon going up.

And we started coming down.

And this guy said, you're going to need to hang on.

And that balloon landed and it turned over sideways and it drug us through some farmer's field.

Oh, man.

Plow the field.

We plowed the field is what we did.

What do you think made radio great back in those days?

What was it about it?

JOHN SELLARS: The thing that made radio great was Ralph Foster and G. Pearson Ward, and the people that were so dedicated and committed-- Si Siman, all of those people that were so dedicated and committed.

And their commitment in the early days attracted people that wanted to entertain.

So you had Chet Atkins, and you had Les Paul, and you had The Carter Sisters, and you had all those people that came through here and performed here on the radio and entertain people so greatly so that when by the time that it became a record rather than live music, people were so acclimated to listening to the radio for all their entertainment and all their information that it was just so powerful.

Well, we inherited the feeling that came off the old Ozark Jubilee days-- JOHN SELLARS: Exactly.

--is what we inherited.

JOHN SELLARS: "Corn a Crackin," which was the radio version of the Ozark Jubilee.

Because Springfield, as we've talked about on this program numerous times, was obviously a hotbed.

I mean, there were a lot of people who said, it should have been Nashville, I mean, it should have been Nashville because the stars obviously came out of here.

So when radio really kind of took over and started doing what it did, man, all of a sudden, and then KTTS came about.

And, boy, now every time I drive up and down Jefferson, young people today, they don't realize that there was a radio station there.

Had a great radio station and a television station all in one spot.

And Associated Wholesale Grocers.

Yeah.

Yeah, the Grocers Association.

Grocers Association.

Yeah, the Chamber of Commerce was in that house.

Everything in the world was in that house at one time or another.

I remember the time I worked-- when I worked at KTTS, I don't know how-- I mean, it always astounded me.

You drive around town, and how many KTTS decals-- JOHN SELLARS: Decals, yeah.

--you would see.

MALCOLM HUKRIEDE: Oh, yeah.

What a great promotion.

What a great idea.

JOHN SELLARS: No kidding.

I mean, Open and Lynch, who were not from Springfield, who were from Wichita, KFDI and all of that, they brought that brand of country over here, and, man, talk about the rest is history.

Steve Eifert has a great story in there about the day that KT flipped and went country.

I mean, it's a great story.

Yeah, it-- some of my fondest memories were working as a ranch hand.

And then Dan O'Day says it best, you know, once a ranch hand, always a ranch hand, and you are.

I mean, that's just-- JOHN SELLARS: Oh, my goodness, yeah.

And you never-- JOHN SELLARS: And they did so many things outside of the radio.

Oh, yeah.

JOHN SELLARS: We had a basketball team.

[laughs] You know?

We played basketball at fundraisers all over Southwest Missouri.

MALCOLM HUKRIEDE: Yeah And, uh, yeah, and a pretty good basketball team.

DALE MOORE: What was your number on that team?

747 was the number on my uniform.

Yes, thanks for sharing that.

[laughter] Yeah, I was a wide body, uh, large thing.

And we had Officer Mike with the talking-- JOHN SELLARS: Talking bicycle, yeah.

--talking bicycle.

Yeah.

I mean, that was-- it was just there was something going on all the time.

But at that time, we had news cars out with yellow lights on them and big KTTS on the side, stickers on cars of everybody in town if they wanted somebody to drive by and offer them $25 for having that sticker on their car.

Yeah.

We had so many things going on.

DALE MOORE: I worked for Larry Dixon, he and Jim Bug put K-BUG on the air.

And I was the first guy that, in fact, I-- Really?

Oh, yeah, I put them on the air.

And we had bought all of this new equipment, and it was the IGM, but they weren't the carousels.

This was the new equipment that everything was stationary.

And so we had the grand opening and the ribbon cutting, and we had the Chamber of Commerce and the mayor.

And we get out there, and I fire up the transmitter, and, boy, we're doing all this.

And I hit the button to start this cart machine, and there were 250 cartridges in there and every single one of them fired off at the same time.

[laughs] I mean, it was a cacophony is what it was.

Yeah, that's just how it works.

The first automated station.

The first automated station.

Ultramodern.

(AMUSED) Yeah.

And it didn't go as planned.

[laughter] I will never forget that.

It was a-- it was a hoot.

So we used to live and die back in the day by the book, the Arbitron ratings.

And you made reference to different books and-- MALCOLM HUKRIEDE: Yes.

And, of course, you being in the sales business, you would have been well-tuned in to what-- talk to us about the Arbitron and the importance of the Arbitrons.

Um, the importance of the Arbitron, when I was at Rock 99 KWTO-FM, is we had a 28 share, which means my sales pitch was, "hi, this is Malcolm.

What can I do for you?

", you know.

[laughs] MALCOLM HUKRIEDE: Now, when you have a 12 share or an 8 share, you've got to go knock on doors and things like that.

And there was a great rivalry between KWTL AM and FM and KTTS.

And between Rock 99 and KTTS FM, we had like 50% of the audience, and then all the other stations had a small percentage.

I hate to say you live and die by the ratings, but they sure can make your year easier or harder in that.

Yeah, as I went on to Wichita and other markets, I learned really quickly that you live or die by the book in a hurry.

MALCOLM HUKRIEDE: Yeah.

Yeah.

And that's how you set your rate card too is based on the power, the strength of your-- of that.

I was always amazed at the number of-- I mean, I don't know if it's hundreds, but it looked like thousands of people that would show up to the road shows that KTTS did.

And other stations did great promotions too.

MALCOLM HUKRIEDE: You know, what's funny is the other stations had remotes, but everybody wanted a road show.

DALE MOORE: Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

It was.

It-- MALCOLM HUKRIEDE: It branded the name of a remote.

It was a road show.

And it'd be a four-hour gig out there, and you'd get paid extra for that.

You'd get a little extra money for going out and doing that.

But it would be a sea of humanity.

MALCOLM HUKRIEDE: Mhm.

But back in the day, it seemed like everywhere you turned, there was a radio station doing some kind of a new promotion or a new gig or something.

And so many stories in here, I mean, from-- and again, I don't want to single any one person out, but my goodness, I mean, you've got names in here like, you know, Dan Shelley in news who went on to bigger and better things.

JOHN SELLARS: Yeah.

I mean, the-- Woody P. Snow and Mike The Intern and just-- I mean, a lot of people that made it big in a small pond that went on to a lot bigger pond, Les Garland, Les-- Yes.

Right?

I mean, my goodness.

It's astounding when you think of the talent that came out of this town and went on.

Charles McCord.

MALCOLM HUKRIEDE: Exactly.

I was just thinking of him, yes.

So this was a pretty good springboard to a lot of different markets for people.

MALCOLM HUKRIEDE: Bob Barker, didn't he work at-- Yeah, yeah.

OK, yeah.

He started out there.

So it-- it's just a fascinating account.

Who were some-- I think one of my favorite stories was Jim Bohanan.

And he said he started at KWLT-- or, no, KL-- keep listening, we're trying, KLWT.

JOHN SELLARS: Yeah.

And that just-- we all had those little sayings of something about the station.

I started at KRMO in Monet, and we'd call it the Barry County Blowtorch.

It was a 250-watt daytime signal that just almost got into Mount Vernon-- [laughter] JOHN SELLARS: Until sundown.

--until sundown, and then, you know, good night, Irene.

But, uh, John, what are some of your favorite memories of being in the radio business?

It's hard to say, isn't it?

It is.

It's hard to say.

And doing news was just, uh-- it was exciting.

It was fun.

You met interesting, interesting people.

I remember working a watch party for an election.

And the three talent, the three people that were in that watch party working for different-- were me, and the news director at KGBX, and the sportsman, sports director from KY3.

DALE MOORE: Yeah.

I mean, it was the most disparate group of people you could ever see in your life and just trying to get ahead, trying to catch somebody and get in there ahead of somebody else and have those conversations with them.

DALE MOORE: Yeah.

But, uh, yeah, it was amazing.

There's not one story that's better than-- they're all gems in their own right.

But as I read through and read Maurice James's account and Dan Shelley's account, the news guys, yeah, I mean, boy, you forget the things that were covered and the things that the news departments did.

It's just like the sounder for the storms.

DALE MOORE: Yeah.

That storm sounder, it drove people crazy because it played as long as there was a warning.

DALE MOORE: Right, right.

But people were-- they were so dependent on that that when that went off, they knew there was something going on.

MALCOLM HUKRIEDE: There was something happening.

Well, that's where you got your weather.

It wasn't for your phone, or your watch, or, you know, television.

It was-- Yeah, it was all there.

But the early radio business people, sales people in particular, they could sell anything to anybody.

JOHN SELLARS: Mhm.

And, you know, we had the song of inspiration at the top of the hour, which was sponsored.

We had the weather, which was-- JOHN SELLARS: The National anthem at noon.

(AMUSED) Yeah.

We had, you know, everything, and there was a sponsor for all of it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But that, you know, that was the grand-- that was the way you did business.

JOHN SELLARS: Yeah.

And, you know, and that and all the trade action-- And it was-- [laughter] MALCOLM HUKRIEDE: (AMUSED) Let's not go there.

Yeah, it was really-- but the businesses that spent that money got a good return because radio was so strong.

Yeah.

Yeah, every business you went into had a radio playing in the background.

There wasn't all this muzak and all that stuff.

You had a radio playing from some station.

There were great promotions.

And even though, you know, there were powerhouse stations here in town, everybody was in the mix.

Everybody is in the fray at some kind or another.

I mean, from KGB to you name it, I mean, everybody-- JOHN SELLARS: Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

So it wasn't that one station necessarily owned the market, although they dominated maybe, but it was a good radio market.

This was a great market to start from.

You know, one of the things that struck me as I read this and I started looking at a lot of these names in here, there are a lot of them have passed away already.

We've lost several.

JOHN SELLARS: A bunch of them.

And that just kind of-- that hit home, you know, that, I mean, wow.

And most of them, sadly their stories are lost other than what they've got in that one book.

DALE MOORE: Right, right.

And that's why it's important that we continue the process of trying to document some of these stories.

Yeah.

This reminds me of-- I mean, people say all the time, you know, I need to sit grandma down and put a tape recorder in front of her, and you should.

You ought to do that because as you look at this and these folks that are gone now, and there are several that are gone, uh, it reminds you that it'd be a good thing to do.

And that's a great segue.

Now, you kind of teased in the end of this book, Malcolm, that there might be something else ahead.

Is that still-- you guys thinking about-- MALCOLM HUKRIEDE: We're thinking about it.

--a part two?

We are, yeah, yeah.

DALE MOORE: It's no small undertaking, I know.

No, there, uh, were a few stories that were turned in that didn't make the book for some reason or another.

Either the email got lost or they lost in the mail or whatever.

So, I mean, we could start off with those six stories on top of these.

And there's other people like the Les Garlands of the world, I'd love to have his story.

DALE MOORE: Yeah.

And, uh, there are other stories.

And probably after Christmas settles down, we'll have a meeting maybe at Mid-West Family and get some ideas on a new direction.

I'm hoping for the meetings because I live for that.

I mean, those were so much fun.

Well, Malcolm, John, thanks both of you for being here.

Thanks for having us.

Happy to be here.

DALE MOORE: Time got away, I knew it would.

Yeah.

It's called the "History of Radio: In Springfield, MO".

It's available on Amazon?

Yes, and at the, uh-- History Museum on the Square.

--History Museum.

DALE MOORE: And at the History Museum downtown in Springfield.

If you love Springfield radio history at all, you need this one.

This is a great read.

And you stay tuned.

I'll be right back.

[music playing] PRESENTER: Ozarks Public television and Missouri State University are proud to present OzarksWatch Video Magazine, a locally-produced program committed to increasing the understanding of the richness and complexity of Ozarks culture.

Visit our website for more information.

I hope you enjoyed this remarkable and informative overview of Springfield, Missouri radio history.

And I want to thank my guests, John Sellars and Malcolm Hukriede, for sharing these memories with us.

And thank you for joining us.

And we'll see you again real soon on OzarksWatch Video Magazine.

[music playing]