Radio Digest (May 1931-May 1932)

Station Parade 61 time landing in Mexico. Here he stayed for quite a while, doing much writing. (Probably under the influence of tamales and mescal.) Returning to Cincinnati, The Post placed him on its staff along with Ray Long, Jess Conway, Roy Howard, and O. O. Mclntyre, but the urge to be a creative artist and not a copyist was strong within him, and eventually he left the Cincinnati Post, for the uncertain position of "free lance" writer for magazines. At this he did quite well, eventually landing a story in Colliers. Around that time, The Commercial Tribune was looking for an up-andcoming sports editor. He got the job. His early sports training at high school and college, both in baseball and football, was a great aid in this new endeavor. But his experience was not limited to the diamond and gridiron. No sir! Not Bob Newhall. H* LE WON the lightweight pugilistic championship of the Cincinnati Gym, and then the welterweight championship of Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky. No definite date was affixed to this feat, however we have faint suspicion it was done after working hours. In the fall of 1929, he and Mrs. Newhall (he took time off to marry, incidentally) started on a seven months' trip around the world. His knowledge of the newspaper business, his military associations, and his flair for close observation, were invaluable in bringing him in touch with sights seldom beheld by the average traveler. In England on the Eve of Armistice Day, he saw the Prince of Wales' famous Victoria Cross Dinner, in the House of Lords. Big game hunting was the program in the Soudan. In Sumatra, he steeled himself against the sight of young girls having their teeth filed down to the gums, and being driven temporarily mad by the pain. He witnessed the beginning of the Ghandi campaign in India. On a tiger hunt with British Officers in India, he (according to Bob) put two shots into a striped cat. Six were needed to down the big kitty. "Well, I killed him thirty-three and a third per cent, didn't I?" We agreed . . . and smiled. Ceylon, China, Japan and the Philippines ended a glorious tour for the Newhalls, netting them skins of lions, tigers, crocodiles, deer and Heaven knows what. In December 1930, the Commercial Tribune "folded up," as they say on Main Street. There was Newhall. Experience in Sports. Experience in travel. He knew how to write, but — what next to do? The tentacles of radio are far reach ing, and before many moons, Bob Newhall was making a new, but bigger and may we say better name for himself in front of the microphones of WLW in Cincinnati. His delivery of speech is rapid. He sees "red" when someone accuses him of copying the "Gibbons'" style. (See Letter.) He has always spoken rapidly, insofar as he is constantly "on edge." His Sports Talks have a mythical magnetism, attracting your attention immediately. Once you've been drawn to them, your ear won't let you leave. When he calls Bobby Jones, "Bobby," he means just that, for he knows them all . . . large or small. Every day his mail box is chock full of letters asking the whereabouts of this or that sportsman, long forgotten in the headlines of the newspaper sporting pages. Seldom, if ever, does Bob fail to give the correct reply. All his old sports cronies write him often. They give him the news of the sporting world in their own language, and that's the secret of Newhall's success on the air. His sports news is told to you in the language of the sportsman — The Mail Pouch Sportsman ! WGAR-Cleveland, Children's Hour SATURDAY morning in the WGAR Studios, would be an ideal spot for the League of Nations to get an idea how to establish perfect peace among all countries, for they would be afforded the opportunity of seeing Clyde Wood conduct his "Children's Hour," the members of which are descendants from virtually all nationalities. Chinese, and of course, Japanese, Scandinavians, Poles, Negroes, Caucasians ... all races gathered together by one common cause ... to do a little bit on the air, and to say "Hello" to mamma and daddy, who are on the other end, ears glued to the radio. There are instrumental groups, vocal trios, quartets, violinists ... in fact all types of performers, who together with a few parents, often pack up to three hundred people into the large studio, and leave many disappointed embryonic Kate Smiths and Russ Columbos outside. Notwithstanding the senility implied by such titles as "The Old Optimist.'' "Grandpa Wood," and "Dr. TinkleTinker," Clyde Wood is not an old man. He has that priceless knack of handling children, and very few of his little playmates suffer from "mike-fright." Wood accompanies most of the children at the piano, although there are few who bring accompanists. Fre fluently, a group of ten to fifty children hunch themselves in a bus and visit the studios en masse. It is not at all unusual to see a boy or girl struggling with a piano-accordion or a trombone twice his or her own size. The children range in age from one year and nine months to fifteen, the majority being from three to six. Wood permits the children to say "Hello" to their friends and relatives after they finish singing. A month or so ago, a young man of Polish ancestry started spieling off a list of names that would reach from here to there. "Wait a minute," interrupted Wood, "who are all those people?" "My brothers and sisters," said the little boy, who belonged to a family of eighteen. An effort is now being made to bring the whole family up for a fifteen-minute spot. They have a ten piece family orchestra, and lack only one boy in having enough for a football team. His little international friends like Clyde very much, and hardly a day passes but what he receives several highly sweetened cakes or a couple of gaudy neckties. Not infrequently, he is presented with a bottle of ripe grapejuice by the parent of a youthful performer. One of the things Wood enjoys most is his transpositions of songs ; he finds it necessary to play most of the popular songs in almost all possible keys. He's called upon to play from twenty to thirty songs on one program, for which there is no music. This accounts for his statement that he "files most of his music in his head." .Again we say the League of Nations should watch WGAR's Children's Hour on Saturday morning. The members should see a little Japanese girl sing a song, to be followed by the Laundryman's favorite and celestial son, carincr little about war — thinking little about disarmament, but thoroughly bothered about that important business of putting their song across in good style ! IVJR-Dctroit, Oklahoma Cowboys THE appearance of Otto Gray and his Oklahoma Cowboys in the Fisher Building studios of WJR, creates a somewhat incongruous picture that never fails to draw delightful comments from studio visitors. The sight of the gaunt cow-punchers in the set ting of a modernly decorated skyscraper studio is a Strange one indeed. And the group always performs in the true I tumes of the west — ten gallon hats, highheeled hoots, furry chap-, and all. Otto Gray and his hoys are all honest-togoodness cowboys, recruited from Mr. Gray's own ranch near Stillwater. Oklahoma. "Whenever we entertain." says Otto in his pleasing drawl, "we jest try to act nacheral. givin' the folks the same