Sponsor (Oct-Dec 1961)

PHONEY TELEGRAM? Marion nearly threw this wire from President Eisenhower into the wastebasliet, thinking it was a gag by the station staff. (See text for the full story) WOMAN OF THE YEAR. Presentations of awards are another perpetual chore for a busy station manager. Here's Marion giving Woman of the Year honors to Dr. Elizabeth Corkey calls for one of our programs were running HER crazy. But the crank calls ar«> more than offset by the calls and visits from listeners who have good things to sa\ or, better still, ideas of how the station can better aerve the community. W hoever undertakes to do a job in Charlotte — civic, cultural, educational or charitable — seems to appear sooner or later, generally sooner, in my office. The results of some of these \ tsita are routine; others are farreaching. One fall day. six years ago, a young lady who worked as a secretary for a local oil company asked me for an appointment She wanted publicity for a performance of Handel' "Messiali 1>\ a Music Club chorus in a local church. She explained that a freewill offering taken at this performance was the principal way in which the club raised money for music scholarships. At the time of her call, Charlotte was patting itself on the back on the completion of a beautiful new civic auditorium, seating 2,500 people. As we talked that day, we both thought of how wonderful it would be if "Messiah" could be given each Christmas season and, perhaps someday, fill the auditorium. Two days later, our company took over the sponsorship of "Messiah" and underwrote the rental fee for the new auditorium. On December 4 last year, the date of the annual performance, I arrived at the auditorium a half hour ahead of time. \S hen I finally found a parking space and started toward the auditorium, I met streams of people coming away. My first thought was that the performance had been canceled; I found instead that every seat in the auditorium was full a halfhour before the performance, as manv were standing as the firemen would allow and hundreds were being turned away. Here was the satisfaction of seeing a good idea grow great. Our company has helped the music club to realize an ambition and made possible the collection of almost $6,000 in scholarship funds. But the end was not yet. Now a second musical event has been added through our partnership with the music club — a spring performance of Haydn's "The Creation," which promises to be as popular with the community and as profitable to the music scholarship fund as "Messiah." If a radio station is a magnet that draws local visitors with interesting personalities and ideas, its attraction seems to be even stronger for the outof-town great and near-great. We have entertained at the station such widely diverse figures as Jack Dempsej and Ira Pettina, Betsy Palmer and Ivy Baker Priest, Ann Jeffreys and Gene Autry. Phil Rizzuto and Joan Bennett, Leon Uris and Adlai Stevenson. We have originated broadcasts for Lowell Thomas. Walter Cronkite. Ed Murrow, Franklin D. Roosevelt, General Bela Kiraly, hero of the Hungarian underground, and Dwight D. Eisenhower. While contacts with each of these were stimulating, one of It was a message of signed Dwight D. mj favorite memories stems from an experience with the last-named gentleman. In 1957 we celebrated the 35th anniversary of WBT. As radio stations will, we let the word get around to network stars and leading citizens that, if they insisted on congratulating us on our anniversary, we would not be adverse to broadcasting their good wishes. The customary congratulations rolled in and we collected a goodly representation. On the day before the celebration began, a message came in that made all the others pale by comparison. As I walked into my office that morning I saw a yellow envelope unopened on top of my mail stack. As I opened it I saw it was from the White House, congratulations Eisenhower. Now our radio staff is a fairly informal brotherhood and the clever con is far from unknown among us. I had perpetrated one or two myself. I still remembered the gleam in the eve of our publicity man who received a highly exciting but inaccurate teletype from Za Za Gabor about visiting the station the next morning. Memory brought back also the plight of our merchandising girl who constantly misspelled Procter and Gamble — until she received one morning a teletype from the president of P&G cancelling all advertising on our station until she learned to spell. What then, I thought when I saw the yellow envelope, could be more natural than that mv ever-loving staff had cooked up a telegram from the president and were even then waiting to enjoy my gullibility. On the other hand, if it was genuine, what a topper it would be for our anniversary celebrations! I stood smack in the middle of a dilemma. There was nobody I could consult. \nv member of my staff might have sent the telegram. There A\as only one solution — to call the WTiite House. Our operator nearlv swallowed the switchboard when I put in the call but in a remarkably short time I had the White House on the phone and soon I was talking to Press Secretary Hagerty. I identified myself and asked whether the president had sent us a (Please turn to page 50) ;i SPONSOR • 16 OCTOBER 1961