Sponsor (July-Dec 1949)

Special events Build audi«*ii<*«' friendship Ed uca1 ion tlireetor's European tour. state fairs highlight busy summer at WIS. C'hieago ADVERTISEMENT Never a station to let pass an opportunity to cement friendships with listeners, WLS in Chicago has a full summer of special events broadcasts scattered over the four states where the WLS audience is concentrated. Participation in three state fairs, civic celebrations, Chicago Railroad Fair, square dance contest and a trip to Europe by the station's education director highlight the long list. Twelve thousand people jammed the grandstand at the Illinois State Fair in Springfield when the WLS National Barn Dance was presented as opening night attraction — as it has been every fair year since 1929. Dinnerbell Time, oldest farm service program in radio, originated from the WLS tent all fair week. WLS headquarters featured, as usual, checkroom facilities, picnic tables, exhibits picturing talent and station events during its 25-year history. Two free stage shows daily by Captain Stubby and the Buccaneers drew capacity houses, and hundreds of visitors participated in flower arranging contests. Exhibits were torn down Friday afternoon, shipped to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where we set up for Saturday's opening of the Wisconsin State Fair. Dinnerbell, flower contests, stageshows, checkroom, etc. were all repeated in Milwaukee for a week. Then, with only a week intervening, the whole program will be repeated the first week in September at the Indiana State Fair in Indianapolis. Farther from home, at another fair, the WLS National Barn Dance played before 10,000 people in Phillips, Texas, at the invitation of the local Lions Club. The entire cast of the Phillips 66 National Barn Dance, which WLS feeds to the ABC network, was flown to Texas for this special show. Barn dance entertainment received a tremendous boost in Chicago too. The station teamed up with the Chicago Park District and the Sun-Times in a summer-long series of Square Dance contests. Finals were staged on Michigan Boulevard before 20,000 spectators, with headliners from the WLS National Barn Dance as featured en 29 AUGUST 1949 Mrs. Josephine Wetzler Director of Education, WLS tertainers. Preliminary contests in the parks each drew from 4.000 to 10,000 spectators. The Square Dance Festival resulted in columns and columns of WLS stories and pictures in the Chicago Sun-Times — 600 inches in June alone! Another bigtime Chicago success for WLS was the appearance of Captain Stubby and the Buccaneers at the Railroad Fair. The Rock Island Railroad declared one Sunday "Buccaneers Day" at their Rocket Village, later reported: "a terrific hit . . . attendance was one of the heaviest in Rocket Village in the two years running of the Railroad Fair." In surburban Chicago, Martha Crane and Helen Joyce were featured as headliners of Homemakers' Day at the Villa Park Pioneer Days celebration for the second year. Almost an hour before show time every seat in the Villa Theater was taken by listeners anxious to see Martha and Helen broadcast their WLS Feature Foods program and a stage show by Red Blanchard and the Sage Riders. Another surburban event: Dinnerbell Time was broadcast from the U.S. Naval Air Station at Glenview when the Flying Farmers of Prairie Farmerland held their annual field day there. September 12 will see Dinnerbell originating at the Illinois Feed Association convention in Springfield. On September 23. the broadcast will come from Kewanee (111.) Hog Day — in Henry County, which has more hogs than any other county in the nation. In early summer, the program originated at Harvard (111.) Milk Day, which WLS has helped boost from a few hundred in attendance in 1942 to 15,000 spectators this year. All is not barn dancing and farm service at WLS, however. Josephine Wetzler, director of education at WLS, will fly to Germany in September, at the invitation of Army Headquarters in Heidelberg, for a tour of German Youth Centers in the occupied zone. Mrs. Wetzler will also tour England and Scotland, to make tape recordings of life there. Mrs. Wetzler's invitation to Germany is the result of numerous WLS programs featuring the work of German Youth Activities. Her European programs will be featured on Dinnerbell. Prairie Farmer Air Edition and on School Time. This latter program won the top ranking duPont award last year. These are only a few of the things WLS has been doing. The station has carried its several daily weather reports, its regular ABC network programs, its own distinctive "WLS-built" features. All in all, the station has lived up to its quarter-century record : it serves the needs, the wants of its listeners. It serves because it knows. WLS asks its listeners what they wish to hear — and listeners respond with a million letters a year. WLS knows . . , because WLS goes out among its listeners, meets them, talks with them, finds out from them exactly how to program to be a part of living. That's why WLS is "one of the family" in Midwest America. That's why WLS Gets Results. This is an advertisement of WLS, the Prairie Farmer station, 1230 Washington Boulevard, Chicago 7, Illinois. 50,000-watts. 890 kilocycles. ABC affiliate. National representatives, John Blair and Company. ADVERTISEMENT