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I never played anything but a minor role
in this business, but I have a story to relate. Growing up in the Idaho
mountain community of Salmon, after everyone was asleep, I listened to the
great late night radio. There was no daytime reception. "One Man's Family",
"Art Baker's Notebook", and so on. Then I would relate what I heard at the
breakfast table. The only news was a weekly, local newspaper.
When I was fifteen, I bought a one-watt
transmitter and created a radio station, which broadcast to the next-door
neighbor for an hour a night. The "station" won a science fair prize and I
got a job in the first local radio station of our home, then in Dillon,
Montana. My first words on radio were a miss-read. "Premier Khrushchev has
declared war!"
Ira Blue, at KGO, in San Francisco, was one
of my radio hero's. I first "met" him when I called his show, at the Hungry
I, from my first small town radio job in 1959. It was as if I had spoken to
the gods. Then, from the big city of Missoula, I called again in about 5
years later and he remembered me. His advice to me then was "What ever you
do make sure that people know that "Jack Selway" did it. It was magic
actually hearing my name over the air.
When I arrived in SF, September of 1971, I
walked into the Golden Gate Ave office of KGO TV News and announced that I
was Jack Selway from Montana. Pat Palillo, the tough ND told me to go home,
read Herb Caen for a month, review his new 4:30 hour-long newscast and then
call him. I called with a long list of mistakes and he hung up on me. I also
met Bob Benson, KGO Radio ND. He mistook me for Ron Majors and invited me
into his office. That created a friendship, which resulted in his calling me
on Christmas Eve of 1971. It seems that the staff announcer, who was
scheduled, had taken so many throat lozenges that he burned his vocal
chords. I quit my job at El Cerrito Capwells to take two shifts. When it
came time for Ira's 8 PM show, he was ill, and Hilly Rose, his substitute
was ill. We could have played Christmas music, but only one turntable was
working. I looked up the number and called Ed McLaughlin, then GM, and told
him that it would cost a fortune to bring in an engineer on golden double
overtime. Ed seemed deep into spirits, and asked if I'd ever done a talk
show, and I said, "of course", since I had been in radio and talked on the
phone. Heck, I'd even been a TV anchor in Montana, WOW.
How I met Ira was that he called me,
on-the-air, on the second night of doing the "Ira Blue Show". Ira told me
many stories, but the one I love was about his first job. As I recall, Ira
was an attorney, and happened to know Samuel Goldwyn. Goldwyn hired him to
broadcast what Ira called the "first sports program on radio" a big chess
championship. Then he had to convince the Zellerbach's that his talent was
worthy of the hand of their daughter.
There was never anybody like him.
Ah, so, I was doing this radio gig, and
part of it was a combo shift. Therefore, I introduced the TV news that first
night. Pallilo called the control room amazed with the announcer. My delight
was running into Pat, outside the offices, the next week. Remember me? "Ya,
now get lost", was the look I got. So I told him what he had said of my work
and we became friends. It takes T&S to do well in this business. Talent and
Stability. I had only one, and "W" would only begin to surface about 30
years later.
I was doing very well with freelance gigs
at KGO, weekends at KFOG, and a well paying cantor role at Star of the Sea
Catholic Church out on Geary when I happened onto an anchor job in Boise,
Idaho and took it. Had I had the TS and even a hint of W, I never would have
left and enjoyed a long, happy career.
The job in Boise lasted a year, and tail
between my legs, I returned, got a night job at KRON FM (Lee Nobel, GM),
returned to Star of the Sea, and got a summer replacement job as a writer
for KGO TV news. Peter Spear was the tyrant of the newsroom. All he did was
to remove more of the "S" from young Selway. One story of memory was being
yelled at by Spear to go out side and cover a story. There, in a pool of
blood was KGO Radio Sales Exec. Ben Munson, husband and father of two kids,
killed when he answered the radio station door, about noon, and shot to
death by a deranged man. That summer there had been pipe bombs at a couple
of high visibility companies, that the Munson killing made open entry into
any big business impossible. When I first met Pallilo and Benson, I just
walked in and wandered around. That was 1971.
At the end of the summer of 1973, Fred (Van
Amburg) decided I had to go. The nicest part of that event was Jerry Jenson;
coming to my desk to thank me for all I had done for them that summer. Jerry
was a fine and honorable man. Pete Giddings was exactly what he looked like.
Years later, I was singing an original song for the Cerebral Palsy Center of
the Bay Area, with Fred as the main speaker. He was kind, generous, and
charming. I still have the original lyrics with a "Circle 7 Van Amburg"
signature.
As for reading Herb's column, I did work at
sending "items" and managed to get about two dozen past Carol Vernier to
Herb's attention and the column. I even sang for his 78th birthday at
Bimbo's 365. My singing finally resulted in being named, by Frank Jordan, as
the "Official Singer of the City of San Francisco".
I've been in Colorado since the mid-90's
where I was often confused with John Elway, but I noted that "He ain't go no
'S'" Today, I'm grateful to have some of that illusive "S", still abundant
"T" and best of all the first inkling of some "W".
I did have a very, very brief stint as the
KPAT new director, in early 1972. When I there, (6 weeks), the GM was Ollie
Hayden and the owners included Chet Huntley. Getting up at 3 AM to cover a
beat was not my best effort. One day Ollie took me to lunch to discuss my
progress. He kept me waiting for two hours after my shift and then a long
lunch. I turned in about 5 hours of overtime and, for that reason, he fired
me. Shortly thereafter, I got the Boise, Idaho gig.
My last radio work in the Bay Area, was a
"Traffic Central" late night weekend job. "Traffic for shut-ins" was what a
friend called it. My video business kept me going until I moved to Colorado.
My video clients were mostly major corporations and the money was
exceptional. Still mostly "T" and very little "S." I did have one "voice"
bit that earned me good money. I was the national voice of "Evelyn Wood
Reading Dynamics" in the mid-70's. I'm shy three years from fifty since my
first "radio station", but only moments away from many fond memories.
I still sing a bit, but my new love is what
I missed all those years, a growing faith that has allowed an ounce of "W"
... wisdom to be present. I've also been creating a history of Rotary
International on the internet for the past five years and that "search for
truth - history" has been very rewarding. I live a comfortable life in my
new Colorado home. My memories of my minor role in the broadcasting business
are pleasant, and each day brings the hope of a tiny bit more "W." I like
the Japanese saying, "Knowledge without wisdom is like putting books on an
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