QZVX.com

**I remember Lou [Robbins]. He’s a radio guy like me who’s a full repository of call letters. Buck Owens came to town to perform two concerts at Longview’s Monticello Hotel. Lou and I were given the opportunity to interview the country legend himself between shows.

During the conversation, Buck spoke briefly on his roots to the northwest. Lou and I both knew his ties to northwest radio. Then he mentions a small radio station in Puyallup whose current call letters eluded him. I glance over to Lou knowing full well Buck had set off a mental process in Lou’s head. I waited and Lou did not disappoint. Lou responded, “K-U-P-Y” . I had to restrain myself from laughing out loud.
Lou, thanks for the great memory!

Phil Roger
KLYK Magic 94.5 & 97.9 FM
KRQT Rocket 107 FM
KPPK 98.3 FM The Peak
KEDO 1400 AM Classic Hits Radio
KBAM 1270 AM Real Country
www.ThreeRiversRadio.com
— Phil is too kind! He is a veritable fount of knowledge about radio call letters and broadcast trivia – AND a funny fellow. I enjoyed working at KBAM/Longview with Phil Roger. Those were good times!

While some believe the call-sign had particular significance as an acronym for “First Broadcast License” alluding to a long-held belief in the station’s heritage as the first on the air in the Northwest, it’s more likely that the call sign corresponded with the timing of the application review and approval by the Department of Commerce – shortly after another famous west coast radio station was assigned its call letters for the first time: KFBK, Sacramento. The fact that the Leese Brothers had been experimenting with their radio station since at least 1920 had nothing to do with their interesting call letter assignment. It was simply a function of assigning call letters in alphabetical order!

The Leese Brother’s license granted authorization to operate in a portion of the newly established radio spectrum reserved for “general entertainment” at 833 kHz and “…used for broadcasting news, concerts, lectures, and such matter.” Like virtually all stations on the air at this time, broadcasts were at irregular intervals, and KFBL shared this frequency with stations as close as Seattle. Receivers were still not widespread, and they were expensive. Hand-held radios weren’t even possible, yet. By 1927, KFBL was assigned its first numerical frequency of 1340 kHz with 100 watts of operating power. The station evolved toward a more consistent programming schedule, but shared its time on the air with KXRO until almost 1929 when KFBL moved up the dial to 1370 sharing time with radio stations KVL and KKP.

The Leese Brothers operated their radio station until May 15, 1934 when they transferred control of the radio station to a staff member, Lee Mudgett. It was also in 1934 that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) was created by the Communications Act of 1934. Mudgett moved the main studio from Rucker to the Clark building on the corner of Wetmore and Hewitt Avenue, across from Everett’s famed “Speakers Corner” where every day at noon, people would gather to hear the thoughts of anyone bold enough to take the podium. On July 12, 1934, call-sign KFBL was retired and call-sign KRKO was assigned to the radio station. (Call-sign KFBL now resides with the United States Coast Guard.) In September, the studio and transmitter were moved to 1804 Hewitt Avenue.

Mudgett made a point of requesting special authorization from the FCC to operate the radio station during non-authorized times for the purposes of airing city, county, and national election returns. He also requested special authorization to broadcast the World Series.

Mudgett remained as the licensee for almost 10 years. During five of those years, he attempted to upgrade the facilities of KRKO, and he attempted to sell KRKO several times, but those upgrade efforts weren’t realized until he sold control of the radio station to another local Everett family led by William H. “Bill” Taft in 1940. Though not listed on the license, Bill’s wife, Thelma, played a major role in the station from the beginning. Thelma describes the first day at KRKO as “walking arm in arm” into what was to be a true business partnership as well as a marriage.

By 1941 the Taft family constructed KRKO’s first vertical antenna just north of the northeast corner of Wetmore and Wall Street and west of the First Presbyterian Church of Everett on land now occupied by a parking lot. KRKO moved farther up the dial from 1340 kHz and began to broadcast at 1400 kHz from the Clarke Building (now U.S. Bank). The station had a whopping 100 watts and later 250 watts during the four years it was located on Wetmore. The station used a single vertical antenna until they purchased the KEVE studios and transmitter site south of what’s known as the Hilltop Drive-In in north Everett.

Those familiar with Everett know the area of the circa 1944 transmitter site as nearly midway down fairway 15 at Legion Memorial Golf Course. The Tafts donated land to Everett Community College to create access from Old Highway 99. The access road became known as Tower Road. It ran next to the transmitter site and exists today, a reminder of a long-gone facility. At the time, the area was a swamp with scattered homes to the west on the ridge in the area where Everett Community College now resides.

The Taft family wasn’t able to finalize the acquisition of KRKO from Lee Mudgett until October 3, 1945 in the name of the Everett Broadcasting Company, Inc. Bill Taft and his brother Archie Taft, Jr. were listed as the licensees. With the transaction complete, Archie left Bill with KRKO and moved to Seattle to operate another legendary family owned radio station: KOL. Right about this time, long-time employee and local celebrity news staffer Shirley Bartholomew joined KRKO and began her nearly forty-year run at the radio station.

Documents from this era provide evidence of KRKO’s long-standing service record in the community and provide tantalizing insights into how different the economy of Everett was following World War II. Beginning at 6:00 a.m. on a weekday, the station broadcast a mix of music, a 15 minute block of farm report news including on-air classified ads for farmers wishing to buy and sell, farm market reports, and news from the Washington State Extension Bureau, followed by a 15 minute block of national news at 7:00 a.m., back to “…musical variety with a humorous slant” at 7:15. The station then aired recorded religious programming for a good portion of the morning, including shows like the Hebrew Christian Hour, Rings of Healing, and Dr. Talbot. Thelma Taft read news, handled much of the internal business operations, and began her annual tradition of reading Christmas letters from children over the air at noon as “Mrs. Clause.” Bill handled sales and management of the station.

In 1949, the Tafts received approval for a change to KRKO’s frequency again, moving it from 1400 to 1380, increasing the power from 250 watts to 1,000 watts, and adding a second vertical antenna to push (directionalize) the extra 750 watts northwest at night to protect other stations on the air to the east, south, and southeast. The north Everett transmitter site performed poorly and didn’t cover Everett’s expanding population to the south very well. The Tafts attempted to modify the night signal in 1951 to get better coverage but the effort must have been an exercise in futility. By 1957, the Tafts purchased land for a new transmitter site 1.3 miles south of Lowell along the Lowell-Larimer Road in rural farm land within the Everett city limits.

The Lowell transmitter site was a step-up for KRKO. Two modern 225-foot steel antennas were erected along with a new building, and the station was authorized to increase its power five-fold to operate at 5,000 watts 24-hours a day. Eight acres of farmland were cleared for a new building to house the business office, studios, and equipment. The studios, designed by Thelma Taft, were state of the art for the time featuring four turntables and a top-of-the-line RCA console. The transmitter was a brand new Gates – the best available in 1959.

7115 Larimer Road is the current transmitter site for KRKO today and served the majority of it’s existence as the main office for both studios and sales until the main studios were relocated to the 14th floor of Key Tower on the corner of Colby and Everett Avenues, just two blocks from where the Leese Brothers hooked up car batteries to a home-made transmitter. The “state-of-the-art” 1959 Gates transmitter remains in place as the only back-up transmitter for KRKO and is used intermittently even today. The RCA console shown in the photo of the main studio of the new building was decommissioned in 1997 after serving its final years in an editing studio at the Larimer Road site. The antenna system in use today is the same one as originally installed in 1959.

Sportscaster Robertson a link to the past
Seattle Times
(July 28, 2009) Almost everyone is gone now — except Bob Robertson.
He is the enduring voice of a bygone generation of Northwest radio and television sports broadcasting giants. Most of his peers — Ted Bell, Pat Hayes, Rob Belcher, Clay Huntington, Bill O’Mara, Bill Schonely, Ray McMackin, Pete Gross, Wayne Cody, Keith Jackson and Leo Lassen — have died or retired.

Mariners voice Dave Niehaus also remains. And in many ways, Niehaus and Robertson are kindred spirits.

Robertson, whose carrot-colored hair has turned gray and thin now, took a much different path to his Hall of Fame, however. He’s an icon to generations of sports fans, even though he spent most of his career outside the major markets.

You see his name and think: “That’s the Cougars guy with the funny sign off who has been at Wazzu forever.”

But there’s so much more to the Washington State play-by-play man than his 42-year career with the Cougars.

To know him, you need to know he temporarily stopped broadcasting this summer — the first time in 61 years — to take care of his ill wife, Joanne.

You need to hear the story about the blind boy who would sit by his side during Clover Park High School boys basketball games and made him aware that his radio audience was also sightless.

You need to know he was the last man in radio to do re-creations — where written reports were phoned in to a studio and he would call Tacoma Tigers minor-league baseball games with sound effects and his imagination.

You need to know he worked part-time jobs as a referee for the first Sonics exhibition game in Seattle; an official for Fife High School football games when Jim Lambright was the coach; and a general manager of the Seattle Rangers, a minor-league football team in the 1960s.

You need to know he nearly became the voice of the Mariners, and in many ways he is a real-life Crash Davis, the character from “Bull Durham” who pines for one last shot at the big leagues.

And you need to know that he turned 80 in March. And he’s in better shape than you are because he swims frequently, drinks a glass of Cabernet at dinner and eats a reasonably healthy diet. And he has three years left on his WSU contract.

And he has no intentions of retiring any time soon.

There are six decades of broadcast history to recap, so get comfortable.

Bellingham, circa 1948, is as good a place to start as any. Robertson spent much of his childhood in Canada, where his father, a professional baseball player with the Seattle Indians, was in the Canadian Air Force during World War II. Robertson graduated from Blaine High School and spent two years at Western Washington University before signing a contract to play center field for the Portland Beavers.

Before playing a game, he quit baseball and accepted the play-by-play job with the Wenatchee Chiefs, a minor-league baseball team.

“I don’t think too much about it anymore, but for years I wondered if I made the right decision,” Robertson said. “After I turned 30, I knew baseball was over for me.”

Next stop is South Bend, Ind., 1955, where Notre Dame hired Robertson to anchor its fledgling school-run television station. Although he spent less than a year covering the Fighting Irish, it’s one of the highlights of his career.

Next stop is Pullman, 1964, where Robertson began broadcasting football games for Washington State. It was a match made in Cougars heaven.

Next stop is Seattle, 1969, where Robertson began calling Huskies games for three years because his radio station, KVI, bought the broadcast rights to the crossstate rival.

The final stop is Pullman again, 1972, where Robertson returned to WSU. In addition to calling football games, he did play-by-play for men’s basketball until 1994, when he was replaced by Bud Nameck.

Former WSU coach Kelvin Sampson supposedly wanted an announcer who lived near Pullman. Robertson has resided in the Tacoma area since 1950. Years later, Sampson phoned Robertson and told him he had nothing to do with his firing.

“It’s not important now,” said Robertson, who received the Chris Schenkel Award from the College Football Hall of Fame in 2004. “I’m just happy to still be working.”

Between Bellingham and Pullman, Robertson has covered just about every sport — professional and amateur — in Washington and Oregon.

He’s done it all, from table tennis to hydroplanes — roller derby, the Seattle and Tacoma Rainiers, boxing, rodeo, high schools, Seattle Totems hockey, Sounders and Portland Timbers soccer, professional wrestling, Seattle University men’s basketball and Pacific Lutheran University men’s and women’s basketball.

He never broadcast a Seahawks game and never had any interest in calling NBA games, declining two NFL and two NBA jobs in the 1960s and early ’70s.

But if there’s any regret, it’s a missed chance to call major-league baseball.

Robertson recites lines from “Bull Durham” when he talks about his three-game stint in 1992 as Mariners broadcaster.

“Yeah, I was in the show,” Crash Davis said. “I was in the show for 21 days once — the 21 greatest days of my life.”

Robertson was a finalist in 1977 when the expansion Mariners chose Niehaus as their play-by-play voice. For years, Robertson believed he might be considered for an analyst position with the team, but he never got the chance.

“I had my cup of coffee in the bigs,” he said, laughing. “I had a great time. I’d still go [to the major leagues] right now if they asked, but at my age, they’re not going to ask.”

But Robertson doesn’t want anybody to feel sorry for him.

While Joanne is recovering, he’s preparing for his 43rd season with the Cougars in the fall and a return next year as the voice of the minor-league Spokane Indians, his summer job since 1999.

Robertson’s recent sabbatical from the radio booth has made him eager to get behind the microphone again, calling games like he has for 61 years and ending each broadcast with his signature goodbye: “Always be a good sport, be a good sport all ways.”

***************************** Bill O’Mara***************************

Pioneers In Broadcasting
By Don Duncan – Seattle Times

CUTLINE: ROGER DUDLEY: KING SPORTS DIRECTOR BILL O’MARA WORKS BEFORE A STUDIO CAMERA IN 1950. (PHOTO TAKEN FROM FIRST EDITION)

Back in the early 1950s, when the hydroplane Quicksilver flipped over and sank in Lake Washington during the first Gold Cup run here, KING-TV sportscaster Bill O’Mara did what to him was the most natural thing in the world.

O’Mara, an Irish Catholic, fell to his knees in the broadcast booth, crossed himself and said an “Our Father” right on camera.

News director Lee Schulman, who was Jewish, frantically directed a cameraman to take the camera off O’Mara and point it to the sky.

O’Mara’s words continued, with the camera panning the clouds.

“I thought it worked out well,” says O’Mara, now a disc jockey with KRKO Radio in Everett, “even though Lee said later, `The first thing you learn in school is the difference between subjective and objective reporting.’

“We got hundreds of letters, and only two were critical. One of the first . . . calls I got was from Dorothy Bullitt (owner of the station). She said, `You did what you felt, Bill, and I approve of that.’ ”

Many such stories were recalled yesterday after the startling news that King Broadcasting Co. would sell its vast communications holdings here and invest the money to promote environmental protection.

Seattle had many radio stations when Dorothy Bullitt began her communications empire by buying a little 50-watt station, KEVR, in 1947, renaming it KING and boosting it to 50,000 watts.

But KING-TV, which she began in 1949 after buying KRSC-TV for a little over $300,000 from P.K. Leberman, was the showcase of her empire.

Indeed, for the first five years of its life – while the Federal Communications Commission froze frequencies – KING was the only television show in town.

By the time other stations began to appear, KING-TV had such a head start that in the minds of most Puget Sounders it was synonymous with television – the way Frigidaire once meant refrigerator, the way Kleenex has become the operative word for all facial tissues.

KING ruled the roost. The station hired the best talent, cameramen, reporters and creative artists, gave them their heads and didn’t pinch pennies.

There was curly-haired, crisp-spoken Charles Herring, the first full-time television anchor “west of Minneapolis and north of Hollywood.”

There were Art Barduhn, pianist, and Stan Boreson, accordionist and master of parody, who headed up the station’s first variety show.

There was O’Mara, the king of hydroplanes when Seattle was in a frenzy over roostertails and lost sleep over whether a local boat would defeat the hated rivals from Detroit.

And, above all, there was Schulman, a young New Yorker and graduate of USC’s film-making school who was widely regarded as a genius in the infant medium.

KING (while it was still known as KRSC-TV) pioneered live television in the field on Thanksgiving Day (Nov. 25) 1948, when – after countless hours of preparation – its top sportscasters Ted Bell and O’Mara broadcast the state high school football championship game (6-6 tie) between Wenatchee and West Seattle.

There probably weren’t 1,000 TV sets in all of Seattle at the time. The screens had a diagonal measurement of 8 to 10 inches, and the images looked as if they were being viewed through the bottom of a beer glass.

Herring, now retired, didn’t own a television set at the time. So he drove down to the Camlin Hotel to watch the game.

“It was so fuzzy I’d have been better off staying at home and listening,” says Herring. “But it took a lot of courage for the station to try it.”

Television never again would be locked into a studio.

At the outset, KING, as the only television show in town, had its pick from four networks – NBC, ABC, CBS and DuMont. Cable was years away.

Network programs, on 16-millimeter film, arrived by airplane and were rushed to the studio. Kinescope recordings were made by pointing a movie camera at a TV screen.

If it reflected Seattle, there was nothing that young KING wouldn’t cover.

When Highline High School students put on a performance of the operetta “Pirates of Penzance,” KING-TV brought the entire cast down to its big barn of a studio on Lower Queen Anne, filmed the entire production from curtain to curtain and put it on the air.

Sponsors were hard to find. O’Mara’s real name was Rhodes. But the chief sponsor of one of his sports shows was The Bon Marche. As everyone knew, Rhodes Department Store was a major competitor of The Bon. Rhodes would have to change his name.

“I picked O’Mara, which was a good Irish name,” he says.

Mrs. Bullitt, who was to become the First Lady of television and hold that position until her death last year, knew a bit about changing names. Getting KING for her very own hadn’t been easy.

Not liking the call letters KEVR when she purchased her first radio station, she ran through all the four-letter possibilities that began with K and decided on KING. It was, after all, the name of the county in which Seattle was located.

Lots of other would-be communications moguls had entertained the same notion, only to be told the letters were already taken.

But Bullitt, who didn’t quit without a fight, checked and found KING represented the marine call letters of a freighter. She contacted the vessel’s owners and asked them to free up the call letters.

KING was born. When Bullitt purchased KRSC’s FM and TV stations, she moved the call letters to her new properties.

Schulman came to the new station early, when everything was a pioneering venture.

He went shopping for talent at the University of Washington and found Barduhn and Boreson.

“Lee was trying to fill time,” says Boreson. “He had Clifford and Clark, a good musical team, and Tom Herbert doing charades, and he decided to get some college talent.

“Art and I were hired. Our pay was $25 for half an hour, which we split two ways. If there was time to fill, Lee would hold out his arm to indicate that we should stretch it out. One night we had Gloria Swanson, the actress, as a guest, and Tom Dargon was interviewing her and we ran one hour and 25 minutes.

“I remember that we finally got a sponsor, Best Pies. They brought a couple to the show, and Lee decided that Art and I should hit each other in the face with them. The next morning, Best canceled its sponsorship. They decided it was not a good way to promote their pies.”

When Barduhn left the show, Boreson was given his own children’s program. Boreson’s accordion, his spoofs of his Scandinavian ancestry and his sad-eyed bassett hound, No Mo Shun, became institutions.

So did his theme song: “Zero dachus, mucho crackus, hallaballooza bub; that’s the secret password that we use down at the club.”

Others in the KING family who developed a large following included:

Sheriff Tex (Jim Lewis); Wunda Wunda (Ruth Prins); Bill and Cherie Corcoran, who emceed a talk show; a talented pianist/songstress who called herself Merceedes; a handsome daytime talk-show couple, Casey Gregerson and Mike Rhodes (“Telescope”); and the ever-fashionable fashion-show hostess Elizabeth Leonard.

One of the best-loved was Bea Donovan, whose cooking show ran for 25 years.

“Those were such fun days, I’d love to live them over again, and be as young now as I was then,” said Donovan, now 82, when she learned that KING-TV was to be sold.

Pranks were common on her cooking set, Donovan says.

“One day, I’m talking my head off to the camera, and when I turn around to take the egg off the plate, the darned thing won’t come off. The crew had glued it down.

“Another time, I smile into the camera and say, `And now I’ll just pop this in the oven.’ I opened the oven door, and it was filled with horseshoes.

“The set crew would laugh and giggle in the background, and I had to think of something to say.”

Herring, who was Dan Rather, Peter Jennings and Tom Brokaw all rolled into one in the early days of Seattle television, became anchorman in September 1951.

“They were 16 wonderful and crazy years,” says Herring. “I remember spending three or four days out in the Ravenna District, where they had this big hole in the ground, just watching it with a live camera and waiting for a piece of dirt to fall.”

The company had a heart, too.

In 1954, three years after joining KING, Herring was lured to Hollywood to write, produce and anchor a show for a CBS affiliate.

“I spent a few months there and decided I couldn’t stand L.A. and called KING and asked if I could have my job back. I was told to `come home.’ ”

Herring was involved, along with Chet Huntley and other big-name broadcasters, in the first satellite TV linkup between Europe and the U.S.

“Sure, it’s nothing now, but it was really big stuff in those days,” Herring recalls. “And I had a piece of it, because I was with KING.”

Before the 1962 World’s Fair, says Herring, he had never appeared in anything but black and white. But RCA sent a couple of color cameras out for the fair, “and pretty soon I had to have makeup before I went on camera.”

One of Herring’s most emotional moments in TV was going on the air to announce the assassination of President Kennedy.

KING wasn’t bashful about promoting itself.

It hired Disney to create a jaunty cartoon character, KING Mike, to run in company ads.

When Richard Nixon came to Eastern Washington as president, a KING Radio reporter stuck a microphone in his face. When Nixon asked what station he represented, the reporter said “`KING Seattle.” Nixon responded, “Boy, that’s a good name for a radio station.”

KING aired the president’s quote repeatedly over the next few weeks.

Dorothy Bullitt was particularly fond of Classic KING, her FM radio station. It didn’t make any money, but it was her favorite music and she wanted to give something to the community.

On the radio side, KING gave a start to Jim French (now KIRO) and Frosty Fowler (now KGNW). At one time, Al Cummings, the man who may have been the most popular disc jockey/commentator ever to broadcast in the Northwest, was a KING Radio man.

KING Broadcasting had a penchant for hiring intellectuals, on the radio and the TV sides.

Vic Stredicke, who wrote a radio column for The Times for many years and was close to the TV scene, thinks the Ivy League influence came from Stimson Bullitt, Dorothy’s son, who was president of KING Broadcasting until 1974.

“Stimmy liked the Harvard-educated types,” says Stredicke. “The idea was that they were smart and could learn about broadcasting. That’s how they got guys like Ross Davis as program director. He later became a Republican honcho. That’s also how they got Irving Clark, a liberal lawyer who used to delight in making people mad on his radio talk show.”

One of KING’s most daring ventures was Seattle Magazine, a slick publication headed by Peter Bunzel, an Ivy Leaguer who shared Stimson Bullitt’s passion for rattling cages.

The magazine eventually failed, but its controversial articles – on homosexuals, on Black Panthers and on Seattle’s gambling-tolerance policy – had a tremendous impact on journalists.

Ancil Payne, who was with the station for 30 years, mostly as Dorothy Bullitt’s right-hand man, says his fondest recollections are of KING-TV’s “willingness to be iconoclastic, to challenge the status quo.”

“Mrs. Bullitt was not a person who went out and sought controversy, but she never shied from it,” says Payne. “I loved controversy myself. I think it’s fundamental to the democratic system. Challenge and response are mandatory if we are to have a full discussion of issues.

“I guess that’s why Mrs. Bullitt kept me around as a lackey for so long.”

Under Payne, KING-TV did the first editorials on local TV (Payne did them himself). It introduced the first TV commentaries (by Herb Altschul, then by Charley Royer and now by Jim Compton). It also produced the nation’s first documentaries.

Many still recall the first one, “Lost Cargo,” which ran about 1960 and brought about fundamental changes in the way Seattle’s port did business.

Other memorable documentaries include “Harvest of Shame,” about migrant workers; “Suspect,” an in-depth look at the character assassination of state legislator John Goldmark; and a piece which dealt with murderer Don Anthony White and his victim.

KING-TV did documentaries on race relations in Seattle and Portland before the subject was popular. The station also did a series of documentaries on the environment some time before the environment became everyone’s favorite cause.

“Dorothy Bullitt never told me not to do something because we couldn’t afford it,” says Payne. “You can’t find bosses like that anymore.”

For all its past glories, however, KING-TV today is just one of three major television stations in Seattle and just one of dozens one can tune in to on cable.

“I’m watching news tonight on Channel 45,” says Payne. “Not long ago there were just three choices. And long ago, KING was the only choice.

“But you can’t turn back the clock.”

Copyright (c) 1990 Seattle Times Company, All Rights Reserved.
********

A Tribute to Bill O’Mara

By Fred Farley – ABRA Unlimited Historian

Anyone who was an Unlimited hydroplane fan in the Seattle area in the 1950s remembers Bill O’Mara. One of the legends of Pacific Northwest sports broadcasting, O’Mara brought an enthusiasm to his coverage of the races that was contagious.

Bill O’Mara

As an announcer for KING-TV for twelve years, Bill did the play-by-play for the Seattle Seafair races from 1951 to 1959.

KING-TV was the unquestioned leader in hydroplane broadcasting during the O’Mara years. With state-of-the-art photography and Bill’s passionate commentary, KING had a winning combination.

A native of Minnesota, O’Mara began his sports announcing career on radio in 1939 in the Mid-West. He made his way to the West Coast in 1948. One of his first broadcasting assignments at KING was coverage of Seattle Rainiers baseball games.

His real name is William Rhodes, Jr. When hired at KING-TV, one of the station’s prime sponsors was The Bon Marche, which didn’t particularly want a sportscaster bearing the name of a rival department store — Rhodes.

In 1950, a friend invited O’Mara down to Lake Washington to see “something special.” The occasion was a test run by SLO-MO-SHUN IV, the Northwest’s first Unlimited hydro. The sight of SLO-MO skimming across the water at tremendous speed, throwing an impressive roostertail of spray, was awe-inspiring. In an instant, Bill was “hooked” on the hydros. He would remain so for the next half century.

SLO-MO-SHUN IV went on to capture the APBA Gold Cup on the Detroit River in 1950 with Ted Jones driving. In those days, the Gold Cup winner had the right to defend his title on home waters. In the twinkling of an eye, Seattle was “Hydro Happy.” In the days before there were any Seahawks, Sonics, or Mariners, the boat race was the biggest thing in town, when the Seattle-Detroit rivalry was at its peak.

KING-TV/Channel 5 advertised itself as being “First In The Northwest.” And, with O’Mara at the helm, KING was the first to televise a live Unlimited hydroplane race west of the Mississippi River.

Seattle’s hydroplane debut occurred on August 4, 1951. Driver Lou Fageol retained the Gold Cup for owner Stan Sayres at the wheel of SLO-MO-SHUN V.

The 1951 Gold Cup was also the occasion of a double fatality. A boat called QUICKSILVER, representing Portland, Oregon, went out of control and crashed while attempting to pass another boat during the Final Heat. Driver Orth Mathiot and riding mechanic Thom Whittaker were killed.

What happened next would become a part of hydroplane lore. A visibly shaken Bill O’Mara faced the camera and led his unseen audience in The Lord’s Prayer.

As hydro fever grew in Seattle, O’Mara fanned the flames of this new regional obsession and replaced the rain as a conversational topic.

KING-TV’s visual presentation of the races was second to none. Indeed, the introduction of the 100-inch lens seemingly put the viewers right in the cockpit with the hydro drivers.

When announcing a race, Bill would get so excited, fans had to keep their eyes glued to the TV, in order to follow what O’Mara was talking about.

As interest in the sport grew, so did the media coverage. KING was soon competing with two other TV stations and as many as thirteen radio stations in its presentation of the Seattle race.

In 1955, KING-TV pulled off a classic broadcasting coup over rival KOMO-TV/Channel 4.

The Gold Cup had apparently been won that year by Bill Muncey and the Seattle-based MISS THRIFTWAY, which had finished third, first, and first in heat races for a total of 1025 points. Lee Schoenith and the Detroit-based GALE V had finished second, second, and third for a total of 825 points.

The KOMO crew presumed that because Muncey had finished first in two out of three heats that MISS THRIFTWAY had won the race. They announced Muncey as the winner and signed off the air.

The KING crew was likewise about to call it a day when an alert production assistant reminded O’Mara about the matter of Bonus Points. Bill said, “Explain this to me.”

Bonus Points were the 400 points that were awarded to the boat that posted the fastest average speed for all three 30-mile heats.

True, Muncey had beaten Schoenith in Heats Two and Three. But Schoenith had finished far ahead of Muncey in Heat One. Who had the faster total elapsed time?

O’Mara chose to stay on the air. And it was a good thing that he did.

After checking and re-checking the times, Gold Cup officials discovered that GALE V had run the 90 miles 4.536 seconds faster than MISS THRIFTWAY. The 400 Bonus Points raised GALE V’s point total to 1225, compared to 1025 for MISS THRIFTWAY.

GALE V had won the 1955 Gold Cup without winning a single heat! And viewers got the news first on Channel 5! The Gold Cup would go back to Detroit for 1956.

It was a shining moment for O’Mara and the KING crew and one of supreme embarrassment for their counterparts at KOMO.

In the years ahead, KING-TV’s hydro coverage branched out from its Seattle home base.

On September 1, 1956, Channel 5 did a live broadcast of the Gold Cup from Detroit. Moreover, Heats 2-A, 2-B, and the Final were aired live on national television via the ABC Network. This was a famous first for Unlimited hydroplane racing.

KING-TV also found itself unexpectedly caught up in the controversial matter of an alleged buoy foul by the MISS THRIFTWAY at the 1956 Gold Cup.

Muncey and MISS THRIFTWAY–for the second year in a row–had apparently won the cup. But the officials wanted to take it away from them for supposedly destroying a buoy on the seventh lap of the Final Heat.

KING-TV came to Muncey’s rescue. Television film of the race showed that the buoy was still visible in the spray after MISS THRIFTWAY had passed it. Then, on the following lap, the buoy was no longer upright.

As a result, the disqualification of MISS THRIFTWAY was rescinded and the Gold Cup went back to Seattle for 1957.

Bill O’Mara did four hydro telecasts in 1957. These included the debut of the Apple Cup in Chelan, Washington, the Gold Cup in Seattle, the Silver Cup in Detroit, and the President’s Cup in Washington, D.C.

In 1958, O’Mara and KING-TV presented the inaugural Diamond Cup from Coeur d’Alene, Idaho.

Unlimited competition was certainly big business in Seattle in the late-1950s. The races were sacrosanct. No one dared complain about them too loudly. And KING-TV was the sport’s most respected medium. No one quite realized that Unlimited racing–as a big-time Seattle sport–had seen its better days.

Over-exposure. Public complacence. Increasing commercialization. The promise of major league sports on the horizon. Whatever the reason, hydro racing was perceived by some as being on a downward slide.

Looking ahead to the 1960s, the KING Broadcasting Company management developed new long-range plans for the station. Bill O’Mara’s hydro agenda was not included in those long-range plans. Bill’s replacement as Sports Director was a man who openly despised the Unlimiteds. Within two years of O’Mara’s departure, live TV coverage of out-of-town races was a thing of the past.

After leaving KING, Bill moved to San Diego where he worked in both radio and television for several years. By 1963, he was back in the Northwest, announcing the Seafair Regatta for Radio Station KOL.

O’Mara still had a considerable fan base. As the often-told story goes, in countless Seattle homes on Seafair Sunday, people would tune their TV sets to Channel 5 but would turn down the volume. They would place a radio, tuned to KOL, on top of the TV. Fans could then enjoy the classic O’Mara commentary together with the superior KING visuals as in days of old.

In 1971, as an employee of Radio Station KFKF in Bellevue, Washington, Bill was presented an award for excellence in broadcast journalism by the APBA Unlimited Racing Commission.

At the 1994 Seattle Seafair Regatta, O’Mara was invited by KIRO-TV/Channel 7 to do the play-by-play for a special exhibition run by the restored SLO-MO-SHUN V. Thirty-nine years earlier, in 1955, Bill had been doing the commentary when the “V” did a spectacular 360-degree flip on Lake Washington during a qualification attempt.

The KIRO experience was a happy one for the man who had set the standard for hydro broadcasting. The smile never left his face all day.

In 1998, O’Mara was inducted into the Unlimited Hydroplane Hall of Fame. Surrounded by several generations of family members, Bill praised his former KING employer, Dorothy Bullitt, and described her as “a broadcast pioneer.”

Even after decades in the industry, Bill O’Mara showed no signs of slowing down. As late as 2004, at age 87, he was still going strong as Sports Director of Radio Station KLKI-AM in Anacortes, Washington, where he had worked since 1989.

In a 2004 interview with the SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER, O’Mara affirmed his love for all sports–everything from prep basketball to Unlimited hydroplanes.

“I’ve never ‘worked’ a day in my life,” he insisted. “I’ve been tired, I’ve been worn out, but I’ve never been bored.”
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Bill O’Mara called hydro races for KTVW Channel 13 in the 70s also.

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July 2007 – Originally published in Citizen Rain

…After 22 years of dedication to Anacortes’ KLKI radio (he even lives in a trailer behind the station) he was canned this week by new owners, with no explanation. But he’s not letting the situation get him down. “They have a right to do what they wanna do, but they’re not gonna make me lose my belief in myself,” he told reporters.
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Originally published March 22, 2009 Seattle Times

KING-TV pioneer Bill O’Mara dies at 92

Bill O’Mara, a sports-broadcasting pioneer at KING-TV six decades ago and later sports director for more than 20 years at KLKI radio in Anacortes, died Saturday at age 92 in Stevens Hospital in Edmonds.

In one of the most famous moments in Seattle television, in 1951, O’Mara recited The Lord’s Prayer on the air when the unlimited hydroplane Quicksilver disintegrated and sank in Lake Washington, killing driver Orth Mathiot and riding mechanic Thom Whittaker.

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