Channel 4 turns 65 this month

[JohnH_in_OKC]

This month marks the 65th year since Channel 4 - now KFOR (formerly WKY-TV and KTVY-TV) - started broadcasting. Since I am only one month older & born & brought up in OKC, it's been my "home" TV station for all of my life.

To celebrate the anniversary, Channel 4 updated its station history Internet page by adding several hundred photos of its early years. Among the photos are E.K. Gaylord, whom I knew from church, who founded Oklahoma Publishing Co and owned the Oklahoman since around 1902. He had the vision to start Oklahoma's first TV station (I think he was 76 years old when Channel 4 began broadcasting in June, 1949). There are photos of Steve Powell (Foreman Scotty), Danny Williams (3-D Danny and Willard on the Foreman Scotty show who also hosted Dannysday and Saturday Night Wrestling), Mary Hart, Miss Jane, Bazark the Robot, Tom Paxton, organist Ken ???, Don Wallace (Wallace Wildlife), John Ferguson (Count Gregor), Harry Volkman, who likely did the first tornado alert in the nation, Jim Williams, Bob Barry Sr., Robbie Robertson, news people like Ernie Schultz, Jack Ogle, Pam Henry, Linda Cavanagh, George Tomek, Frank McGee (whom, I think, used a different name while at Channel 4), Bob Dotson, Brad Edwards, and a host of country music stars including Buck Owens who hosted a national show taped (or filmed) at Channel 4. My apologies to the hundreds of people I didn't list. Maybe some of your comments could add additional persons' names appearing in the archived Channel 4 photos.

Channel 4 is also featuring clips from the early days on newscasts all this week. Tonight at 10:00 PM, I watched Harry Volkman being interviewed about his first tornado warning which was relayed from Tinker AFB by Frank McGee. Volkman went on to fame as a legendary weatherman in Chicago. McGee later became host of the Today Show & was a principle anchor at NBC on the day when John F. Kennedy was shot (along with Chet Huntley).

On Channel 4's website, I found this story posted about Jane Jayroe and the tornado warning story from Harry Volkman.

[Pete]

Thanks for sharing this.

I have a lot of fond memories from Channel 4. I'm going to enjoy looking through all this.

[Jim Kyle]

Just an addendum: The fellow who shot most of those pictures is still around and still taking photos. His name is John F. Shannon but he's Johnny to his friends. A 1944 graduate of Classen High School, Johnny was one of the original cameramen and was with the station from its earliest days in the Little Theater area of Municipal Auditorium until retiring as their chief photographer some 40 years later.

He tells me the Channel 4 veterans still get together regularly. Today, Johnny is active in the Classen Alumni Association (as am I) and takes most of the photos for our quarterly magazine.

I've forgotten what Frank McGee's "air name" was when he was here; for years the station policy was that newscasters had to use "air names" that were the property of the station. This was to prevent them from building up a reputation with viewers and then jumping ship to a competitor. I do remember that OU classmate Ross Cummings broadcast as "Reed Connelley" before founding his PR firm, and Jim Terrell was "Grant Foster" on the air. I believe that Ernie Schultz, another OU classmate, was the first to use his real name on the air.

During the mid-50s I was a stringer for them, carrying a 16-mm Keystone camera and Frezzolite portable floodlight around town at night looking for fires, auto accidents, and other newsworthy events. The station furnished me film, and if any was used on-air paid 50 cents per second of air time. Another fellow, Bob Duncan, did the same for KWTV. We often met at the scene of some event.

When OPubCo moved me from the Times over to the Oklahoman, my career with Channel 4 came to an end.

[traxx]

It's interesting to look through all of those pictures. Locally produced television is pretty much non existent these days but was a big deal back then.

[5alive]

A bit off subject...on a rare drive down Britton Rd I noticed new brickwork on the Channel 4 building. Are they expanding the size or is this just a new brick façade for an updated look?

[theparkman81]

I have great memories of watching channel 4, but it was mostly from the 80's and 90's, I remember sitting next to my mom when I was 3 watching Dannysday, it was one of their final shows, my dad use to go watch wrestling a lot back in the 50's and 60's.

[Bunty]

As a little kid, I used to love watching Championship Wrestling every Sat. night at 10:30 on channel 4 during the mid 1960s and on through at least the early 1970's. But I got kinda bored and frustrated with it being too predictable on how outside interference when the referee wasn't looking decided the hottest matches. An Oklahoma wrestler, Danny Hodge, was always pretty popular. Vittorio Apollo was unforgettable as a acrobatic like wrestler. Dandy Jack Donovan and Handsome Ronnie Reed with their manager Mrs. Dandy Jack Donovan was one of the most hated of the tag teams, along with the Assassins. Bunch of other hated names as well, like Scandar Akbar. Host Danny Williams ending the show, saying, "Watch out for flying chairs". Danny Williams starts talking about hosting wrestling in this video starting at 4:30.