The story of Public Radio in Chicago Today, WBEZ is among Americas most listened to public radio stations.

It set the standard for in-depth coverage and analysis of local, state and international news. It has honors ranging from the American Bar Associations Gavel Award to the Illinois Governors Award for Eldercare demonstrating the community respect for the station. Looking to the future in the 90s, WBEZ developed a new broadcast facility that has maintained WBEZs leader ship in public broadcasting by providing an efficient and technically advanced work environment that facilitated improvements in the quality and variety of programming. It developed the foundation for todays high tech facility. But WBEZ had a humble beginning and many obstacles to climb before achieving this status. This story is the journey of an ordinary person who has seen extraordinary places and events, who has met many interesting people, has experienced many adventures, and participated in the development of a community treasure called public broadcasting. This is a personal story. Who am I? I am Carole; daughter, person, friend, aunt, cousin, godmother, woman, human being, educator, broadcaster, manager, organizer, Catholic, trustee, volunteer, director, traveler, writer, speaker, teacher, risk taker, adventurer, reader, minister of care, communion minister, driver, golfer, activist, collector, curious, honest, happy. optimistic, pianist, shy, hospice volunteer, board member, musician, decision maker, steadfast, impatient, leader, cook, dog lover, music lover, detailed, thinker, determined, shopper, and student. I am just a gal born on the south side of Chicago who has experienced some extraordinary adventures, met wonderful people and has been part of the development of a concept called Public Broadcasting. I am a very unlikely person to have started this enterprise here in Chicago. I had no inside track in a city that favors insiders. I had no political connections and I had no training in communications and media. Just an elementary school teacher with drive and a dream. 1

This journey has had many twists and turns. I believe that childhood experiences influence your latter life. You do not realize this as it happens but when you look back you can see how it all fits together. It's good to have in mind goals or an idea of where you wish to go for your journey but in the end it is really the journey itself that matters. Mine has been an exciting journey and I would have never dreamed that the many adventures that I have had would have ever been possible. I've met many famous people, including Presidents, governors and other politicians as well as people in the arts and I have traveled around the world several times. I have sailed the seven seas and seen the seven continents. The journey has been like a series of waves. Each wave presented its own challenges and required many decisions along the way. You can be the master of your own journey if you are open to new ideas and try new things... You can choose the way. My first wave was carefree and as a child many of the choices of life were made for me. My parents, my relatives and my friends had a deep influence in forming my ideas, values and aspirations for the continuing journey. They gave me the values that I based my life on. I am sure that I also was influenced by where I lived. I lived in the big city of Chicago but in a quiet little neighborhood of blue collar middle class families People always ask me how I got into radio. They think that communications is glamorous. My usual response is that it was really by accident. I never planned to go into radio or television (in fact television did not exist when I was born). I was born before television, before polio shots, frozen foods, radar, contact lenses, credit cards, dishwashers, clothes dryers, air conditioning and ball point pens. And I did not dream of a career in Public Radio since Public Radio did not exist in the 30s either. Growing up in the 30s and 40s girls did not have aspirations such as managing a radio station, let alone starting and building a radio station from scratch. There was not much choice. I thought that I might be a nurse, a teacher or a secretary. But thats where it began and ended. Well, maybe when I was five I wanted to be a Marine, like my father. What little five year old girl could perform the manual of arms, roll a pack, run double time, put a judo hold on someone and throw a sinker, slider and a curve ball?

And when I was six I wanted to be an Opera singer like Jeanette McDonald. I loved those Nelson Eddy, Jeanette McDonald movies. I would sing at the top of my lungs pretending to be Jeanette Mc Donald. In high school science and math were my favorite subjects and my passion and I thought that I would like to become a nurse. But my father, wise man that he was, said that I should go to college and then make up my mind as to what career I wished to choose. But a career in Radio, no way, not a hint. Never a thought. Well, maybe a thought passed my mind. I was a child of radio and listened to all the great serials of the time. Captain Midnight, Jack Armstrong, the All American Boy, Lux Radio Theater and many more. I also listened to Uncle Bob on WIND and one day I had the privilege of appearing on Uncle Bobs program. I was really disillusioned. Uncle Bob was mean, gruff and not at all as I had pictured him. I received a certificate for appearing on the program but never listened to him again. Also, my father was a great White Sox fan and he listened to Bob Elson broadcast the play by play of the games. I used to pretend to call the games. So much for radio in the 30s. The early years I was born on the south side of Chicago in the West Englewood neighborhood in the midst of the depression. 1932 was a gloomy economic year, and Franklin Roosevelt was President but it was a bright year in the Nolan household. Carole Rita Nolan was born to Martin Nolan and Caroline Alton Nolan. The grand total of the medical bill for my birth was $80.00, which in 1932 was a huge sum and was paid out to the doctor in installments over a year. I arrived at 5:17 PM on January 28, 1932 at St Bernards hospital, on the south side of the city of Chicago. My aunt Mamie was with my mother on the taxi ride to the hospital and my father arrived that evening. Henry Hoffman was the doctor that delivered me. I weighed 8 pounds and 10 ounces. My first visitors were Aunt Mamie, Aunt Lucy and my maternal grandmother Alton and cousin Mary OMalley. I was baptized in Saint Theodores church in 3

February of 1932. I have been a life long Catholic. My Godparents were Mary OMalley and Alton OMalley.

I had a wonderful, carefree childhood. Even though it was the depression, I had many opportunities for extra activities. My mother and father made many sacrifices for me. At the age of three, I was given dancing lessons. I took tap, ballet and toe dancing and danced in quite a few recitals. The teacher was Ester Easter and the studio was at 63 rd and Ashland. I remember my mother said that since I was an only child and very sheltered and shy she was afraid that I would be frightened to be alone in the big class. But I went in, the door closed and my mother was separated from me. In a short time she heard me singing the Isle of Capri and entertaining the teacher and the class. I guess that from there on she knew I would be out front and leading the pack . I also had piano lessons, starting at age three. The teacher came to the house. Her name was Miss Guitis and I thought that she was ancient. She had given piano lessons to my mother and all of her sisters. I remember the first songs that I learned to play. The Indian war dance and Bobby Shafto. Of course my parents were very proud of me and I had to play for all the relatives. So my days of performance were started. When I was eight my mother decided to give me piano lessons at the Chicago Musical College in downtown Chicago. I took lessons there until I was twenty years old. My favorite teacher was Eva J Shapiro and she was very strict. I was in numerous recitals and I have played in Curtis Hall, Orchestra Hall, in Chicago, in Milwaukee and in Ames, Iowa. During my high school years I was admitted to the Chicago Musical College and received a teaching degree. I gave piano lessons to neighborhood children while I was a college student and had about 20 students. I gave my own recital at the Chicago Musical College when I was eighteen. During the 30's and 40's, each Chicago neighborhood was self-contained and everything needed was within walking distance. Chicago neighborhoods could be thought of as small towns. My mother would put me in the buggy and walk up to 63rd and Ashland where we would visit the dime store. Every week we would go up there and she would 4

ask me what I would like and every week I would pick out a new book. This began my love of reading and the joy of finding out new things. I forgot to tell you, the dog, Cookie, accompanied us on every walk. Except for an occasional trip downtown, for shopping or a movie, we found everything that we wanted in our own neighborhood. We lived at 61st and Damen .in a little red brick house that belonged to my Grandmother Alton. My childhood seemed pretty ordinary. I had several little girlfriends on the block. I saw them almost everyday and we would call each other not on the phone but by going outside into the back yard and calling Oh bar bar ra OR Oh Charlotte. There was no texting. Our activities were simple. Playing in the sandbox, going to the park, collecting papers for the salvage drives and playing make believe. We would play store by collecting empty boxes and placed them on homemade shelves. Remember this was the depression and we did not have expensive toys so we made do with what we had... Much of this helped me when I had to build WBEZ from nothing. We had to use our imaginations. We also had great birthday parties. My mother would make a big cake with lots of frosting. We had favors and played games. Simple but we had fun. No Chuckie Cheese for us. Somehow I always managed to be the leader of the group. I had a very happy childhood surrounded by my aunts, uncles, cousins, grandmother and friends. My father was born in Lockport, Illinois on May 3, 1900 and moved to Chicago in 1906. My mother was born in Chicago on July 28, 1899 and moved to Damen Avenue in 1904. My parents knew each other from the time they were six years old. They both attended the Charles Earle School. My father lived on Winchester Avenue and right around the corner on Damen Avenue, lived my mother and her family. They went to school together, made their First Holy Communion together and their confirmation. My Uncle Sam, my mothers brother, was my fathers best friend. My father was a wonderful man. He was my hero. I thought that he knew everything and had done everything. He was strong, handsome, dependable, loving and everyone admired him. My cousin said that when my father was courting my mother, he never used the gate to come into the back yard. He always jumped over the fence. He was in the Marine Corps at the time so he must have been quite a sight in his

red white and blue uniform with cape flying in the wind as he flew over the fence. My father had a great album of pictures that he had taken in China. As a Marine, he was stationed in Peking China in the 20s I was probably the only kid that could identify the road to the Ming tombs with the stone animals, the Temple of Heaven and the Great Wall of China. . William Nolan, my fathers father was born in Lockport, Illinois in 1863. He had a slight limp .When he was 15 years old he had blood poisoning and the Doctor took out the heel bone. He was a plasterer and worked hard all his life. He married Anna Beatrice Sauber in 1887 in St. Aloysius Church in Chicago, Illinois. They had two sons, my father, Martin Francis and Thomas Herbert who was twelve years older that my father. My grandfather brought a house on the corner of 61st and Winchester, Chicago, IL and the family moved to Chicago in 1906. My Uncle Tom studied to become a carpenter. My grandmother Sauber was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1863 on February 2nd, Candlemas Day. She was a German scholar and could read and write German. She spoke the Luxemburg German as well as High German. My father said that she had a very hearty laugh. She worked hard on the farm in Lockport and raised potatoes. My father said that she could also saw and drive nails as well as my grandfather. She died in 1921 as the result of the flu and my grandfather Nolan died in 1924 from heart failure. My uncle was twelve years older than my father and he moved away in 1913 and married Cora Dennick. They lived on the southeast side of Chicago and raised three children, Fred. Bill and Betty Anne. My father enlisted in the United States Army in World War one in 1917 and fought in France. He served in the corps of engineers, Company F, 116th Engineers and was wounded (gassed) in the Battle of the Argonne Forest November 5, 1918. He spent some time in a hospital in Belgium and received a Purple Heart as a result of the mustard gas wounds. He also fought in the battle of St.Michiel. When he returned home he worked as a draftsman. He then enlisted in the United States Marine Corps in 1924 and had a tour of duty in China. He returned home in 1929. And married Caroline Alton in 1931 on Saint Patricks Day. My father went to work for Standard Oil of Indiana located in Whiting, Indiana. He was a stationary engineer and worked in the power plant that made electricity for the oil refinery.

We lived in Saint Theodore's parish. When someone asked where you lived, you would always reply with your parish. Life on the Southside was defined by your parish. Shopping was within walking distance and for special items we would take the streetcar to 63rd and Halsted. This was the largest shopping area outside of the loop. We had Sears, Hillmans, and Wieboldt's. I remember that Sears had the first escalator. Hillmans food store was in the basement of Sears. There was also a restaurant in Hillmans but I cannot remember the name. But I remember going to the restaurant frequently. I also remember that Morris B. Sach's had a store on Halsted. It was a very large clothing store and it sponsored a weekly radio program featuring local talent. It was called the Morris B. Sachs Amateur Hour. The neighborhood Movie Theater was the Ogden at 63rd and Ashland and the big Movie Theater at 63rd and Halsted was the Southtown. The Southtown was a beautiful theater with a large pond in the lobby with live swans. There was also a playroom with a slide a merry go round and other toys where we would stop after the show. We would go to the movies every Friday and then stop by the China Clipper restaurant for supper. My father, who had been stationed in China would order in Chinese and speak Chinese to the waiters. All my relatives lived in the neighborhood, including my grandmother Alton, my two aunts, my uncle and my cousins. There was a strong sense of family and security growing up in this neighborhood and I didn't feel as if I was poor though we really were, since everyone else was too. This was the depression. No one had a car. Everyone walked or took the streetcar. We did not take vacation trips. I walked to school everyday and walked home for lunch everyday and my mother was there and fixed my lunch. My mother was the youngest of five children. Her father, William B. Alton was born in Uniontown Pennsylvania and was an orphan. His father, Samuel Alton was killed in the Civil War and his mother; Leatha Christopher died shortly after that. He grew up in an orphanage and learned the printing trade. My mothers mother was Mary Jane Shearan and her mother Bridget Fitzgerald. Bridget was born in Limerick Ireland and she lived with the family.

My mother had three sisters; Edith Ellen, Lucy, Myra Marie and one brother, Samuel. My mother grew up in West Englewood and went to the Charles Earle elementary school. She did not have an opportunity to go to high school. She had to go to work and help out the family. Her father had a stroke when she was fifteen and she went to work sewing lampshades. My mother was a great self-taught woman. She loved to read, cook and garden. She was very practical and had a great sense of humor. I was an only child and she devoted her life to my father and me. I attended Charles Earle Elementary school through the fourth grade and then we moved to 55th and Wolcott where I attended and graduated from Henderson Elementary. The Chicago Public Schools were very good at this time and I had some great teachers. I loved my first grade teacher Helen O Donnell and named by doll Helen. My third grade teacher Miss Staford smelled like an orange and I remember the handwriting lessons to this day. I attended and graduated from the Academy of Our Lady High School (Longwood). The School Sisters of Notre Dame were the teachers and I had some outstanding and inspiring teachers One of my favorite teachers was Sister Josephine who was my chemistry teacher and who really enkindled my love for science. I would stay after school and work in the lab and she encouraged me to pursue a career in chemistry. I also remember the many Mission parties that we had at Longwood and this helped me learn how to raise money which came in very useful as I pursed my career in Public Radio. Longwood had a beautiful campus and I remember my four years there fondly. I lived a distance from Longwood and rode on the old red rocket streetcar everyday to get to school/ My four years at Longwood were unremarkable and I was an average student. I attended DePaul University and majored in chemistry. The school was on the Lincoln Park Campus and in 1950 there were only a few 8

buildings. DePaul was known as the streetcar college and I took the L to school everyday. I was on the bowling league, in the chemistry club and I was the President of my sorority, Delta Zeta Gamma. My part time job was working in the library. I received a good liberal arts education and when I graduated in 1954 I decided to go into teaching since chemistry jobs for women were limited. My childhood experiences and my education prepared me for what was about to come in my career. I had no idea what was to come. While I was growing up during the 30s and 40s on the south side of Chicago, radio was developing nationally and locally and shaping future events and my destiny in radio. Educational radio was beginning to take shape. The Radio Act of 1927 established order among existing radio stations and stated that radio air rights were owned by the public. Congress stated that the private use of the airwaves was to be granted by license to radio station operators and that the stations should be operated in the public good and as a service to the community By 1934 Congress had established the FCC, Federal Communications Commission as an independent agency of the federal government. Their job was to establish and regulate guidelines for telecommunication and radio station operators. Radio became a popular form of home entertainment in the depression era of 1929-1939 and radio stations and newly formed radio networks had a number of hours devoted to educational programming. The history of public radio/educational radio in the United States is the history of the individual stations. The licensees of the stations were mainly institutions of some kind; state, universities or public school systems. Very few were community licensees. But all had the mission of serving their community and many such as Chicago obtained their licensee because of some event or need in the community. The history of radio in Chicago indicates that the Chicago Board of Education was considered one of the outstanding educational radio

stations in the Midwest and WBEZ was a pioneer in the use of radio as part of the educational teaching program. In September 1937 there was a polio epidemic in the city of Chicago and the superintendent of health ordered the public schools closed. The superintendent of schools got together with the commercial radio stations and teachers used the radio to teach lessons to children at home. The daily newspapers printed the lessons and education by radio was born. When the children returned to school, the Superintendent of schools thought that radio was a great tool to use to educate children and the school system applied for a license. It took a few years to complete the applications and to build the station, but on April 19, 1943, WBEZ went on the air for the first time. While the station was being built, the school system set up a Radio Council. The Radio Council was headed by Harold Kent, who later founded Hawaii Public Radio. The radio council pioneered in the use of radio for education. While the station was being built, the Council produced educational programs and broadcast them on local commercial stations. Many of the scripts were bound by a later WPA project. As part of the Radio Council, a student workshop was developed using high school students from the Chicago public schools. This is where many of the students got their start in radio. Ken Nordine, a famous voice over personality started at WBEZ as part of this group. The High School Saturday Party as it was called was directed by George Jennings. In 1944 educational leaders appeared before the FCC and asked for the allocation of broadcasting channels by local school systems, colleges and universities. They asked for channels located in the radio spectrum immediately adjacent to the commercial FM band. Today you will find most Public Radio stations between 88 and 92 on the FM band. The Second Wave My first job was at the Gunsaulus School on the south side of Chicago, and I was assigned to teach first grade. In 1954, the Chicago Schools had more than enough teachers and all new people, like me, were hired as FTBs or full time basis substitute teachers. I was lucky and I was assigned to a vacancy. I could have been assigned to a day to day assignment. The teacher whose place I was assigned to take had been at Gunsaulus for forty five years. I could have been sent around to a 10

different school everyday but this was my first bit of luck. There were very few vacancies. I arrived early on the first morning and the first person I met was the school clerk, Katherine Des Chatelet. She told me to sit on the bench and wait for the principal, Anna Mc Nichols. In walked a large woman, with graying hair pulled back in a bun and with straggles around her face. She had a slight tick. She had on a print dress and grey sweater. She said I would be the day to day substitute for the first grade and she took me to Room 212. There were 48 seats bolted to the floor. There I was new and with 48 six year olds. We had one day to prepare the room and get ready to greet the new first graders. I survived and I spent four years teaching first and second grade. I loved every minute and I still hear from former students. I was asked to take the upper grades and I taught sixth, seventh and eighth grade science and music. One day I was teaching science. I was using cabbage water to show students how to test for acids and bases by changing the color of the cabbage water by adding vinegar and then baking soda. In walked the District Superintendent. She liked the way I was approaching the teaching of science and the next day I was asked to come downtown and work in the Department of Curriculum as a Science Consultant. My career path was set. You may wonder how I got involved with radio but you will see there have been many twists and turns to the journey. In the Department of Curriculum of the Chicago Public Schools, my boss was Evelyn Carlson. She gave me many opportunities to broaden my skills and not only was I a science consultant; I was also involved in all television activities for the Chicago Public Schools which gave me a foundation for developing Chicago Public Radio. As a science consultant, I traveled to schools across the city and taught science to teachers. I had a wonderful time developing workshops and teaching teachers to use common everyday substances to teach science concepts and to make science fun for the students.

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I also was involved in developing and writing Curriculum Guides for teaching science and I developed activities for elementary school guides and for the high school chemistry guide. The Chicago schools had some of the best curriculum guides for teachers and teachers and administrators from all over the world came to the Department of Curriculum to see how the guides were developed. I conducted many tours of the department and schools to demonstrate how the guides were used in the classroom and how they had been developed by committees of teachers. Along with my science duties my boss gave me several television projects. One was MPATI, Midwest Program for Airborne Television Instruction. This was the fore runner of satellite transmission and you will probably laugh when you hear how this project was conceived. Every morning a plane took off from Montpellier Indiana and flew over a five state area beaming instructional television programs to schools with special antennas. The programs were developed by Purdue University. But if there was a thunder storm or rain storm, the plane was grounded and there was no lesson that day. This was a bold adventure but it lasted a very short time. Another television activity was CAST, Chicago Area School Television. CAST was a nonprofit organization operating out of Channel 11 in Chicago. Instructional television programs were selected by a committee and then broadcast on channel 11 during the school day. The committee was composed of representatives from channel 11, Chicago Public Schools, Archdiocese schools, and the suburban school districts. Instructional television programs were available in all subject areas and were produced by stations across the country. Schools paid a membership fee t o CAST to use the programs and to receive materials for classroom follow up Instructional television was popular in the 60s as an educational aid and appeared to overshadow radio education. Another project was the Cluster Closed Circuit Television Project. This project was cited by the Rand Corporation as the most innovative and successful television project for inner city youth. The studio school, Byrd school in Chicago was equipped with originating studio equipment and four surrounding schools were connected by coaxial cable. The 12

master teacher taught the lesson in the studio and the neighboring schools received the program and the classroom teachers followed up with individualized activities. For example we were able to use a master science teacher and then teachers in the classroom could use materials presented to follow up with the students. This project was so successful that we developed five other clusters throughout the city. Another project was the establishment of 20 high school television studios and curriculum materials to teach television production to high school students. All of these special projects helped me to gain knowledge that I would use to establish public radio in Chicago. Radio, particularly educational radio had a difficult time during the fifties as television competed for the publics time. Television had taken over and noncommercial radio needed something to set it apart. Radio was so overshadowed by television that it was nearly left out of the federal legislation formalizing public broadcasting as we know it today. It seemed no one cared about radio. Noncommercial stations were on their own and had no network structure to hold them together. They had very little programming of national interest. Something had to be done. By 1967 national leaders realized that educational broadcasting was being held back by a lack of network structure. It was under funded and under utilized. Most of the radio stations were student run and unlike television the stations did not have the capacity to produce quality programming on a national level. After much study and debate, Congress provided for a way to build a national financial and distribution infrastructure for noncommercial stations with the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967. There was even debate as to whether or not to include radio but at the last minute radio was added. In 1970 National Public Radio was created as a national production center since no radio station had the capability of producing national programming. There was no great fanfare; it seemed no one knew nor cared that NPR had been established.

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Chapter Two In 1971, my boss Evelyn Carlson asked me to take over the management of the Board of Educations radio station, WBEZ. The Director of WBEZ, Elizabeth Marshall had been with the station since the beginning in 1943. She had followed George Jennings as Director and developed an outstanding educational station. However, times had changed and the station stood still. When I arrived at WBEZ the station was on the air 5 hours a day 5 days a week and 35 weeks a year. It was playing old tapes from the forties and fifties and putting new opens and closes on the tapes each year. Programs being broadcast had titles such as Uncle Dan from Froggy Hollow, the Singing Song Lady and Battle of the Books. And marching music was broadcast between each program as radios were moved from room to room. Great for the forties but not the kind of programming for children of the seventies. The engineer did not put the station on the air at the same time each morning. Sometimes the station went on the air at nine and sometimes at ten after nine. You could never be sure when the engineer would arrive. The Pledge of Allegiance to the flag or the Star Spangled Banner or America was the opening tape each morning and can you imagine each child in the public schools standing beside his or her desk singing and reciting the pledge. The station was caught in a time warp after years of being a leader in educational radio. The staff was not aware that they had entered the television age and they required new ways of using radio. The staff was not motivated and they were accustomed to two hour lunch breaks with shopping at Fields. There was a record librarian and no record library or collection. There was no live programming only old tapes. The signal was weak and unreliable and the equipment was outdated. The station was housed at two locations; the office personnel and the production people were at the LaSalle location and the transmitter, control room and studio was located about 6 blocks away on Adams. The Adams location was strange space since the elevator went to the thirty ninth floor but the transmitter, studio and 14

control rooms were on 40 and 41 so you had to walk up a flight of stairs to get to W BEZ. There was little supervision at Adams and when I arrived no one could tell me how many people worked at Adams. The stage was set for change and I was the change agent and not a popular person in the minds of the WBEZ staff.

The station was licensed to the Chicago Board of Education and subject to all the rules and regulations of the institution. The personnel that could be hired were either teacher certified or subject to the rules of civil service. Civil service personnel were either temporary or certified by exam. Thus it was difficult to hire or fire personnel with the qualifications for the radio station. We needed producers, writers, engineers, and announcers. It was also difficult to purchase equipment and supplies since the budget did not include radio equipment. I had to learn to serve two masters. I was an employee of the Chicago Board of Education and had to follow the mission set out for educational radio serving the Chicago Public School system. And I was also expected to build a community radio station and build a full service radio station in Chicago. It was like walking a tight rope. WBEZ needed a complete overhaul. New equipment was needed and there was no line in the budget for equipment. You could not get a clear signal due to a weak transmitter. The antenna was in the shadow of the Sears tower. The station needed a new transmitter since the old one was using vacuum tube technology. We also needed personnel who wanted to develop innovative programming and we needed the financial means to achieve these goals. The staff was less than cooperative and as I asked for file to see what had been done I was told Oh that is filed under swimming meaning I would never find that file or any file from the past. WBEZ needed to be reinvented. No one could imagine the internal struggle necessary to create Chicago Public radio. As I look back on my career, I think that I always tried to remain optimistic and I looked at all the problems as opportunities and challenges. I dont believe in managing by crisis but sometimes crisis provides opportunity.

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I had to develop a strategy for getting things accomplished and along the way I developed ten commandments for getting things done I dont know where I found these rules or if I developed them over the years but I used them as a yardstick to get things done many times. 1. Come to work each day motivated and filled with enthusiasm and ready to implement your dream. 2. Circumvent any orders aimed at stopping your dream. 3. Do any job necessary to make your project work. 4. Find people to help you; people who share your dream. 5. Follow your intuition about the people you choose and work only with the best. 6. Work underground as long as you can. Publicity triggers the corporate immune mechanism; have your dream formulated before you unveil it. 7. Prepare your self to run the entire race. 8. Be true to your goals but realistic about ways to achieve them. 9. Remember, it is easier to ask for forgiveness that for permission. 10. Honor your sponsors. Keep your boss out of trouble. More than once in my career I had to act on something without permission in order to move ahead. I know that I made mistakes along the way but I never made the same mistake twice. I took a lot of risks. The mission of the radio station was to provide programs for kindergarten through high school students since the station was licensed to the Chicago Board of Education. But if w e wanted to be part of National Public Radio we had to develop a full service radio station for Chicago. So I had to select a staff that would be creative in developing new programs and new ways to reach this audience.

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One of the first things that I had to accomplish was to get a new transmitter so that the signal could be heard. The station was broadcasting at 18,000 watts. I needed to find money to purchase the right equipment and hire personnel to install and operate the equipment. I also needed to hire personnel who would develop new programming that would appeal to children in new ways. I decided to attend a conference where I could network and find out what was happening across the country so that I could apply for some grants. At the conference I met people from The Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the Department of Health Education and Welfare who helped me prepare applications for funding new equipment and personnel. The radio station had three first class engineers who had been working at the station for about 30 years and several student operators. I had to encourage the engineers to think about new technology and develop specs for new equipment so that we could submit a proposal for a grant. I had to get their trust and encourage them to change. I got some help from engineers who worked in the television bureau and we submitted a proposal that was funded and we received $100,000 for a new transmitter. A new transmitter and antenna was purchased and the power was increased to 39,000 watts. Now W BEZ had a great signal and could be heard within a 100 mile radius. But now we needed new programming and we needed to join NPR.

Membership in NPR required that WBEZ be on the air at least 14 hours a day 52 weeks a year. We received a grant from CPB to expand program services and on October 2, 1972 WBEZ became part of National Public Radio and began broadcasting 14 hours a day, seven days a week. Did anyone know or care? I doubt it. We did not have money to promote the station. So who knew that we existed? NPR was not the polished jewel that it is today so we were all off to a rocky start. All Things Considered was the first and only program offered by NPR and we broadcast the program at 5PM every evening and can you believe it, we rebroadcast the program every morning at 8AM. A news 17

program rebroadcast 12 hours later. That shows you how naive I was in 1972. The dues to NPR were $100.00. Quite a bargain. As we analyzed the other stations in the area we decided that the music format would be jazz since there were three classical music stations on the air. Most public stations broadcast classical music but we needed to fill a void if we were going to develop an audience. I am surprised that I was even thinking of format since in those days educational radio was thinking in terms of separate programs, unrelated, and put together into a schedule. Here at WBEZ they were strung together by marching music during the daytime hours. I had the marching music removed from the schedule. I hired a teacher and asked him to develop a new series of instructional programs. He was a ventriloquist and he set up a dialogue with his dummy Little K. This was an innovative use of the medium. He also developed worksheets for the students to use in the classroom. In keeping with the mission of the licensee we also established classes for elementary age children, Audio Jam and for high school students, the WBEZ student workshop. The program director was interested in jazz so I made him the jazz host and off we went with the new programming. Not much strategy involved in coming to this decision but necessity ruled. We needed 14 hours of programming each day and by 1973 we were on the air 18 hours a day. Tony D was the program director and a typical Board of Education employee. He wanted to record his program during the day and broadcast it in the evening. I tried to explain to him that this was radio and it should be live. We had a continuing battle. We limped along trying to develop local programs and carrying the flagship of NPR, All Things Considered every night at 5. Did anyone know or care about WBEZ in those days? When people asked where I worked and I would tell them WB EZ, they would ask where that is. Where can I find WBEZ on the dial? University stations were in the majority of the NPR membership at the national level but there was a small group of instructional/educational stations that tried to develop childrens programming. This group tried

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to fulfill the mission of their institutions while also providing a full service public radio station for their communities. In 1975, WBEZ received an award for excellence in Childrens programming from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Chapter 3 As early as 1975 there was an effort on the part of some broadcasters both at the national level and the local level to establish another full service station in Chicago. Some at the national level believed that educational/instructional programming belonged on a sub channel and that such programming should not take up one of the frequencies set aside for public radio. I was determined that we could do both. Why not develop a service for children as well as adults? The frequencies from 88 to 92 on the FM dial were reserved for educational use and in Chicago, WB EZ, with an educational mission and WMBI with a religious mission were the only stations with full service capacity. The rest of the band was filled with small 10 watt stations operated by high schools and universities. Most were student run. WBEZ had full service capacity and was operating at 39,000 watts from the top of the Bankers building at Clark and Adams and could be heard within a hundred mile radius. If WBEZ was to succeed it needed a more professional staff, better technical equipment and more public relations and community involvement. WBEZ needed a better location for its antenna since the space on the Bankers building was in the shadow of the Sears tower. One day I attended a conference at which Roger Isaacs of the Public Relations Board spoke. The theme of his speech was always ask for help from the experts. After the speech I went up to Mr. Isaacs and asked him to help me promote WBEZ. He set up an appointment for me to meet his Vice President, Betty Stearns.

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I met with Betty and we became great friends and she helped me develop a public relations strategy for the radio station. Betty and Roger also assisted in the development of the ground work to establish a community advisory board. From there on I always asked for help and I developed a number of pro bono alliances with experts in the field of public relations and promotion which helped propel WBEZ forward. I also made many cold calls asking for pro bono assistance. I was successful in quite a few cases. In 1975, WBEZ won an award from the Corporation for Public broadcasting for promotion. I was always looking for opportunities to form alliances to help WBEZ. In January of 1978, a great opportunity presented itself. WEFM, the Zenith radio station, and one of the classical music stations in Chicago was to be purchased by General Cinema Communications. GCC planned to change the format to rock This meant that one of the three existing classical music stations on the dial was about to disappear. The classical music audience was upset and a citizens committee filed suit against GCC. As a result of a long battle, GCC offered WBEZ a grant of`$150,000 to provide the audience with classical music. This grant provided WBEZ with one announcer, one producer and the entire classical record collection of WEFM and permitted WBEZ to broadcast classical music every morning. With the additional personnel and the classical record collection we could eliminate the replay of All things Considered every morning and broadcast live music. This was a win/ win situation for all. The audience was pleased and WBEZ was now able to broadcast 24 hours a day. The announcer was Dick Noble, well known and liked classical music broadcaster in Chicago. Dick celebrated 50 years in broadcasting while he was with WBEZ. WBEZ continued to serve its licensee by developing innovative childrens programming and won several awards for Lollipops and Stuff and Audio Jam. But like other public, educational stations it was stringing together a series of unrelated programs, classical music, childrens programs, jazz, folk, talk, blues and new age and news. There was no identity. Did anyone know where to find public radio on the dial in Chicago, probably not?

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Money or lack of it was a constant problem. How can you build audience without a consistent sound and how can you raise money without an audience, this was the dilemma we found ourselves in as we attempted our first on air fund raiser. The first attempt at fund raising took place in 1978. Dick Noble, Jim Nadyer and I got on the air, gave out the pledge number and hoped that someone would be listening and would call us. We had four telephones for our pledge line and used the front office for pledge central. Much to our pleasant surprise, the phones did ring and we raised a grand total of $25,000. Not much in todays totals but a great start.

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