First Broadcast of WKBE Was on Valentine's Day, 1925

Webster TIMES Feb. 19, 1948

By L. J. Daly

It was just 23 years ago, on Valentine's Day, 1925, that the first broadcast was made over Webster's Radio Station, WKBE.

At that time, the station was located in the smallest town anywhere in the country, and the permit was secured thru the efforts of THE TIMES, after much correspondence with Washington. Alfred F. Kleindienst was the owner of the station -- as a matter of fact, practically all the construction of the station was his work. He actually built the transmitter and the entire accessories, and the "studio" was in his home on Emerald Avenue.

It was sensational news, a radio station for Webster, and the preliminaries went forward for weeks before the first broadcast. Among these was the question of who would be the announcer, naturally a job of great importance, and one which aroused much competition. In these preliminaries also, occurred something that would never take place today, the "testing" of the station. This was done by "Al" Kleindienst going by car to Southbridge, Putnam and other points, and listening with such strange broadcasting as "Hello, Hello, Al. One foot back, two feet back, six inches from mike." And then Kleindienst, from a nearby phone, would call back and give his opinion as to the reception and move to another location to listen. He carried his own radio set along, altho he sometimes listened in a home or store.

But the result was that I was elected to be the announcer, and also to arrange the program for broadcasting. The station was on the air one night week only, on Monday night.

Naturally, I was very proud of the fact that I was to be the announcer, and not until a few days before the first program was to be given, did my ego become deflated.. Then it was mentioned that in case of any disappointment in the program, the announcer was supposed to jump in and either play the piano or some other musical instrument, or provide some vocal solos for the listening public. Nothing could have been a greater blow. I could not play any instrument, and I was no singer. Things looked black indeed for the "announcer".

But at this time, from a radio station in Chicago, a singer was making a hit with a song that had just been written, entitled "How do you do." He sang the same choruses, inserting new names at each broadcast. It seemed easy enough, especially as I had a knack of writing jungles. Why not write a dozen or more of these choruses, addressed to various individuals, with something pertinent to each person? I wrote 20 for that opening night -- hoping that I would not be called upon to sing them.

In fact, when I told the late Otto Piehler, pianist, that I would like to rehearse the song, he took one look and said, "You? Sing?" Gives you a slight idea of how a real musician regarded my abilities. I told him that it was just as an emergency -- that I hoped as much as he did that I would not be called upon. He looked only slightly relieved.

As program arranger, I was kept busy with the first program, getting everything in readiness for the opening broadcast. All was in readiness. In our primitive method, each individual or group was given 15 minutes, and the program was divided in 15-minute periods from 8 to 11 at night. At 11 o'clock, the Ideal Orchestra took over for an hour of dance music.

Everything was in readiness for the opening night. In order to take care of the listening public, the telephones at THE TIMES were manned, in addition to the phone at the studio, for these were the days when phone calls of "Program coming in fine" were sent by listeners. Not everybody owned a radio, and those which had the new-fangled loud speakers had radio parties at their homes. Many listened with ear-phones, for this was a time when radio was very young.

If the announcer's voice trembled a little during that first broadcst, there was a reason. For one of those 15-minute period was a blank -- a singer scheduled for the opening broadcast was afflicted with a cold at the last minute and couldn't appear, and it was up to me, with that "How do you do" song, to fill in that time!

In the meantime, after the first few minutes, phone calls on the three phones swamped the persons who took the messages. In this area, reception such as they never had before was provided by the nearby station. Everybody was delighted and picked up the phone to tell us so.

And then, with fear and trembling, came the "How do you do" song.

If the phone calls came in fast before, it was nothing compared with the calls that came after that song. I sang about people they all knew, something about them personally, and it was the hit of the broadcast. Long after the station closed for the night, the calls kept coming, and the days that followed brought hundreds of letters. And they all mentioned the "How do you do" song; it was great.

So the song became a fixture. Requests from listeners poured in until a time came when 500 letters a week arrived. It was impossible to sing more than a fraction of these requests, and the job of sorting out the letters on Monday afternoon went to Edna Craven, who was then working at THE TIMES as a reporter. She sifted the requests down to 100, and turned them over to me. I revised them further and wrote 50 songs for each broadcast.

Following that initial program on Valentine's Day in 1925, I sang more than 2,000 of these verses. Not only at the station, but whenever and wherever there was a social gathering, big or small, I was called upon to sing "How do you do."

Writing these verses, getting together a program and doing the announcing was quite a chore, but I remained on the job for more than two years. The 50 verses I wrote at the office were not all that I sang at each broadcast. Arriving at the studio, there would be such telephone calls such as this, from Brookfield, or Pascoag or other nearby town: "John Jones has broken his leg. We've got a radio in his room. Will you please sing a song for him?" The result was a half dozen additions to the list. Sometimes the program would run over 15 minutes -- who cared? Broadcasting wasn't such an exact business then.

The days of the broadcasting chains hadn't arrived them, but they were on their way. The problem of securing programs here-about became a tremendouds chore, and to compete against the programs by the bigger stations was hopeless, WKBE finally moved to Worcester, to become WORC where it is now located, and still under the ownership of Alfred F. Kleindienst.

But there are many residents of the town who will remember when Webster had a radio broadcasting station. The original announcer will never forget it.