As funds allow, a newsletter has been published to announce planned reunions and report on previous ones. Below are excerpts from previous newsletters and more recent reports.
1999 Reunion Report
1997 Reunion report
Brad Davis Celebrates His 40th
WTIC moves
There was a reunion on October 2,1999 at the Holiday Inn in Rocky Hill, same as in 1997. The short two-year interval was because 1999 was the 25th anniversary of the split. Sherm Tarr wrote a report and used it in the Hartford Courant.
Broadcast Memories? WTIC Alumni Have Them
By
SHERMAN TARR
ŠThe Hartford Courant, January 9, 2000. Reprinted with permission.
Old TV
reporters never die, their videotapes just fade
away.
That paraphrase of a famous military saying occurred to me
while watching the
recent nationally televised memorial service for six Worcester firemen
who died tragically
in a fire in that Massachusetts city. I had sought out my copy of a
report I had done for
WFSB-TV in September 1974 covering the funeral of Hartford fireman
Thomas Fischer, 39, who
died when the roof of a burning building fell while he was inside.
I found that the 25-year-old videotape had deteriorated and
could barely be
watched.
Other reports on the tape also broke up while being viewed.
So all I have left of
that last year of my TV reporting are memories ... and the friends I
worked with for 15
years, mostly when what became WFSB was a combined operation known as
WTIC-AM-FM-TV3.
But what friends they were, and are!
Skilled veteran talents, technicians and support staff who
served southern New
England with locally produced programming for WTIC radio, which first
broadcast in 1925,
and Channel 3, which began televising in 1957. We developed strong
bonds in a
high-pressure business with crazy schedules.
So, in the 25 years since the Travelers Insurance Companies
(the basis for the WTIC
call letters) sold the TV and radio operations to separate buyers, more
than 100
"alumni" of the old WTIC have gathered at a local restaurant or hotel
every two
or three years for a reunion.
They are unlike most reunions, because they involve people
who worked together at
the venerable station for most if not all of their professional lives -
for some that was
30 to 40 years - a length of service that pales in comparison to four
years of high school
or college. This aspect has given the gatherings a spirit unmatched by
other reunions I've
been to, and because they reach back in time, the events have recently
attracted people
who worked there 50 or 60 years ago.
From announcers to engineers to secretaries, they eagerly
gather to chat about old
times. Of course they lament about the current state of broadcasting,
with its
violence-dominated and celebrity-saturated news and the proliferation
of syndicated and
satellite-delivered programming, which has no local content and little
if any relevance to
local interests.
Many readers would have felt at home during the 25th reunion
in Rocky Hill in
October of the "old" WTIC staffers. Al Terzi, still anchoring WFSB
newscasts,
led the group in recalling comrades who had died since the last
gathering and eliciting
updates of what alumni are now doing. Others known to many readers were
on hand:
announcers and personalities Bob Ellsworth, Dick Bertel, Bill Clede,
Bill Hennessey, Floyd
Richards, Norm Peters, Paul Sutton and Jim Thompson.
There also were some real old-timers from the '30s, '40s and
'50s, such as Phil
Becker, Jack Lennhoff, Robert Bacon and a sprightly Gerard Miclette,
known as "Slim
Coxx", a member of the "Downhomers" band, which played live music
coast-to-coast on WTIC from 1947 to 1951. He died at age 84 two weeks
after the reunion.
Past gatherings have drawn such WTIC talent as Bob Steele, Ed Anderson,
Brad Davis, Ray
Rice and Doug Webster.
Weatherman Jim MacDonald was there, along with veteran
newsmen Larrye deBear, Ralph
Eno, Bill Mill and me. Previous events drew such familiar reporters as
Joe Crowley, Dewey
Dow, Bill Flower, Bob Killian, John Sablon (now with WVIT) and Kenn
Venit.
The camaraderie is shared by family members, too. Betty
Miller, widow of talent
Ross Miller and a former on-the-air personality herself, was there with
her son, as was
Jean Smith, recent widow of Ken Smith who headed television
programming.
On forms filled out before the reunion, comments were upbeat
about time spent
working at WTIC. Retired TV engineer Dick Oeser recalled "the
opportunity to work
with a great group of people who became lifetime friends and also to
have pioneered local
television with a highly respected company." Mary Howarth Cass, who
worked as a
script writer from 1940 to 1953, wrote, "I worked at the best time. It
was like a
family. I never wanted to stay home from work." Former continuity
director Jim
Hopkins (1950 to 1955) recalled "trying to trip up Bob Steele, who
always read live
copy cold" (without rehearsing).
Throughout the reunions, "war" stories are told by people
who put their
faces and voices before the public, often during programs where not
everything went as
planned. This was most often likely to happen during sports: the
Yale-Harvard regattas,
University of Connecticut athletic events and the Insurance City Open
golf tournament,
which later became the Greater Hartford Open.
As I look back on my broadcast news career, I think of the
very first time I went
on the air "live" while a student at the University of Missouri. I did
a
30-minute newscast and farm market report on a commercial radio
station, KFRU in Columbia,
whose call letters I later learned stood for "Knowledge Flows Round
Us."
What a great mission statement for a broadcast
communications service! Maybe the
old WTIC'ers can chat about that at their next reunion.
May,
1999 -- Brad Davis celebrated his 40th
year in broadcasting.
Mike Kintner of O'Neal & Prelle and Doug Evans,
executive director of the
Bushnell, cooked up a surprise party on Feb. 8. Brad, who began his
broadcasting career
with "The Milk Show" on Channel 3, went to the Bushnell to salute seven
major
donors to the theater. Instead, Brad and wife Rosanna found 200 friends
yelling,
"Surprise".
Former governor Bill O'Neill and wife Nikki don't agree with
much of what Davis
says but they never miss his morning show on WDRC. Governor John
Rowland and wife Patty
were at the party and took part in a video, a hilarious history of "the
man, the
myth, the milk." Hartford Superior Court Judge Art Spada was wearing a
tie that said
"Guilty" and "I Call My First Witness."
May,
1999 -- After 73 years in downtown Hartford, beginning
when Calvin Coolidge was president, WTIC Radio is moving out. The 70
employees of WTIC AM
and FM are moving to new facilities in Farmington. The new building at
10 Executive Drive
is already home to WRCH-FM and WCMX-FM, All four stations are owned by
CBS Radio
Inc./Hartford. Hartford Mayor Mike Peters
said WTIC belongs in Hartford.
"What're they going to say `WTIC Farmington'? That's silly," Mayor
Peters said.
WTIC first went on the air February 10, 1925 broadcasting
classical music from a
studio on the sixth floor of the Travelers Building on Grove Street,
across from Travelers
Tower. The station manager and announcer wore tuxedos to work every
night. When Coolidge
was inaugurated on March 4, 1925, WTIC was part of the first
coast-to-coast hookup to
broadcast such an event.
The Station moved to Broadcast House at Constitution Plaza
on 1961. In October
1974, WTIC Radio moved to the Gold Building at the corner of Main and
Pearl. WTIC's lease
at the Gold Building was due to run out the end of 1999. General
Manager Suzanne McDonald
said the Farmington space opened unexpectedly when another tenant
decided to leave. WTIC
is now "NewsTalk 1080". WTIC FM is a modern adult contemporary station.
1997 Reunion a Howling Success
January,
1998 -- No question. There will be another
reunion. Everyone on the committee was flooded with compliments about
the 1997 WTIC Alumni
Reunion. With latecomers, six more showed up than were registered when
the head count was
given to the hotel, but there were six no-shows. Arnold Dean had to
cancel due to the
death of his sister-in-law, so the final count was 130 persons total.
Five alumni came from Florida for the event, three from
Massachusetts, two from
Maryland, and one each from Indiana and Rhode Island. It looked like
the one from farthest
away was Lu Holcomb from Los Angeles, California, but honors go to Ray
McDonald who now
calls Maui, Hawaii home. Names of those who sent regrets were read.
To start the evening, Bill Hennessey selected on-air
personalities to do "man
on the street" interviews with the people around their tables. Among
the interviewers
were Dick Bertel, Bill Clede, Brad Davis, Floyd Richards, and Al Terzi.
Everyone had a
minute or two of mike time.
It worked well. Ron Delisa of D&K Sound, son of
former music librarian John
Delisa, provided the sound system with three wireless microphones. But
any system needs
engineering, capably provided by John Reno.
CIGNA (Jim Stewart) and Travelers (John Reno) supplied the
video system with a
projection TV. A montage of photographs was shown over a musical sound
track. Doug
Webster's "New Announcer Introduction to Broadcast Plaza" was played
behind
video scenes of the relocation from Broadcast House to the Gold
Building (pix supplied by
Dave Kaplan).
Ed Anderson, who just turned 80, said one word typifies the
old WTIC,
"camaraderie". He waxed eloquently until he said, "My wife just told me
to
wrap it up." The house broke up.
Owen Martin, former film editor and now a landscape artist
in Jacksonville,
Florida, presented an original watercolor to Jim Stewart for being his
mentor in his early
days.
The camaraderie of the WTIC family attracted widows of
deceased alumni. Among them
were Lois (Jack) Guckin, Marie (Paul) Kuntz, Betty (Ross) Miller, and
Virginia (Bob)
Tyrol.
It was a time for reminiscing and bringing up wonderful old
memories.
The table of memorabilia attracted a lot of attention. Much
of the material sent or
brought in for display was retained for future reference. Brian
Hartnett volunteered to be
WTIC Alumni Reunion historian. He gathered materials and will store it
for the next
reunion.