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A Radio Essay by Larry Shannon

Quanah Parker's Comanche smoke signals filled the near and far West Texas skies in the late 1800's. WBAP's sometimes scratchy signal soared through the sunny days and danced in the dark nights from Fort Worth to Fort Davis and beyond in the Roaring 20's. Barbershops, kitchens, living rooms, general stores and garages were filled to overflowing with every kind of music -- from fiddles to flugelhorns -- and network newscasts from as far away as New York City. 

WBAP brought a different taste of civilization to West Texas. Amon Carter fathered both West Texas and WBAP. Amon's long gone, but his newspaper boasts on the banner still -- "Where the West Begins." The publisher of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram invented West Texas so he'd have a destination and market for his daily newspaper -- and he added WBAP to boot. From the beginning, a clanging copper cowbell accompanied the station's call letters -- a trademark heard all around the clock. 

Roosters and ranchers both set their alarm clocks and pocket watches, in good faith, based on the hourly and half hourly clangs. Amon hated Dallas and most things he did were done to spite -- and in spite of -- the city to the east of "Where the West Begins." In his "Amon" biography, the late Jerry Flemmons writes that $300 was the first -- and intended to be the last -- funding for WBAP. 

The budget and make it or break it beginning for WBAP was secretly helped a bit with the newspaper's petty cash drawer contributions -- and that kept it afloat during the first few months. Harold Hough hung a wire out the window at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and broadcast the first faint signals. 

WBAP wasn't baptized until May 2, 1922, when the Secretary of Commerce, Herbert Hoover, did the deed, declaring that WBAP meant, "We bring a program." The two 70-foot radio towers on the rooftop of the Star-Telegram surrendered to the better signal and studios, the country views and wildlife of Broadcast Hill in east Fort Worth's Meadowbrook. The puny 10 watts of power was soon pulsating with 50,000 watts of pure, clear channel power. 

In 1949, it began to share the highest hills with WBAP television when TV's technology came along. For almost half a century, WBAP and WFAA in Dallas waged a legal tug-of-war between the 570 and 820 frequencies. The 1970's brought an end to the frequency confusions. Fort Worth paid the ransom and 820 was adopted and delivered to WBAP. WBAP was always Fort Worth's child anyway. Amon would have smiled and chalked up another win for Fort Worth had he been alive. 

The "Who's Broadcast Here" list of legends from entertainment and journalism fills the golden history books at WBAP. Performers like The Light Crust Doughboys, Will Rogers, Hope and Crosby, Billy Rose and Sally Rand broadcast live and remote from the Blackstone Hotel and Medical Arts Building studios in the 30's and 40's. 

Newscasters, known first as neighbors, then nationwide -- Bob Schieffer, Frank Mills, Joe Holstead and many more -- called the 820 frequency home at one time. W, B,A and P have been its only call letters. Those four bold letters have stood up to rainstorms, hail, snow, sleet, ice and 3 or 4 wars during the past 79 years. 

It is a station of many firsts. The first rodeo to ever be broadcast was the Fort Worth Stock Show and Rodeo. Amon Carter saw to it that WBAP listeners heard the Fort Worth Cats and Texas Christian University Horned Frogs from wherever they played. WBAP was the first individual station to send a war correspondent to Europe and the first to have a remote broadcast via shortwave radio. The first livestock reports and weekly church services were heard on WBAP. 

The late 60's and 70's brought Bill Mack -- the Midnight Cowboy. He owned country music, all nights and almost all the open roads in and outside West Texas. "Concrete Cowboy" truckers rode the interstate trails, tuned in and talked with him. Until the parking lot's asphalt cried "Uncle,” they’d even stop by the Broadcast Hill studios for a visit in their heavy 18-wheelers. The trucker's "Breaker-Breaker One-Nine" chants in the 70's never hurt Bill's radio ratings one bit, Good Buddy -- CB radios only seemed to help spread his name and fame up and down the white-lined highways. 

Bill's success most likely inspired WBAP to go full-time with the "Country Gold" format.  Then, GM Ted Norman saw that FM was the "comin' thing" and breathed life into KSCS-FM. "Silver Country Stereo" and "Country Gold" became the currencies of the two giant country western kingdoms. Years later, the end of "Country Gold" brought an end to the copper cowbell clangs, too. Now, you'll only hear the clangs and clungs of copper cowbells during the Fort Worth Stock Show and Rodeo. 

Broadcast Hill's still home to its former sister, WBAP-TV, who got married to a Fort Worth stranger and changed her maiden name to KXAS-TV.  The studios of WBAP and KSCS moved eastward to Arlington. Its newest home almost straddles the county line that, some still say, separates both the cities as well as cultures of Dallas and Fort Worth. Amon would probably brag that the WBAP studios are closer to Fort Worth than Dallas, if you measured.  Whether you read it as "WBAP/KSCS" on the building's side on a westward I-30 drive or "KSCS/WBAP" heading eastward to Dallas, it’s an attitude adjustment either way when you reach the end of the old turnpike. One can't help but think that the letters were placed that way more from conscience than coincidence.  

WBAP is almost all talk now. Bob Shomper wears the double brands of PD and OM at this clear channel classic. Robert Shiflet's got his hands full with Internet marketing and Pete Dits wears the hat as chief wrangler for sales. On the air, Hal Jay's lasted longer than most legends on the morning show. "Heywood Yousueme" and "Sam From Sales" are his slapstick sidekicks. Dan Potter serves up twin casseroles of news and his favorite food recipes daily. 

Steve Lamb's the early rising good sport who's joined by the sky high traffic team chuckles of Dick Siegel and Laura Houston. Mark Davis gabs locally from 9-noon during the week and bangs out a newspaper column for the Star-Telegram twice weekly, too. ABC nationalizes him from noon to 3 on Sundays from San Francisco to San Augustine. "Hello, Texas" is the newsroom's nooner special. Brad Wright firmly anchors it with Paul Harvey as the centerpiece -- without the Texas twang. Rush Limbaugh lambastes the liberals and wears the conservative crown from 1 to 4 pm. Gary MacNamara talks us through the traffic stops with Monty Cook from 4-6. 

Randy Galloway riles-up the sports talkers from 6 pm till 8. The Dallas Stars crack heads at night when the season's right. Neal Boortz and Mike Gallagher talk tough and fill up the nighttimes from 8 till midnight now. Eric Harley keeps the all night truckers wide awake and wheeling up and down the interstates at the Midnight Cowboy microphone. W,B,A and P... WBAP DOES bring a program ... It's 79 years old but still as young and anxious as the first breath of each new morning. WBAP is -- and has always been -- a 24 hour, home and away, reliable,  trusted companion to all its neighbors in North Texas --- and yes, in South, East and West Texas, too.  Amon might argue, "Maybe to all the 48 states as well."

A Bootnote: Bill Mack left WBAP a month ago. 30 years, give or take, is long enough to stay at any one place anyhow. He's gone country on us on satellite with the XM brand that starts beaming down this fall. He'll be starcasting from coast to coast -- without static -- all duded-up and digitalized -- lassoing stars from his high perch in the skies. 

WBAP and Disney say he can't use "The Midnight Cowboy" tag -- but that's okay. I kind of like "The Satellite Cowboy" better. Ol' Bill and XM Radio might like the sound and sashay of it as well. No doubt, somewhere way out in West Texas, a trucker near Fort Davis has heard the word and is scouting both the stars in the skies and the possibility of buying one of the new three-band radios he's been hearing about so he can tune in the "Satellite Cowboy" this fall. 

With just the right twist and turns of the knobs, he can sort through all the stardust and hear the crystal clear clang of a long lost copper cowbell along with Bill's cowboy "Yee-hahs" and the sweet sound of "Orange Blossom Special" fiddles echoing off the silver moon. Larry Shannon