Alumni Sandstorm ~ 02/01/15
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
3 Bombers sent stuff:
David DOUGLAS ('62)
Pete BEAULIEU ('62)
Robert SHIPP ('64)
****************************************************************
****************************************************************
BOMBER BIRTHDAY Today: Carol TYNER ('52)
BOMBER BIRTHDAY Today: Judy CARRAWAY ('67)
BOMBER BIRTHDAY Today: Maggie GILSTRAP ('74)
BOMBER ANNIVERSARY Today: Tedd CADD & Pam HUNT ('66)
BOMBER CALENDAR: Richland Bombers Calendar
Click the event you want to know more about.
****************************************************************
****************************************************************
>>From: David DOUGLAS ('62)
Re: Radio stations
I worked for KPKW in Pasco Saturday mornings as an announcer the
summer after graduation. I went to Seattle by train to take the
required exam and got my third class radio license. I went to the
station a couple of days before I was to begin working to learn how
to operate the transmitter and console. My license didn't allow me
to actually turn the transmitter on, so we left the switch on and I
just plugged it into the wall socket. We signed on at 6AM. My first
day, all alone, I plugged in the transmitter. The fuse blew. There
was one spare fuse. The usual rule is, if a fuse blows, replace it.
If it blows again, look for the problem. I wasn't sure what to do ?
try to find the problem or put in the spare fuse. If the second
fuse blew, I had no idea where to go to get another fuse in Pasco
at 6AM. I replaced the fuse, and it blew again so I decided to
try to find the problem, then worry about getting another fuse. I
discovered a wire at the end of the electrical cord that connected
to the transformer in the transmitter had come loose. I found
a soldering iron and soldered it back to the transformer.
Fortunately, another employee had turned his radio on to listen to
the station, and when it wasn't on the air he came to see what the
problem was. He went and got some more fuses, and I finally got the
station on the air, more than a half hour late.
KPKW was an "easy listening" station, I think. We played light
classical and similar records. My favorites were the movie sound
track from "On the Beach" and music from the TV series "Victory at
Sea." We used a network feed for news. The station owner had us cut
out cigarette and alcohol ads and substitute local ads. That was my
first "real" job.
-David DOUGLAS ('62) ~ Mesa, AZ where it's been raining the past
couple of days and is still overcast today, the day before
Superbowl Sunday.
****************************************************************
****************************************************************
>>From: Pete BEAULIEU ('62)
Re: Class of 2014 and The Cloud
Cheers for the Cloud, as a counterpoint to the other wall design
given to the "Day's Pay" B-29. We can be proud of such restored
inclusiveness and balance between contesting school mascots.
[NOTE: Day's Pay was a B-17. Enola Gay and Bock's Car
were both B-29s. -Maren]
The mark of a really good symbol is that it bears multiple
interpretations for diverse audiences. Too bad that the Cloud looks
too much like an albino cauliflower and nothing more. Missed is the
opportunity to be more than graffiti. The design by the Class of
2014 might have included in some way the less specific and more
enriching original symbol of proud Richland as the "Atomic City" (a
nucleus encircled by electron orbits, and celebrated in the early
years' Atomic Frontier Days). Or, better yet, the Cloud might be a
bit more vertical so as to recall not only a new technology but
also the more historical smoke signals of Native Americans, even
demonstrating some respect for the 9,300 year-old Kennewick Man
found down steam and downwind along the, what, Columbia River?our
original namesake.
And, further, if the vertical bomb cloud took on the more accurate
shape of a top-notched column?sort of a question mark design?it
might signal the kind of genuine "teaching moment" that one might
expect at Col-Hi (aka Richland High). Inquisitive students might
then interrogate the enriched Cloud design to wonder at one of the
many zig - zaging disconnects that make up much of human history ? in
this case the disconnect between Truman's instructions that "the
gadget" (as it was code named) should be "dropped on a military
target," and the disconnected leadership initiatives that resulted
in 60,000 to 70,000 killed while taking out only 150 military
personnel (United States Strategic Bomb Survey, 1946). However one
weighs collateral damage and a host of other complex and fast-
moving factors, toward one conclusion or another, it is the act of
pausing and weighing that matters.
And one wonders how the new crop of students is being prepared to
pause and weigh the recurring intersection between tough
situations, politics, technology and morality in the 21st
century... Better than we were, one hopes, with our Col-Hi
government text book (Magruder, American Government) opining in the
Cold War '60s that the future of the world belonged to the
evolution of a hybrid middle ground between Democracy and global
Communism. So, I vote for the Cloud, but maybe today this symbol
actually refers to some kind of computer thing in the sky.
-Pete BEAULIEU ('62)
****************************************************************
****************************************************************
>>From: Robert SHIPP ('64)
Re: Radio
As my memory-like-a-sieve remembers it, when I was small (OK, I was
always small, but I'm talking about pre-school thru around 3rd
grade) KWIE in Kennewick had all the good programs: Uncle Ben, The
Lone Ranger, Dragnet, the Cinnamon Bear. Sometime later they were
bought out by KEPR TV and changed their call letters to KEPR, then
later still they became KONA -- all at 610. KALE in Richland
(although their facilities were actually in Pasco) was at 960 and
at one time had a "no rock-and-roll" policy. KORD (Kennewick?) was
at 910, but could only broadcast during daylight hours, i.e.:
sunrise to sunset, which meant that during the winter we could
hardly listen to it at all since we were in school for most of its
broadcast day. I don't remember KPKW at all, though it must have
been around unless several Bombers who mentioned it are suffering
from a mass hallucination. KONA and KALE are still around at 610
and 960 respectively. I don't know what happened to the other two
stations, but they aren't on the AM dial here any more.
-Robert SHIPP ('64) ~ in cold, cloudy Richland -- dreary weather
until you look at what's been going on back east
****************************************************************
****************************************************************
That's it for today. Please send more.
****************************************************************