The LuLac Edition #929, Sept. 2nd, 2009

PHOTO INDEX: RHV ALUMNI L.A. TARONE, SHIVAUN O'DONNELL, AND PATRICK FADDEN, RHV MICROPHONE LOGO, THE 35TH ANNIVERSARY CAKE (MADE FRESH) RHV VOLUNTEER READER JOE CAFFREY, FATHER CARTEN AND LILLIAN CAFFREY, A CARDBOARD SIGN FROM THE 12TH ANNIVERSARY THAT IS STILL IN USE AND WILL BE FOR THE 40TH ANNIVERSARY. (CLICK TO ENLARGE).

RHV AT 35

If you were alive 35 years ago today, here’s what was happening on the last summer holiday of 1974. A powerful bomb explodes at the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries headquarters in Marunouchi Tokyo Japan; 8 are killed, 378 injured.........Daredevil Bob Gill fails a world-record attempt to jump Appalachia Lake in West Virginia.....Locally the Labor Day weekend saw a rally with local labor leader Sam Bianco extolling the virtues of the labor movement... Dan Flood was gearing up for another run in Congress after a tumultuous year of Presidential scandal........... and the old Sunday Independent was reporting that some local GOP leaders with the help of then Senate Pro Tem Martin L. Murray were thinking of backing Governor Milton Shapp, a Democrat for re-election. In the town of Wilkes Barre, another historical broadcast event was brewing. Home to radio pioneer Joseph Murgas as well as the first broadcast to homes by HBO nationally, Wilkes Barre was again set to be an innovative force in communications history. On Sept. 2nd, the Radio Home Visitor debuted. At first it was a foreign concept to everyone but its creator, then Brother Tom Carten. Carten was an older student at King’s than the rest of the younger, aspiring broadcasters. To be honest, some of the open minded flower children of Woodstock were a little distrustful of this bespectacled, soft spoken New Englander with the dry wit and propensity for tee shirts featuring cats on them coupled with blazing red socks. After all, the student powers that be finally got rid of classical music and just wanted to rock and roll. Carten went through the student management to pitch his idea. I always thought that a person of bigger ego would have a hard time with that but Carten, a skilled commercial broadcaster presented his plan. The Home Visitor would accomplish a few things:
1. Provide a reading service to the blind, elderly and shut ins who could not read a newspaper.
2. Extend the broadcast hours of the fledging college radio statio
3. Provide a training ground for would be broadcasters who could get experience prior to sitting down in the big person chair so they could eliminate stage fright and sounding like a run of the mill idiot.
4. Fulfill an FCC requirement for public service.
After assuring the then long haired student manager at the time that he wasn’t a narc, never intended on being a narc and then getting a definition of what the word narc meant, Carten was given the go ahead. Those of us who aspirations of being world class broadcasters were at first aghast at the bare bones set up of the broadcast. . Two microphones and a newspaper cut up neatly on pieces of paper indicating the scope and body of the broadcast. The staff was taking the newspaper apart, piece by piece. When newspapers were big, you’d clip something of interest out and pass it along to a friend. This was the same thing except we clipped essentially the whole newspaper on the theory that there was something of interest for everyone. The spartan broadcast gave the illusion of a cast of thousands. As a matter of fact I had a rather intelligent honor student believing Carten had a baby grand in the studio with a union scale pianist hitting the ivories when in fact it was just a pre recorded rag time riff. Through the years, thousands of would be graduates, hundreds of volunteers and more than a few broadcasters stopped by to read Dear Abby, This Day In History, The TV schedule as well as the most important aspect, the death notices. Students became friends, some even dated. Then they became enemies after that but it did not stand in the way of their devotion to the Visitor. Every year marks another milestone for the Radio Home Visitor. More than 15,000 people hear it every day and that’s the size of middle size borough in this area. What is remarkable is that the need is still there and no one at WRKC FM, King’s and of course Rev. Thomas Carten haven’t let the broadcast diminish in quality or service one bit. The Radio Home Visitor is heard daily at 10AM on WRKC FM 88.5 on the FM dial. Same place, same time for 35 years! I was proud to be part of it at the start on that Labor Day Monday, 35 years ago and proud to have been invited to the RHV party last night. Oh yes we were wined and dined with Sizzle Pi Pizza (the official pizza of the RHV) and Dr. Thunder. There was a cake with an Atwater Kent radio on it and there were people I knew and people I didn’t know sitting around celebrating. There were changes, some of us had aged, the old production room facility was long gone, we were in another location and the equipment was upgraded. The one constant though was Father Tom who taught us the “most important thing was what came out of the speaker”. He was there last night telling stories, sharing banter about the readers past and present, being a New England instigator and saying, “We’ll keep doing this till we get it right” Our pledge to him as well as his daily listeners as friends, alumni and members of the community is simply this: “We will.” .