Another KAAY/ Goose memory:
After the religion block (6:30 to 8:00 pm), the D.J.'s on the 8 pm to Midnight, and the Midnight to 5 am shifts were required to do their own news cast. Preparing the news report required a trip next door to our News Room (booth) to rip A.P. wire copy. Also we made hourly trips to the KTHV Newsroom, downstairs, to get weather copy since we did not have a weather teletype. It was convenient to leave the control room door open after hours, since there was not a lot of traffic in the halls. All of that to set up another Blue Goose story.
I knew something was not right when I came in early on Saturday morning to do a 7am to Noon shift. The control room door was not only shut, it was locked. The D.J., who will remain nameless, had locked himself in, and finally peeked out the door after I knocked several times. "Quick, look over to the Goose....is there a guy in the lot?" (From the control room door, you could look down on 7th Street and across to the Goose parking lot). "No....just lots of the usual...beer bottles and trash." He pulled me in and closed the door.
Someone had called him very early in the night and told him that he "knew what he had been doing with his wife", and he was in the Goose lot with his rifle ready to "blow his *%# off", when he came out the door. So all night he had been locked in the control room, with no fresh news or weather, and doing what was, most likely, not his best show. I suppose he was thinking too, that a high powered rifle in the Goose lot would not have looked all that out of place.
Thinking back on doing your own news report, I immediately think of my favorite news opening. We were required to hit the news cart at 6 seconds before the hour. The audio was a beep, every second.....Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep.....then Tom Perryman, like the voice of God, saying "K A A Y Communications Exchange..... K-ComEx News!!" Wow, it was not fair for me, or any of us, to have to follow that voice. I have said it before. We had great jingles....great promotion...great coverage...but that voice WAS KAAY. Thanks Tom!
Another Goose memory......Their dumpster was parked very near the sidewalk on 7th Street, with a pay phone close by. We got the number of the phone, and would place calls when we saw someone about to walk by. Usually, they could not resist answering. Watching from across the street we would, in our best radio voice, whisper....."The money is in the dumpster." The questions then was, "To Dumpster Dive, or not to Dumpster Dive". This was also a favorite trick later when I worked for KTHV. By then, I had grown up, and was beyond such tricks. (I only watched when they had a victim in suit and tie walking by).
Jerry Sims...aka Sonny Martin KAAY...seems like yesterday, ago
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