Local opinion: Not just another day 60 years ago in Tucson

Every time I pass the corner of Broadway and Wilmot, I remember that moment in 1963. It was a cool late fall day. I was traveling west and stopped at the red light. During the day, I was a student at the University of Arizona. At night, I was a disc jockey at Tucson’s No. 1 radio station, KTKT. That morning, I was on my way to class.

I was listening to the radio, KTKT, naturally. There was a Kinney Shoe commercial playing. In the middle of the spot, our news director, Lloyd Couch, interrupted with a bulletin. Wow, I thought, must be something important … you can always wait for the end of a commercial for a news flash. It was important. He declared that shots had been fired at President John Kennedy’s motorcade in Dallas. “More details to come, stay tuned.”

It sounded bad. I drove to school for my first class, Political Science with Dr. Conrad Joyner in the old Humanities Bldg. By the time I arrived, someone had rolled an old black and white TV into the room, and it was surrounded by my silent stunned classmates. Walter Cronkite appeared on the screen, and he announced, “President Kennedy died at 1 p.m. Central Standard Time.” He removed his glasses and looked at the clock. There was a pause, and you could tell that the veteran news broadcaster was shaken. As all of us in that room were. Dr. Joyner said there would be no class, but we could stay and watch the TV if we liked.

As a radio guy, I wanted to get down to the station to see what was going on. It was located in the lower level of the Arizona Land Title Bldg. at Stone and Alameda. The three executives, my bosses, Phil Richardson, Frank Kalil and Jerry Stowe were all having a spirited discussion about what to do. I slipped in unnoticed to hear what was going on.

KTKT was a great station. Twenty-four hours a day we played the hits; whatever was popular, be it Elvis, Frank Sinatra, Chuck Berry, or Percy Faith. Nobody heard of the Beatles yet; their American fame was 3 months away. The question that day was, “Our president has just been assassinated. Do we continue with our same music or do something different to honor his passing?” Somebody said, “Maybe we can just tone the music down, no Elvis or Little Richard…no rock, just pick the slow stuff on the Top Forty Survey.” The answer to that was, “Then we would be admitting that there was something inherently wrong with our regular format.” That didn’t fly. In the end, they decided to play only patriotic music for 3 days until the funeral was over the next Monday.

Jerry Stowe went over to Rubitom’s Record Shop and came back with a couple of patriotic albums featuring mostly orchestras and marching-type bands. Not much variety. I can only think of maybe 6 songs that qualify. You know, America the Beautiful, My Country Tis of Thee, and the like.

And that was the great KTKT: 3 solid days of patriotic music The same handful of numbers, over and over again. If you were sad because our beloved president had died, when you listened to KTKT, you wanted to cry your eyes out. It was awful. Appropriate then, but awful.

On Monday, Nov. 25, at 2 p.m., we resumed playing our top hits. There were some exceptions. In a company memo, we were told not to play any records mentioning Texas. Or anything by Comedian Vaughn Meador, who famously mimed members of the Kennedy family. His career was over.

I have often wondered what radio stations would do today if the same event took place. Probably not what we did. Thank God.