WLS

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Hazel Dopheide's Journey From Chautauqua to Radio

Hazel Dopheide on the cover of Stand By magazine in 1935 Both the training school and the practical school of experience made Hazel Dopheide the finished actress whom radio listeners know. After graduating from the dramatics department of McKendree College and the School of Speech at Northwestern University, Hazel entered Chautauqua and lyceum work. This was shortly before the rise of radio and Chautauqua was in its heyday. At 18, Dopheide was billed as the youngest dramatic reader of plays on ... (read more)

2024/04/07

Quin Ryan Broadcast the Scopes Trial on Radio

WGN broadcaster Quin Ryan Quin A. Ryan, manager of WGN Chicago. has had a colorful career including such vicissitudes as reporter, actor, sports correspondent, magazine editor, advertising man, syndicate humorist, columnist, feature announcer and station manager. Born in Chicago. Nov. 17, 1898, he divided his education between Loyola Academy. Northwestern University and the Old Essanay film studios. with early interest fixed in writing and acting. While in college he became sports correspondent ... (read more)

2022/12/09

Bill Meredith, the Playwright of the Prairie

The WLS radio station logo in the 1930s When Bill Meredith and his best girl, Virginia Bauer, walked back and forth to Wheaton High School, they used to look longingly at a tiny house -- their dream house, they called it. Bill was planning to be an architect then and he saw the possibilities the little house had. Not many folks have their dreams come true when they are only 25 years old, but last fall shortly after Bill's 25th birthday, October 9, he and Virginia moved into their dream house, ... (read more)

2022/11/09

The DeZurik Sisters, Yodelers on the National Barn Dance

Mary Jane and Caroline DeZurik Just a little more than three years ago a couple of blond, blue-eyed sisters up in Royalton, Minnesota, decided they'd learn to sing. neither of them had ever sung a note and they didn't know the first thing about playing any musical instrument -- but that didn't stop them. They got to work on the song, "Will the Angels Play Their Harps for Me?" and discovered to their surprise that their voices sounded pretty good. After they had practiced a few more songs, they ... (read more)

2022/11/05

Jolly Joe Kelly Flooded with Letters from Pet Pals

WLS kids host Jolly Joe Kelly in 1935 "Tie a little string around your finger, so you'll remember me." Thus Jolly Joe Kelly to his Pet Pals each morning at 7:30 a.m. CST. And throughout the country, Joe's Palsie Walsies do remember him. From Tennessee to Ontario and from West Virginia to North Dakota, untold thousands of children start their days with Jolly Joe. That they love him goes without question. They write him wagonloads of mail. Through Joe's program, they exchange pets of all kinds ... (read more)

2022/10/28

Obituary for Radio Drummer Roy C. Knapp

Drummer and percussion teacher Roy C. Knapp Roy C. Knapp, a network orchestra musician during radio's golden area in Chicago and a highly respected percussion teacher in the city for decades, died June 16, 1979, at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago. He was 87. The cause of death was not released. Knapp was a longtime resident of Chicago's Near North Side. He was born on Oct. 26, 1891, in Waterloo, Iowa, where his father operated the town's first movie theater. Knapp could play several ... (read more)

2022/10/27