Telford as KIEM radio’s general manager, soon becoming part owner with Smullin. The 110-by-130 foot structure was dubbed “Radio Center” and was occupied at the same time KIEM began using a newly constructed 337-foot half-wave vertical radiating tower and a new Western Electric 443-A-1 kilowatt transmitter.
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Smullin, then the commercial manager for KIEM radio, acquired part interest in the new Redwood Broadcasting Co., and by 1938 acquired full ownership, purchasing Hanseth’s remaining shares and becoming both president and general manager of KIEM radio, during which time the familiar slogan “The Voice of the Redwoods” was born.ĭuring the mid-1940s, the radio station’s quarters began to get too cramped at the Vance Hotel, and Smullin constructed a new studio and office building just after World War II at the corner of Sixth and E streets in Eureka. In 1934, Hanseth divested individual ownership to his Redwood Broadcasting Co., the same year KIEM moved its transmitter out of the Vance Hotel to a new site at the Eureka inlet along Humboldt Bay (the same site that is home to KINS 980 AM radio today). According to the Broadcast Pro-File, Hanseth was “both the owner, manager and chief engineer of the new Eureka station, the first broadcast voice since the demise of KFWH some five years earlier.”
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Hanseth applied for a license to open a new broadcast station in Eureka, going on the air on May 12, 1933, as KIEM 1210 AM radio after constructing a more suitable radio station inside the Vance Hotel. in 1927 at the Vance Hotel on 525 Second St. Pumping coverage from five to 100 watts was the short-lived KFWH 1180 AM radio, opened by F. The first radio station in Eureka, with five watts of power, was started by Pete Radelich in 1925, using call letters KFVU 1430 AM. The first radio license in Humboldt County was granted to T.W. “He was very competitive.”Īllen Jones went on to become vice president and general manager for KVIQ-TV in 1972.Ī variety of news clippings, personal interviews and the industry’s historic listing organization, Broadcast Pro-File, painted a picture of early television and radio history on the North Coast.īroadcasters in Humboldt County had to be competitive from the very beginning just to survive. “That’s when Smullin started locking his garbage cans,” Mike Jones laughed. Mike Jones explained that when his father was a salesman for KVIQ-TV, Channel 6, in the 1960s, he would “sneak and go through KIEM-TV (Channel 3) garbage cans to look for scraps of news leads, trying to determine who was on television that day and trying to get their copy.” That was the first day Mike Jones met Smullin, the local radio and television empire-builder and broadcasting icon. Smullin was walking by, stopped at their table and addressed the elder Jones with the provocative question. It was an odd and stilted moment in 1974 as Mike Jones sat eating lunch with his father, Allen Jones, at the Ingomar Club in Eureka. If you or your organization has interest in presenting the Truckers Christmas Parade, please call 442-5744 and ask for Angie.”So, are you still going through garbage cans?” Special appreciation is extended to long time parade coordinator Dale Bridges for his decades of dedication to the event. KEKA would like to thank the hundreds of businesses, organizations, sponsors and participants who have made the parade and charitable contributions raised by it possible over the years. Obviously, we are hopeful that another community organization or business with the same passion we have had since 1989 will step up and continue operating this regional Christmas tradition.” Station owner Brian Papstein commented that “While our family has put on the parade for decades, it’s become apparent that the additional challenges which have had to be met in the past few years have made this event too overwhelming for us to continue putting on. Rising costs, declining community participation and increasing liability associated with actions over the parade have led to this difficult decision. This decision was not made in haste, but has been considered for the past few years. “While our family has put on the parade for decades, it’s become apparent that the additional challenges which have had to be met in the past few years have made this event too overwhelming for us to continue putting on,” KEKA owner Brian Papstein says in the release, which also gives a nod of appreciation to Dale Bridge, who has coordinated the parade for decades.Īfter 30 years of presenting the annual KEKA Truckers Christmas Parade, the station has made the determination not to present the event. A flatbed went full Rudolph during a past parade.