Bill Finch was a 'King of Swing'

by Larry Miller

Bill Finch loved music. But it was broadcasting where he left his mark.

A native of Illinois, Finch was deeply rooted in the music and culture that he had grown up with in the 1930’s and ‘40s.

He also had a knack for new technologies and ventured into broadcasting – first radio, and then television. But television was a mere flirtation, and he molded his lifelong career around radio, sharing his love of big band music with radio audiences from Nebraska and Colorado to South Carolina – and around the world.

It’s no surprise that he was blending those two traits when he partnered with Coloradan Bob Fouse to put Chadron radio station KCSR on the air back in May of 1954. That event was listed among “New Beginnings” in the recently-published history of Chadron, Nebraska, prepared as part of the quasquicentennial celebration this summer.

Few folks with first-hand knowledge about the beginning of KCSR are still around. So it’s left to those of us who were mere youngsters romping around Chadron in the mid 1950’s to tell the story. And that story can’t be told without first knowing about the people who made it happen – and Bill Finch was in the thick of it!

Born in Lovejoy, Illinois, in 1922, Finch was just a few months old when his parents moved to Chicago. In later life, he told newspaper writer Thom Anderson that life as a big-city kid was pretty exciting. He said he remembered the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, which took place not far from his house – as was the Biograph Theatre, were gangster John Dillinger was killed.

“The gangsters were often looked at as sort of folk heroes…we didn’t worry about them, though. They were never a real danger to citizens – only to each other when one invaded the other’s turf. The police figured they’d just kill each other,” Finch was quoted as saying.

He also remembered with great delight the wide array of big bands that would play in the many ballrooms around Chicago – from Glenn Miller and Guy Lombardo to Duke Ellington and Benny Goodman.

“Being raised in the Big Band era was the best thing a person who was musically inclined could possibly experience,” he was once quoted as saying. Those inclinations led him to master the saxophone and clarinet.

During World War II, Finch served a stint in the Pacific with the U.S. Army Signal Corps. His four-year hitch included an assignment to Special Services and ended in Tokyo, where he was a courier with the Army Security Agency. After his discharge as a First Lieutenant, he enrolled in the broadcasting program at Denver University, where he graduated in 1951. Then it was off to his first radio job at KRAI in Craig, Colorado, where he was Sales Manager and also handled announcing chores.

It was likely in Denver, however, that Bill Finch crossed paths with Bob Fouse, an announcer and Promotion Manager at KTLN in Denver. It was fortuitous that Fouse’s family was apparently quite wealthy. Finch and Fouse joined forces in the early 1950’s and decided to build a radio station in Chadron, Nebraska. The station went on the air in May of 1954 from studios at 212 Bordeaux Street, just a few doors north of where the station is now located.

Much could be written about those early days of KCSR, which operated at 1450 Kilocycles with only 250 watts. Nonetheless, the station boasted that it was the “Tri-State Voice by Listener Choice,” but the signal struggled to reliably serve an audience in South Dakota – let alone Wyoming, which was even farther away.

But everywhere the signal could be heard, the station was a hit!

Early KCSR staff members included other DU alums like Cliff Pike and Freeman Hover. They were creative and resourceful, and they didn’t hesitate to take chances trying new things. The station was on the air 18-hours a day and incorporated everything from country and western to classical music in a format that was “keyed to the mood of the day.” But it was the local news, sports, and weather that caught the fancy of a Chadron-area audience hungry for their own radio station. They loved it.

Other early staff included Dave Scherling, who had been at KGOS in Torrington, and local Chadronites Ted Turpin and Sherry Girmann. Turpin did news and sports. Girmann was receptionist and stenographer.

Finch served as Station Manager and guided most of the technical work, while Fouse was Commercial Manager. Both did on-air work, but Fouse dove full force into programming, injecting his rare brand of creativity that was showcased on a weekday morning program called Breakfast with the Boys. We have a some photographs from this era; you'll find them posted in our KCSR Gallery.

Finch and his wife Dorothy became well-known in the community; their children Barbara and Ron enrolled in the Chadron public school system. Finch had a flair for showmanship, too, creating and hosting a weekly live performance program called “Curly’s Corral,” featuring area country and western musicians. “Curly” Finch became something of a celebrity, donning western outfits (at left) and even riding a horse down Main Street in a parade. Quite a trick for a guy who grew up in Chicago! But he knew the importance of country music to station listeners, and he responded in a positive way.

In 1958, as a part-time announcer at the station, I vividly recall one summer afternoon when Bill was at the control board hosting an afternoon of recorded music. He decided to spice it up a bit by playing Count Basie's “One O’clock Jump,” followed by another version of....“One O’clock Jump”......and then..... yet another version! I have no recollection of just how many renditions he found, but he was loving every minute of it. It was clear he had a passion for big band music – even if it was demonstrated in a rather unorthodox way! He was, after all, the boss!

By late 1958 and early 1959, Finch was simultaneously managing KDUH-TV in Hay Springs, the new television station owned by Duhamel Broadcasting Enterprises. Whatever the motivation for Finch and Fouse, they sold KCSR to the Huse Publishing Company of Norfolk, Nebraska. The deal was done in August 1959, and Finch was gone from Chadron.

Finch then bought a radio station in Clewiston, Florida, but it became a tumultuous time for him and his family. He was soon divorced from Dorothy and lost the station, taking a job at WFTL in Fort Lauderdale.

By 1963, Bill Finch met magazine editor Patricia Lane, and they wed on New Year’s Day in 1964, soon re-locating to Casper, Wyoming, where he was again involved in broadcasting. But the lure of the Rockies took hold, and Bill and Pat moved to Colorado Springs, where – among other things – he hosted a weekend big band program called The Finch Bandwagon on KVOR.

The program was heard by an Air Force colonel who had some clout with higher brass, and Finch was asked to produce the program for the worldwide audience of the Armed Forces Radio and Television Service. He’d periodically fly to Los Angeles and record as many as 13 programs in one trip.

This phase of Bill Finch’s career accomplished several things. First, it gave him an opportunity to invite top-name talent to the studio for interviews that could be inserted into his programs, which were pressed to LP discs and distributed to AFRTS station and ships around the globe.

Surely, it must have been a real kick for the kid from Chicago to rub shoulders with top entertainers, ranging from musicians like Percy Faith, Patti Page, Stan Kenton, Frankie Carle and Lawrence Welk (shown here with Bill Finch), to legendary writers like Jimmie McHugh and Sammy Cahn, to name just a few. Second, as an ex-GI, Finch relished being able to share music that he had grown up with and loved with a whole new generation of American kids – not to mention the large “shadow” audience that tuned in AFRTS in every part of the world.

Bill and Pat Finch had a son of their own, Holmes, who spent his formative years in Colorado Springs.

The AFRTS gig went on for more than a decade, but – according to a 2002 news story – Finch lost is voice and had to undergo surgery on his vocal chords. While he regained his voice, it was markedly different, and Finch apparently felt that his tenure as a radio announcer was at an end.

Shortly thereafter, the family headed east – to South Carolina. They settled in Pamplico, where Pat had grown up.

In 1975, the final chapter of Bill Finch’s broadcast career unfolded. He went to work at WJMX in nearby Florence and resurrected the Finch Bandwagon radio show. It thrived and became something of a fixture on the station, running steadily for 27 years. At the end of that long stint on radio station WJMX, writer Stella Miller dubbed Finch the 'King of Swing' in an article for Golden Life magazine.

Finch's first wife, Dorothy, suffered a bout of heart ailments and passed away in 1995 in Orlando, Florida. Their daughter Barbara lives in Orlando today, where her husband is project manager for a construction company. They have five children, 10 grandchildren, and one great grandchild. Finch's older son Ron lives in China and owns his own window dressing company. Ron’s two sons are in college and his daughter is in high school. Finch's younger son, Holmes -- by his second wife, Pat -- is an Associate Professor at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana, where he serves as Director of Research for the Office of Charter School Research.

In 2002, on his 80^th birthday, Finch suffered a stroke. Despite this significant setback, he fought his way back and was soon sharing the helm of The Finch Bandwagon on another South Carolina station, WOLS, where he was again immersing himself – and his many fans in the area – with his beloved big band music. Click the "Play" button below and enjoy a few minutes of an original AFRTS broadcast of The Finch Band Wagon.

Bill Finch died June 9, 2004, just a few weeks shy of his 82^nd birthday. His wife, Pat, continues to live in her native Pamplico, South Carolina.

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Our thanks to Pat Finch, Barbara (Finch) Schenk, Holmes Finch, and Ruth Munn Kilgallon for generously sharing photos and other materials used in this article.

Early Chadron: Hollywood of the Plains?

More than a decade before the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences began staging Academy Award ceremonies in Hollywood, one of the earliest western films about Wild Bill Hickock was produced in…….Chadron, Nebraska?

Not that the movie would have won an Oscar. According to the Nebraska State Historical Society, it wasn’t even close to being an accurate depiction of Wild Bill, but it was an ambitious undertaking for a group of local folks in Chadron who produced the film.

Entitled Wild Bill and Calamity Jane in the Days of ’75 and ’76, the 1916 movie was said to have embraced several “state of the art” production techniques, including film masking and titles within the film. Most intriguing for us was the fact that local citizens created the Black Hills Feature Film Company and sold stock in an effort to bankroll the project. We don’t know how many shares they sold, but one “William Chalk” was the proud owner of Certificate No. 4, shown here.

Interestingly, the certificate is signed by Willis Schenck, Secretary, and A. L. Andrews, President, of the Black Hills Feature Film Company – and Schenck also performed in the film. According to the credits, he played the role of “Nettie’s father.”

But the real limelight of this film was focused on a young lady by the name of Freeda Hartzell Romine, who – according to the Centennial History of Chadron, Nebraska (1985) – was born in Nebraska but grew up in Deadwood, South Dakota. That’s where, so the story goes, she learned to become an expert rifle shot and honed her skills well enough to appear in the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis with Will Rogers. She would have been only about 12 or 13 years old. The photo here shows Freeda with fellow performers in Wild Bill and Calamity Jane in the Days of '75 and '76.

The young lass also toured with Buffalo Bill Cody’s Western Show for several years, according to an account in Dawes County - The First 100 Years, published in 1985. She and her railroader husband, Guy Romine, had a daughter, Catherine. Many years later, the Romine’s divorced. Freeda reportedly lived for several more years in Chadron, but also had a home in Indiana. We know nothing about her final days.

Other "locals" in the film included Freeda's mother, Mary Hartzell, who portrayed Calamity's mother, and A.L. Johnson, who was cast as Wild Bill. Barney Efting played the infamous Jack McCall, while Dick Iaeger was Calamity's brother. In researching this local drama troupe, we discovered that Iaeger was an uncle to Karen (Kindig) Schlais, who still lives in Chadron.

Alas, this film – and the film company – were also lost in obscurity. Fortunately, the movie was finally “re-discovered” some years ago and placed in the Nebraska archives in Lincoln. It was dusted off and featured a few years ago by Nebraska Educational Television in their Next Exit series.

Enjoy this glimpse of film magic that is nearly 100 years old.

~

Remembering teachers past

VERNE LEWELLEN was one of the most highly respected coaches to ever come through Chadron High School.

A native of Minatare, he was a standout athlete. During World War Two, “Coach Lew” served with Patton’s 16th Armored Division that helped liberate Czechoslovakia; he then enrolled at Chadron State College after the war. A top flight defensive back at Chadron State, his four pass interceptions in the “Bean Bowl” football game against Idaho State in 1949 established a school record that has never been broken. His superb football career earned him a berth as a charter member of the CSC Athletic Hall of Fame.

Lewellen was also a top notch baseball player and likely could have had a career in the major leagues. After teaching and coaching at Hay Springs for three years, he came to Chadron as basketball coach and taught in Junior High, becoming Principal. He took the Cardinals to three state basketball tournaments, including 1960-61 when CHS won the Class B championship.

Lewellen retired from coaching and left Chadron to become Superintendent at Rushville for five years. He and his wife, Erma, then returned to the “Valley,” where he served 20 years as Superintendent at Mitchell.

A staunch supporter of CSC, he has served on the Foundation’s Board of Directors. The Lewellens still live in Mitchell, not far from their son Curt and daughter Tammi Greenlee.

A “surprise” tribute luncheon for “Coach Lew” and Erma was held in Chadron on July 8, 2010.

Remembering teachers past

LaVONA SMITH LEMONS taught Home Economics and Physical Education at Chadron High School in the late 1950's.

A native of Crawford and a graduate of what is now Chadron State College, she taught in Grand Island for three years before coming to Chadron High. Con Marshall wrote last year that “she remembers when Cindy Huls dressed up like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and did some tumbling stunts during halftime at a couple of basketball games during the holidays, much to the delight of the crowds…after leaving Chadron, the Lemonses moved to Scottsbluff, where Larry taught special education and physiology for 20 years and LaVona became a stay-at-home mom. While still in Scottsbluff, Larry left education for nine years and became involved in sporting goods sales and management.”

The Lemons family moved to North Platte in the mid-1980s. LaVona became Volunteer Coordinator for North Platte Schools, while Larry worked as the counselor at the Hershey Schools. Their son Jay is president of Susquehanna University in Pennsylvania; daughter Jill is a counselor in Loveland, Colorado, and daughter Holly has a real estate license in Fort Collins. They have seven grandchildren.

LaVona and her husband Larry Lemons were able to attend the joint reunion last year for the classes of ’58 and ’59 at CHS. LaVona

As Chadron Prep grads assemble

Although the Chadron Prep high school was shuttered in 1961, memories of that fine school linger. Prepsters continue to assemble annually to celebrate their good fortune at having been a part of the school.

For many folks, the basketball dynasty honed by the legendary Archie Conn, is synonymous with Chadron Prep.

There is a long list of names that ring true when thinking about outstanding basketball players at Prep. Muma. Amstrong. Lytle. Kuska.

And within that list – if not at the top – is one James Hampton.

A four-year letterman for the Junior Eagles, Jim Hampton was a bit on the short size for such a stellar player; he was an all-around athlete who performed nearly as well on the gridiron and the diamond as he did the basketball court. He was an integral part of the outstanding Chadron Elks baseball team for a few years back in the '50s.

We can’t recount all of the statistics about this fine player, but we do know that he garnered 310 points in 24 during his senior year. Jim was a Class C All-State player on a team that dominated the Northwest Nebraska Conference – and most other competition. Of course, Chadron Prep also brought home several state championship trophies in those years.

At a sprightly 73 years, Hampton still shoots hoops regularly in Michigan, where he and wife Shirley (Durham) have lived for many years. He has retired from a successful career with Dow Corning. We’re told that his free-throw percentage is considerably higher today than back in the 1950’s, and he was a superb shooter back in those days.

If you have good photos of other Prep players from that era, we’d enjoy being able to share them here on Dawes County Journal. Drop us a line at galeymedia@gmail.com.

Remembering teachers past

JAMES ZEMAN, a 1956 graduate of Chadron High School, returned to CHS to teach English and Speech in 1960-61 after graduating with a Bachelor’s degree from Nebraska State Teachers College at Chadron in 1960. It would be the first of his 42 years in the teaching profession.

“I thoroughly enjoyed teaching the senior English class that year,” Zeman told us. “I still remember fondly the senior class play, and I can’t forget Murray Schmechel coming out on stage in the barrel in “Tons of Money.” That was Zeman’s only year of teaching at CHS.

He spent the next six years teaching speech and coaching speech activities at Lead (SD) High School while working summers to complete an M.A. in Speech Communication. After a one-year stint back at Chadron State as a one-year replacement, he signed on at Northern State University in Aberdeen, SD to teach speech and handle forensic activities. It turned out to be a 34-year gig. He completed a Ph. D. in Speech Communication at Pennsylvania State University and was very actively involved with the South Dakota Education Association for many years.

Jim Zeman retired in 2003 as a full professor at Northern State and spends his time in both Aberdeen and the Black Hills region – as well as a couple of weeks each year on the Oregon coast.

Remembering teachers past

H. A. SCHROEDER was a long-time Superintendent of Schools in Chadron, well-known and high respected throughout the community. A native of Pierce County and a graduate of Wayne College, he was a standout athlete during his years with the “Wildcats.”

After graduating from Wayne, his career in education took him to Scribner, where he was Superintendent for 11 years. Then it was on to Broken Bow for four years; but then he left education to manage a Broken Bow hotel. In 1946, Schroeder and his wife, Opal, came to Chadron, where he had been hired as manager of the Blaine Hotel; however, he was soon recruited to replace the late James Skinkle as Superintendent of Schools.

Henry “Heinie” Schroeder served as School Superintendent from 1947 until 1967.

While a few students over those years got to see the inside of Heinie’s office and experience “character-building” spankings, most knew him as a gregarious and fairly jovial fellow, who – with little prompting – was happy to demonstrate his football skills by punting a ball to the top of the school building. Opal Schroeder taught Kindergarten at East Ward for some 20 years. Their daughter, Susan (Schroeder) Lundberg, was a 1955 graduate of Chadron High School.

Upon retirement, Heinie worked at the Pine Ridge Job Corps Center for a few years. Chadron historian/writer Con Marshall says Heinie played a key role in getting accreditation for the school at the Job Corps Center, which is nestled atop a hill south of Chadron in the Nebraska National Forest.

It wasn’t long, however, before the Schroeders decided to head back to their roots in eastern Nebraska, spending their remaining years in Norfolk.

Heinie Schroeder died in 1983; Opal passed away in 1990.