Radio was so new that many Midwestern towns still didn't have a commercial station, but he knew of two or three in the tri-cities area in Davenport, Iowa. He started with stations on the Illinois side of the Mississippi but struck out, then crossed the river into Iowa. His first stop was station W.O.C. (Wonders Of Chiropractic) in Davenport.
One of his first assignments was to present a half-hour program of organ music from a local mortuary; the mortuary provided the organist in exchange for a discreet plug identifying it as the source of the music. His job was given to a young teacher, and the station asked him to help break him in. While he was doing it, he mentioned how he'd been hired and then fired.
The teacher quit the next day and the station manager asked Ronald Reagan to stay until they could find someone else.
He agreed to stay on one condition: They had to assign someone to help him improve his on-the-air delivery. Pete and other friends of his went to work on him and gave him a crash course on radio announcing, and he began reading over the commercials before airtime and practicing his delivery to get the right rhythm and cadence and give his words more emotion. Whatever he did during those few days worked: After another week or two, the talk at WOC about replacing him stopped. Then, enter another break for Dutch Reagan. W.H.O., their sister station in Des Moines needed someone to broadcast the Drake Relays, one of the top track meets in the country. He got the assignment. A few weeks later, the Palmer Company received a permit for a 50,000-watt clear channel station in Des Moines.
Overnight, WHO became one of the most powerful NBC stations in the country, and because he'd gotten good marks for his reporting on the Drake Relays, Ronald Reagan was offered the post of sports announcer. He spent four years at station WHO in Des Moines and they were among the most pleasant of his life as he tells the story. At twenty-two he'd achieved his dream: he was a sports announcer. If he had stopped there, he believed he would have been happy the rest of his life. He says he accomplished his goal and enjoyed every minute of it. Before long, during the depths of the Depression, he was earning seventy-five dollars a week and gaining the kind of fame in the Midwest that brought in invitations for speaking engagements that provided him extra income he could use to help out his parents.
Ronald Reagan was a chiropractic patient and worked for B.J. Palmer, of Palmer College of Chiropractic fame. There are a number of people in Hollywood and in all professions that enjoy Chiropractic and what it does for their health.
www.wingspanchiro.com
Dr. Stephanie Janiak, 2551 River Park Plz Ste 200, Fort Worth, TX 76116, (817) 423-2600
