Gentleman Jim Reeves & Tom Perryman

 

The station was KLTI.  The slogan was:  "To sell or buy...call KLTI".  This was an am/fm radio station in the nineteen fifties.  The staff was experienced and professional.   We had it all:  news, music, baseball, bingo, just the kind of station people enjoyed in those somewhat experimental and maybe amateurish times for a medium that was not too many years from the invention stage.   

The people employed there were dedicated.  So it was, when Jim Reeves joined the staff, a pleasure to have someone with his polish.   I remember we were all pleased when we met Jim.  We had a lot of pride in our sound, and I won't say this again, "Jim Reeves had a fine voice".   

We were all young men and women, just getting it together.  Most of the staff had prior experience in smaller towns.  And Longview was a growing, progressive city, where success came to those who made the effort.

In the five years I was associated with the station, from 1949 till 1954, three members of the staff had gone on to buy their own radio stations in other cities.  This was made possible by the confidence they built with local businessmen, who encourged them to find a station, and gave them the financial support to make their moves.  This offered an avenue to power their future success, while at the same time, gave good returns for their Longview backers.  

When Jim came to work at KLTI, he didn't have an automobile.  But that was the case for most.  I had purchased a car a year or two after starting on the job.  Jim's wife, Mary worked at a fashionable dress shop, Margo's, just one block from Sears, where my wife was employed.  After work, Jim would ride with me, and we would wait for the girls.  We ate a lot of fried chicken and hamburgers in the evenings, and didn't realize we were being frugal.  

Mary didn't move to Longview immediately after Jim came to KLTI.  He rode the bus back and forth to Henderson, where she worked.   One night, Tom Perryman and his wife Billie, met Jim at the bus station, and brought him out to the house where my wife and I, and another couple lived.  It was Canasta Night, as nearly every night came to be in the early fifties. The four of us were already playing, when they arrived.   They set up a table, and began their game.  After a few minutes, Billie Perryman said, "Tommy, keep your leg still".  Tommy looked his cards over and merely grunted.   A while later, Billie let the hammer down, exclaiming:  "Quit moving your leg, I'm resting my feet".  Tommy looked up this time and said, "I'm not moving my leg".    And, Jim, who had been very quiet, said, "Billie that's my leg". He was beet red, and  Tommy was choking to death with laughter.  

At work, Jim had a guitar in the studio.   When he had a record spinning, he would strum along till the next mike time came up. Sometimes he would have as much as fifteen minutes between air duties, and he always grabbed the guitar, and would softly sing along as he played. Perhaps my one claim to fame in Longview, was my admonition to Jim:  "If you'd hang up that blamed guitar, and stick to your announcing,  you'd really go places''.   That phrase came back to haunt me.  

One Saturday afternoon, I was writing copy.  Jim was on the air for his mike shift.  He took a call in the control room, rushed out and asked if I would cover his shift for him, while he talked to the caller.  He took the call in the office, and I went back to the control room.  In a few minutes, Jim came bouncing back to the control room, like he was walking on balloons.  He said, "Al, that was Horace Logan, the manager of KWKH in Shreveport.  He was driving through town and liked my voice, and said he wanted me to come to work with his station".  Jim said his job would only require him to make station breaks.  I could hear it in my head:  "KAY, DOUBLE-U,KAH, H,....SHREVEPORT''. Not being overjoyed at the thought of losing Jim, I said it didn't sound like much of a challenge for him.  But, Jim had a goal, and said as much that afternoon, remarking that KWKH was the home of the Louisiana  Hayride, a program that had catapulted many a country singer to stardom.

One of the people who most often throws that "hang up your guitar and stick to your announcing" at me, is Jack Mackey.  Jack had been on the sales staff at KLTI, and when Federated Department Stores opened a store in Longview, he was hired as Manager of the Men's Department.  After about two weeks at KWKH, Jim came back to Longview and went in to see Jack at Fedway.  He confided that he had a chance to sing on the Hayride three nights later, and he didn't have anything to wear.  He asked Jack if he could get a pair of black slacks, a white shirt and string tie, and pay him  the next week.   Jack outfitted him in style.   The following week, he returned to Fedway, paid Jack for his purchases, and bought a new white shirt.  You know the rest of the story.

Well, at least one note.  Tom Perryman became Jim's business partner in a radio station, in Henderson, Texas.   Tommy and Billie later sold the Henderson station and bought one near Nashville. Tommy had another singing star on his list of friends.   While he managed a station, KEES, then in Gladewater, Texas, he became close to Elvis, who often played the little strip of clubs outside Gladewater.  Billie has appeared on a national television show honoring Elvis' birthday celebration.   Tommy was a fine announcer, with a country, country style.  On one occasion, I was doing color for a football game in Palestine, when Tommy was doing the play by play for the Henderson audience.  I  took a moment to listen to him as the officials had stopped play for a measurement.  I'll never forget Tommy's description:  "Wal, they'r gonna measure to see if its a first down.   Nope... Nope.....it looks like it is just a snuff can lid away from  being a first down".

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