The Bible Healing Hour

In some ways, Rev. William B. McKay was the original Florida man. Faith healing is, and always was, a bald huckster's scam. But back then just like now, successful scams are big business. But not every "faith healer" was a robber baron of the genre. If Aimee Semple McPherson was Queen of the industry in the 1930s, then William M. Branham was it's King in the 1940s. By comparison, W. B. McKay was a small fish. 

The stories of 740 WORZ-AM  and 1360 WOBS-AM add a little more context here. WORZ was founded in 1947 as a 1,000 watt and was NBC Red affiliate. They operated with those calls until 1957 when it became WKIS. That call sign continued until 1988. They have been using the WYGM calls since 2009 airing sports talk. WOBS first signed on the air in 1948 and stuck with those calls until becoming WCGL in 1976. But a note on the Jacksonville Broadcasters page indicates that it was mostly R&B by 1956.  WORZ had a trifle with the FCC over a permit to build a TV station in 1957. From that decision we also learn a few amusing anecdotes:

• WORZ, Inc. was originally founded as The Dixie Awning Co.  
• In 1952 wattage increased from 1k to 5k watts
• Company VP, Eugene G. Hill was GM of 1050 WAUG-AM brefily in 1953
• In 1957 their President, and primary stock-holder, Naomi T. Murrell submitted a written statement to the FCC which stated that "...she did not know whether or not a dog-racing program carried selections, which, in fact, it did."

But perhaps what is more relevant to the Bible Healing Hour than the Murrell's degenerate gambling, is  that she also "Planned and organized the inauguration of the Orange County Ministerial Association "Church Service" over WORZ, a program in which all churches in the area have an opportunity to broadcast their Sunday service on a rotation basis."  So we know McKay was not alone in his religious programming on that station.

From a single undated hymnal we see that his program was heard over WORZ-AM

in Orlando, FL daily at 1:00 PM and on Sunday from 9:00 - 9:30 AM. But also on WOBS-AM in Jacksonville, FL daily at 12:30 PM and then on Sunday at 1:30 PM. With that scheduling it's clear that these programs had to have been pre-recorded. So somewhere out there are (or at least were) transcription discs of the program. Copyright dates on the music range from as early as 1824 to as late as 1947, so the book could only have been printed after that date. A novelty even in that era, the hymnal's tablature is written in shape notes rather than standard musical notation. But frustratingly the hymnal itself is undated. So we can only place the radio program from secondary sources. 

McKay appears in many issues of in the faith-healing magazine "The Voice of Healing", which was founded by Branham in 1948.  [You can find a database of pdfs here] He started appearing in the magazine no later than July of 1950. On the cover of the June 1951 issue were seven new associate editors, all members of the profitable faith model; all obscure names today: W.V. Grant, Richard R. Vinyard, Raymond T. Richey, Jack Coe, H. E. Hardt, Velmer Gardner, and Clifton Erikson. But not McKay. Apparently he wasn't in the club yet.  But he does appear in their directory of "...those we believe have proven divine healing ministry."  In 1949 he's listed simply under the "M" section, filed right between Harvey McAlister and Owen Murphy. The modern Voice of Healing website does not mention his name in it's whole history.

Yet it's through the July 1950 issue that we find the only corroborating date for The Bible Healing Hour on WORZ. 

"Brother [Rev F. F.] Bosworth sends us a report that Evangelist W. B. McKay has been holding healing meetings in Orlando, Florida, and has been having very successful services. People came from all over central Florida to attend the meeting and many remarkable healings took place. They now have a Bible Healing Hour over WORZ in Orlando each day Monday through Friday at 1 P.M."

Elsewhere in the June 1951 issue, McKay appears under the events section holding revivals in Winchester, VA June 8th to 24th, and then in Marion, IN from July 13th to 29th. The Nomveber issue has him in Staunton, VA,  that same Summer. The Pentecostal Evangel lists him holding a revival in Winchester  from June 25th to July 9th the prior year.The September 1952 issue has him at a June revival in Erie, PA, followed by one in Laurel, DE.  In a 1953 issue he's holding a June healing campaign in Seaford, DE, and another in Branford, FL in March. The impression here is an evangelist touring like he's in a Def Leppard cover band. This would have taken McKay well outside the range of WORZ and WOBS for months at a time. From his consistent Summer touring schedule, I suspect his radio program ended by 1952, possibly earlier.

In a 1954 issue he appears again, this time with a full page sermon exhorting the "wilt though be made whole" mythology. His appearance at their convention names his wife as Edith Evelyn McKay. The John Wesley Methodist Church lists journal him on the board of hospitals in 1954, also noting he joined in 1931. These citations land right in the 1951 to 1954 time frame. His pastoral record adds a little color to that time line:

South Carolina Conference Journal 1954

The book All Things Are Possible: The Healing and Charismatic Revivals in Modern America, by David Edwin Harrell gives the peak years of the healing revivalism as 1950 - 1956,  and specifically states that "The healing-deliverance revival probably crested around 1952." Harrell further references a 1953 book Men Who Heard From Heaven, by Gordon Lindsay which includes sketches of 22 ministers, one of whom was McKay. This is no coincidence. 1952 was his peak of fame, at the peak of the movement. But after the mid-1950s McKay fades into the background.

McKay reappears in South Carolina in the 1970s.  A 1971 issue of the Sentinel lists him as "Interdenominational Rev. W. B. McKay, Pastor" in their religious services calendar. A website for The Sentinel news lists him as serving at the Canaan United Methodist Church sometime between 1970 and 1983.  In the Orangeburg, SC Democrat newspaper, he pops up officiating at a funeral held at the Prospect United Methodist Church in Rowesville, SC in June 1974 —only an hour away. In 1981, The Sentinel wrote that Rev. W. B. and his wife Edith McKay had returned from Canada celebrating their 50th Wedding Anniversary. After that the written record drops off.