DJ Slim Willet

Slim Willet is not a name you hear every day. Often played as Slim Willet and the Brush Cutters. You probably have never heard of that particular western swing band. But you have heard some of his songs. He wrote Dont' Let the Stars get In Your Eyes, a single that became a standard.  He was born Winston Lee Moore on December 1st, 1919 in Dublin, Texas as you read above he was a musician, a songwriter and most importantly for Arcane Radio Trivia... he was a DJ.

That single was written in 1951. Slim once recounted that he learned the meter in 1937 at a CCC camp from some Mexican guitarists who played ranchero music. The lyrics were inspired by a letter from a GI in Korea. He liked letters from soldiers, he served in WWII himself. After the war he went to entered Hardin–Simmons University in Abilene. Many histories claim he headed their student radio station KHSU.  I have found contemporary records that indicate KHSU existed from newspapers. It launched in 1949, and I have found in their school newspaper that it still existed until at least 1961. according to those papers, It only regularly broadcast from 5:00 - 9:00 PM Monday through Saturday. Billboard magazine lists them under campus Attractions in 1964. Then nothing. Strangely they never appear in any radio log. I have assumed they were some kind of unlicensed closed cable system.

In 1949 there were 2 real AM radio stations in Abilene: 1470 KRBC-AM and 1340 KWKC-AM. Neither license was owned by Hardin-Simmons University. It could have been a closed cable station... but I doubt it. He got a journalism degree and began DJing and selling ads on local station KRBC. At this time he was already writing songs including Pinball Millionaire which was recorded by Gene O'Quin. He started doing promotional work. He started hosting the KRBC Big State Jamboree around 1954.  He booked Elvis's first appearance in Abilene in 1955. He was a friend of Bill Mack the famous WBAP-AM disc Jockey and sometimes brought him talent back when he was just a DJ at KWFT in Wichita Falls, TX. More here. 

His own recording career began in 1950 with the 78 rpm disc I'm Going Strong  / I'm a Tool Pusher from Snyder that came out on Star-Talent, a Dallas-based label. Hillbilly researcher has a great discography here.
Don't Let the Stars Get in Your Eyes came out on  in 1952 and was re-recorded and released nationally on 4-Star. It went to #1 on the Country & western Billboard chart. Perry Como took it to #1 on the pop chart.  The song exploded. It was even covered by pop artists in Japan. It was a once in a lifetime hit and Bill McCall at 4-Star stole most of the royalties. Apocryphal accounts say that Willet threatened to kill McCall and that got him a partial payment. More here.  The song's popularity won him guest appearances on the Big D jamboree on KRLD-AM, WFAA-AM in Dallas, the Louisana Hayride on KWKH-AM, The Grand Ol' Opry on WSM and even as far away as KFI in Compton, CA.

In 1957 he started  Winston Records, his own record label. He used it in part to releases some forays into rockabilly which he recorded as Telli W. Mils... Slim Willit spelled backwards.  That same year he quit KRBC and joined radio station 1280 KNIT-AM.The station was a brand new Key City Broadcasters station. He started a booking agency, an ice cream parlor, and bought a gas station. He became diversified.
He never had another single as big as that #1 hit, not even close. In 1964 he became general manager of KCAD.  At the time it was one of the only all-country music stations in all of Texas.  He died two years later and was finally inducted into the Country Music DJ Hall of Fame in 1994.

Hoffman Island Radio Association

The image here is a print is titled "Sketches is the New York Quarantine Establishment" it was published in "Harper's Weekly" in October of 1887.
I was browsing a list of minor islands around New York. To the west I found other islands in the Raritan and lower New York Bay: Swinburne, Skeleton Hill, and Hoffman Island. Hoffman and Swinburne were man-made islands, created to quarantine immigrants that were discovered at Ellis Island to be carrying contagious diseases, especially Smallpox. the islands were made with dredged sand in the 1860s, and closed in the 1930s. My research indicates that their facilities were razed sometime in the 1960s. Today the properties are owned by the National Parks Service and are off limits to we homosapiens. More here.

So how does this come back around to radio? Hoffman Island had a second life after the quarantine gig as the first U. S. maritime service training station. They opened on September 7th 1938. They turned out maritime radio operators and other seamen. The first Seamen who appeared on the island were members of recruits from the C.C.C. (Civilian Conservation Corps).

I know little of the radio school itself. I know it operated for only about one year. The school was operated by the United States Maritime Service in New York Harbor around the years 1944 and 1945, and that it cooperated with the Gallup Island station, and the U.S. Maritime Service radio school at Huntington, Long Island. Mast Magazine published a short article that's online here.

The Hoffman Island Radio Association has about 165 members consisting primarily of graduates, instructors and staff from the Hoffman Island Radio School. HIRA describes itself as mainly a social organization. You can see island pictures here.

The CCC Radio Network

Somewhere out there is the September 1935 issue of Radio News with the article "Radio in the CCC." That one article is the only one I am aware of that directly addresses this topic. Until I read it I remain somewhat in the dark on this arcane topic. (please anyone?)

The CCC was the Civilian Conservation Corps a public work relief program for unemployed men, focused on natural resource conservation from 1933 to 1942. It was part of President Roosevelt's New Deal program. While much of it is today derided as "liberal" the CCC actually was first suggested by Michigan Senator James Couzens [R]. There are few books on the program leaving us with our grandparents as the best sources of information. Notably here and here.

The men of the CCC planted treed, (about three billion trees) fought soil erosion, fought forest fires, built fish hatcheries, built drainage systems and levys, constructed roads and more. In 1933 they began offering their enrollees vocational training. This training included radio. They had shortwave classes, radio theory, taught Morse code, and operated the CCC radio network including the stations WUGA, WUGN, WUGF, WUGT, WUGH, WUGR, WUMA, WUGP, WUGL, WUGE, WUGG, WUGC, WUGU, WUGB, WUCC and certainly others. The Campt at Ft. Benning actually had their own newsletter The Amplifier. They conducted code drills transcribing timed broadcast from WLM in D.C. There is a great page here.

But we know precious little about these stations. That single issue of The Amplifier tells me that WUGR was in Chipley, GA. WUGP was in Brooksville, FL, WUGN in Woodville FL, was in Tampa, WUGE, WUGF in Starko, FL etc. There were 20 stations in the District "H" Radio Network for the CCC. District H included Florida, and parts of southern Alabama and Georgia. there were at least another dozen equally large networks. The then disappeared. I can only assume with the dissolution of the CCC their funding dried up. I also assume that the stations on some military bases like Ft. Benning may have found some extended life in the war-time effort but alas this is only a guess.

Despite wide popularity the program never became permanent. In 1939 Congress passed it's last funding extension. In December of 1941 following the attack on Pearl Harbor funding was cut to prepare for war.