Announcements
(notes provided by the striped-tie-wearing Allan Penwell)
Benny Lapid jointed us remotely from Israel. His singing helped carry the club through its usual off-key, off-note, off-kilter musical efforts.
Program
John McDaniel introduced Paul Davis and Dave Shaul who are two veterans in the broadcasting business. They thoroughly entertained us with the history of WCIA along with a few war stories.
Dave was with WCIA from 1962 through 1999 and then went on to work for WDWS. Paul was with WCIA from 1960-1980 and was station manager. He then moved to Chicago as news director at WGN Television. Paul has received national industry awards for his career in broadcasting.
In Paul’s tenure, WCIA developed extensive news programming with not only a show at dinner time but one in the evening. Because of this, it had a huge audience share and was dominant in the market place. Things are more challenging today because of the plethora of cable shows, but WCIA still continues as the local market leader.
Many personalities have come out of the WCIA ranks which we can remember with the top of the list being the Channel 3 weatherman, Mr. Roberts. Others include Judy Fraser, Jerry Slabe, Tom Schoendienst, and Cindy Close. Most well-known is Dan Roan who started his sports broadcasting at WCIA and then went on to WGN many years ago. Also, don’t forget about the live kids shows with Sheriff Sid and Captain Eddie and the afternoon teen dance show, The Hop.
Probably not amusing at the time, but there were occasionally accidental school closings reported because of bad weather. Paul noted they closed Parkland, Sullivan, and some others. As a gag, someone slipped into one of the closings that Katsinas was also closed, and it was read on the air. (Katsinas was the bar and restaurant across the street from the station).
Here’s a picture of the young Paul Davis whose favorite beer must have been Schlitz.
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| Jan 16th | Jan 23rd | Jan 30th | Feb 6th | |
| Introductions | Dave Krchak | Barb Lintner | BJ Lytle | Ben Mast |
| Invocation | Jeff Van Buren | Cary Woolard | Kris Young | Harold Adams |
| Greeters | Dave Krchak | Barb Lintner | BJ Lytle | Ben Mast |
| Tod Satterthwaite | Mitch Schluter | Jen Shelby | Lou Simpson | |
| Song Leader | Allan Penwell | Ed Perry | Marsha Reardon | Rod Roberts |
| Notetaker | Hodson | Lintner | Conforti | Chamberlain |
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Upcoming Schedule
January 16th – Dennis Roberts will discuss the Urbana Sister City Program
January 23rd – Rick Schoell, former Executive Director for External Relations for the University of Illinois
January 30th – Chris Catanzarite from OLLI at UIUC will discuss the history of the Oscars
February 6th – TBD
February 13th – TBD
February 20th – Patrick Mackay, President, 004 Technologies USA
February 27th – Dr. Irfan Ahmad will discuss the history of Islam, the local Muslim community, and the Avicenna Community Health Center
March 6th – TBD
March 13th – Dr. Stephen Boppart, Bliss Professor of Engineering at UIUC
