We Started On September 1, 1974

I didn't know there was such a thing as a "radio reading service" until I read about one in one of those scandalous supermarket tabloids during the summer of 1974. They always have a few human interest stories and one of them was about a college that read the newspaper on the air each weekend.

“Huh,” I thought, “that’s a good idea. But the people are blind every day, not just on weekends. Wonder if we can do something on a daily basis.”

Six weeks later, we did our first show, recorded for broadcast the next day only because “live” radio was not possible logistically. It didn’t matter; we weren’t duplicating any breaking news that was available elsewhere.

When I looked for a sponsoring agency, for legitimacy in those earliest days, I dropped by the local library and its Large Print desk. The lady in charge thought it was a pretty dumb idea; seeing that I wasn’t about to convince her, I agreed and went on to the Blind Association down the street. They thought it was a great idea and we started working on what the local blind population’s needs were.

Too bad for the library; they would have built up a lot of publicity, not to mention goodwill, which might have helped them when funding cutbacks hurt their work. That’s life; never say a new idea is stupid until you have examined it. Tomorrow, a little more as we start our 34th year of daily broadcasting.