Editor's Notebook

December 16, 2021

 

December 16, 2021

The call letters of KSNB and the television channel assignment of Number 4 still reminds longtime residents of this area of the days when Superior boasted of being the hometown for television and radio stations and a newspaper. That is no longer true. It has been years since the television station that uses the letters and channel assignment has been located in Hartley Petersen's pasture southwest of Ruskin.

Fifty years ago big cities like Kansas City, Wichita, Omaha and Lincoln didn't have anything over on Superior. We all had our local print and broadcast media.

Residents of Superior and the surrounding area were excited about 60 years ago when they learned a television channel had been allocated to Superior and the Bi-States Company planned to construct a television station in a cow pasture southwest of Ruskin.

Operating a rural television station wasn't a new experience for Bi-States. The company started by Dr. F. Wayne Brewster and other local investors, launched KHOL-TV on Christmas Eve 1953. Located east of Axtell with call letters selected to signify its close tie to the Kearney and Holdrege markets. It was the first station Superior residents could dependably receive. Channels 5 and 10 came later.

Channel 13 is now recognized as the nation's first country television station. Twelve years later on Oct. 1, 1965, the Superior station signed on as KHTL-TV.

Having a televison station that called Superior home boosted community pride. Superior residents smiled when the required station breaks identified the signal as coming from Superior, a community of about 3,000 people.

If the Axtel station located along a highway was considered "country," How was the Superior station located in a cow pasture described? After travelling county roads from either Highways 136 or 8, a visitor turned onto a pasture path and drove across cattle guards to reach the studio and transmitter site. It was certainly more country than its related country station at Axtell.

The station owners played up the close connection to Kansas and changed the original call letters to KSNB to better signify their desire to serve the two states.

Soon after it went on the air, signs about the size of those that now advertise Superior as Nebraska's Victorian Capital, sprouted along northern Kansas highways encouraging viewers to tune in Channel 4. When attending college in Manhattan, I didn't have access to a television that could receive the Superior signal. The signs helped explain to my Kansas college friends that I had attended school in Superior, Neb., for the signs helped them recognized the name of Superior.

The station featured a special Kansas segment during the 6 and 10 o'clock news shows. While attending Fairbury Junior College, Gary Crook, a Superior High School graduate, came over every afternoon for his part-time job as a news announcer.

Those segments originated from the cow pasture studio as did a little other programming. Most of the programming was rebroadcast from the mother station at Axtel.

The studio had its limitations. It had a fixed focus black and white camera which allowed for two people to be on camera at the same time.

Once while serving as the Superior Chamber of Commerce manager, I was responsible for a newscast. I had as my guest Vernon McBroom. He talked about the home show planned for later that week in the Superior Auditorium

Occasionally, I was asked to provide the station with a news photo. Pictures were limited to five inches wide and four inches tall. They were pinned to what appeared to be a bicycle wheel. The person giving the news could rotate the wheel and bring into broadcast range the picture which illustrated the news story.

After joining The Express, my goal was to print a colored picture in the newspaper before Channel 4 had the capability to broadcast the local news show in color. I did it one May but other than being good for my ego, I don't believe the printing of a colored photo was worth the cost and haven't done it since.

As chamber of commerce manager, I agreed to help Tom Nuss, the station manager, with tours. Tom made me cue cards that supposedly had all the answers I would need. Tour groups (usually from an area school) would stop by the chamber office. I would board their bus and guide the driver to the TV station. With the assistance of the cue cards, I would tell the visitors about what they were seeing. Elementary pupils liked to stand at the base of the tower and stare upward to the top which was nearly 1,084 feet above them. I never had an urge to climb the tower though I have met people who were required to climb it and make repairs.

When my grandmother replaced her television set, she gave me her old one. I put it in the newspaper office and with rabbit ears I could pull in the Channel 4 signal and keep watch on the local competition.

Most of the reporters assigned to the station were men. One young women employed by the station lived in an apartment house one block south of The Express. I'm not sure if she was concerned about the quality of her work or if she wanted to merge the local television and newspaper businesses but she called regularly to ask what she should cover. Soon after the 6 p.m. evening newscast, she telephoned me asking for a critique of her show.

I don't know how much I helped her broadcasting but she helped me fill the front page of this newspaper.

I was alone in the newspaper office one icy morning when the fire department was called to the tire store now known as Petro Plus.

I looked out the window expecting to see smoke. Instead I saw the Channel 4 news car had slid on the ice and struck one of the firm's gasoline pumps. With camera in hand, I carefully made my way to the store and took a picture of the car and pump. That story may not have made the driver's evening newscast but it made the front page of the next Express.

And this week I expect the local television will make the front page for the last time. This week the story will be the removal of the antenna tower. The associated building which housed the studio and transmitter was previously removed.

I'm sorry to see the tower go. I had hoped another business would find a use for it. There was a time when the owners rented tower space to other businesses.

But times are changing new technolgies have reduced the need for such towers. The Western Union tower east of Hardy that I relied on to tell me where to turn south toward Republic has also been removed as has the public power district radio tower located east of Suprior. I remember when that tower's light was the only red light visible from Blauvelt's Hill. Over time it was joined by other lights alerting airplane pilots of obstacles they needed to avoid.

 

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