A
pair of recordings of "The Good Word," a spelling bee quiz hosted by
Evangeline Baker and Tom Paxton ("KGO's Popular Young Man With Words"),
with announcer Herb Ellis, and broadcast over the facilities of KGO
Radio in San Francisco.
Six cities are represented in the quiz competition —
Richmond, Burlingame, San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley and Alameda — in
a nine-week competition, culminating in a final championship round in
week ten. A grand prize of $100 cash awaits the team that wins the "ABC
Bay Area championship title."
The first half-hour recording presented here is the
second episode of the competition, pitting the men of the Burlingame
Lions Club against the women of the Richmond Venture Club, broadcast on
July 23, 1947.
The second recording, from September 3, 1947, is the
seventh episode in the series, with the Richmond Venture Club women
taking on the Berkeley team, represented by the ladies of the Theta
Sigma Phi international journalistic honors society. Stay tuned
following this program for an interesting internal closed-circuit
communication from ABC's Hollywood broadcast center.
Both recordings, obviously extracted from electrical transcription
discs, are marred by occasional skips and pops, as well as precarious
drops in volume, especially among the contestants.
Text for
this exhibit written by David Ferrell Jackson
THE BAY AREA RADIO MUSEUM IS A CALIFORNIA 501(C)(3) NON-PROFIT
CORPORATION
DEDICATED TO PRESERVING AND HONORING THE HISTORY OF
RADIO BROADCASTING IN THE SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA
IN AFFILIATION WITH THE
CALIFORNIA HISTORICAL RADIO SOCIETY