It was June of 1976, and my telephone rang…no cell phones back then, the phone was hanging on the wall in the apartment we were renting in Grand Forks, North Dakota. A local broadcasting organization was looking for help staffing remote broadcast trucks on the 4th of July. “You will be part of a broadcast crew supplying live broadcasts from one of many locations in the mid-west” said the voice on the other end “we don’t know where you will be assigned, it’s up to NBC.”
Really? I thought. NBC…well for sure I’m in. “The closest location to where you live will be in Minot, North Dakota. We plan on going live from their festival.” So now, let’s fill in the blanks. I was a recent broadcasting graduate from the University of North Dakota, and in June of 1976, I did not have a job…albeit like any recent graduate I was keeping busy doing odd jobs like bartending and construction to pay the rent. I had applied for several jobs, but none of those applications were in Minot, North Dakota.
I had done a lot of remote broadcasting gigs in my year at UND, mainly because of their Division I hockey program. I had also interned and eventually worked at WDAZ, the ABC affiliate in Grand Forks, and also did a short summer internship in Minneapolis. “Certainly” I thought “I can handle what they assign me to do.”
In later conversations I learned that the celebration in Minot was the Festival in the Parks. I also was informed that they would put me on a list of people to be part of the Minot crew, but NBC had not decided whether Minot, North Dakota was going be a major, or a minor broadcast. As I understood, major would involve talent from NBC being on camera in Minot, minor would be talent in New York talking over live video from Minot. Based on who they had listed for other crew, I would not be part of a minor broadcast “Are you still interested?” said the gentlemen from NBC. “Of course,” I replied, “there’s always a chance- and it would look great on my resume.”
If you’ve gotten this far, please keep reading, because the story gets a little more interesting, especially as it pertains to Minot.
If you haven’t had time to figure it out, 1976 was the Bi-Centennial celebration of the U.S.A. Many communities were making plans to celebrate on the 4th of July, including Minot. But as I would learn later, Minot had a leg up on most other communities because somewhere along the timeline Minot had organized an annual Festival In The Park, and it was based in Roosevelt Park taking advantage of both the Roosevelt Park Swimming Pool and the Roosevelt Park Zoo. I’m not completely sure how it was that the folks at NBC had heard about this community wide celebration, but they focused in on being live from Minot.
The broadcast truck that NBC had rented would come from WCCO in Minneapolis. A majority of the broadcast crew would come from NBC affiliate KFYR-TV in Bismarck. Going live then was a completely different story. No satellites, nope, they used microwave. The link back to NBC alone would be a challenge.
So, let’s tie up the ends here. 1) NBC decided that Minot would be a minor broadcast point, so I wasn’t needed. 2) The guys in the truck? Most of them would eventually be my co-workers as I was offered a job at their sister station, KMOT-TV in Minot. 3) I served on the Festival in The Parks committee in Minot for several years. There were several chairs by names like Hardy Leiberg and Mike Nilson led the committee to keep the event going. However, because of a lack of volunteers, the festival would eventually come to an end. 4) The live broadcast in Minot? The broadcast truck and crew were ready at 6 AM in case they went live in the Today Show…and they were ready all day as NBC ran a special Bi-Centennial celebration telecast. In the middle of the afternoon the call came in. “You guys are next. And for 31 seconds there was live video from Minot, and that was it.
As you can imagine the broadcast crew was pretty disappointed, but they were certainly ready for something more, had NBC made the call. Funny how small of a world it really is, as my career path would take me to Minot, NBC, and the Festival in the Parks. One never knows. What do I know? I will be around for the celebration of 250 great years for the U.S.A. in 2026, I really doubt that I will be here in 2076. That will be up to the next generation to plan and orchestrate.
More Questions Than Answers
As a young journalist my news director sent me to cover a multi-vehicle accident where we knew there were casualties. His advice to me? “There are going to be more questions than answers. Don’t overdo it when you are asking questions that you know may not have answers. As I watched the news conference from Edwards Air Force Base I had that very thought in my mind. As a weekly newspaper the Northern Sentry does not cover a lot of breaking news types of stories. “Our mission is to cover their mission” the owner/publisher Ted Bolton would say.
I just want to add a little perspective in that our staff was quickly transformed to family that Tuesday afternoon. The military family is small, the Air Force family is smaller, and finally the B 52 family is a very small, and very close family. That is the message we received from those we know on base.
There is a myriad of questions about that Tuesday, June 15th event, and the answers will certainly come with time. And when they do, we will approach the story as we would every other story…what is best for Minot Air Force Base, and how can we provide a service to the mission.
Today’s Meaningful Thought
Growth often happens in the quiet, unseen moments rather than during major, public achievements.
