DO YOU REMEMBER WHEN...?

All the girls had ugly gym uniforms?	It took five minutes for the TV to warm up?
Nearly everyone's Mom was at home when the kids got home from school?	Nobody owned a purebred dog?
When a quarter was a decent allowance?	You'd reach into a muddy gutter for a penny?
Your Mom wore nylons that came in two pieces?	All your male teachers wore neckties and female teachers had their hair done every day and wore high heels?
You got your windshield cleaned, oil checked, and gas pumped, without asking, all for free, every time?  And you didn't pay for air? And, you got trading stamps to boot?  .25 cent a gallon gasoline?	Laundry detergent had free glasses, dishes or towels hidden inside the box?
It was considered a great privilege to be taken out to dinner at a real restaurant with your parents?	They threatened to keep kids back a grade if they failed. . . and they did?
When a 57 Chevy was everyone's dream car ... to cruise, peel out, lay rubber or watch submarine races, and people went steady?	No one ever asked where the car keys were because they were always in the car, in the ignition, and the doors were never locked?
Lying on your back in the grass with your friends and saying things like, "That cloud looks like a ...."	Playing baseball with no adults to help kids with the rules of the game?
Stuff from the store came without safety caps and hermetic seals because no one had yet tried to poison a perfect stranger?	And with all our progress, don't you just wish, just once, you could slip back in time and savor the slower pace, and share it with the children of today?
When being sent to the principal's office was nothing compared to the fate that awaited the student at home?	Basically we were in fear for our lives, but it wasn't because of drive-by shootings, drugs, gangs, etc. Our parents and grandparents were a much bigger threat!  But we survived because their love was greater than the threat?
Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys, Laurel and Hardy, Howdy Dowdy and the Peanut Gallery, the Lone Ranger, The Shadow Knows, Nellie Bell, Roy and Dale, Trigger and Buttermilk?	Summers filled with bike rides, baseball games, bowling and visits to the pool, eating Kool-Aid powder with sugar and Hula Hoops.?
Candy cigarettes?	Wax Coke-shaped bottles with colored sugar water inside?
Soda pop machines that dispensed glass bottles?	Coffee shops with tableside jukeboxes?
Blackjack, Clove and Teaberry chewing gum?	Home milk delivery in glass bottles with cardboard stoppers?
Newsreels before the featured movie?	P.F. Fliers?
Telephone numbers with a word prefix ... (Raymond 4-601)?  Party lines?	Peashooters?
Howdy Dowdy?	Hi-Fi 45 RPM records?
78 RPM records?	Green Stamps?
Metal ice cubes trays with levers?	Roller-skate keys?
Cork pop guns?	Studebakers?
Washtub wringers?	The Fuller Brush Man?
Reel-To-Reel tape recorders?	Tinkertoys?
Erector Sets?	The Fort Apache Play Set Lincoln Logs?
15 cent McDonald hamburgers?	Penny candy - Jiffy Pop popcorn?
"Race issue" meant arguing about who ran the fastest?	Catching the fireflies could happily occupy an entire evening?
The worst thing you could catch from the opposite sex was "cooties"?	Having a weapon in school meant being caught with a slingshot?
Saturday morning cartoons weren't 30-minute commercials for action figures?	War was a card game?
Taking drugs meant orange- flavored chewable aspirin?	Water balloons were the "weapons of mass destruction?"
Drive in movies - "the passion pit?"	5 cent Baseball Cards with that awful slab of pink bubble gum?
Mimeograph paper on a mimeograph machine?	Beanie and Cecil?
Fountain sodas from the Drug Store?	Butch Wax?
The next generation Butch Wax? A little dap'll do 'ya.	Bazooka Bubble Gum?
The Rod Benders?  Forerunners to the Squires Car Club.	Wolfman Jack?  KOMA Radio?
Poodle skirts and scarves?	The flattop?
Flash Gordon serial at the Saturday matinees?	The Korean War?
Suicide (spinner) knob?	Being sent to the drugstore to test the vacuum tubes for the family TV?
Reading comic books like Archie?	Baseball cards in the spokes transformed any bike into a motorcycle?  And the bikes weighed about 50 pounds?

AHHHH YES!!!  That was OUR youth.

KOMA Oklahoma City Radio

During the 1950's, television was forcing radio into a period of change. The old radio shows were quickly fading into the past. Something called "Top 40" with "Rock 'N Roll" music was the latest trend in radio. Changing with the times was KOMA. On May 1,1958, KOMA ended its long affiliation with CBS. The station affiliated for a brief period with NBC, but station management decided KOMA would be more effective as an independent. KOMA began the first mobile news coverage by a radio station in Oklahoma City in 1958, and also became a true "Rock" radio station during this time when it was purchased by the Storz Broadcasting Company. It is interesting to note some important points about Storz Broadcasting, the "top 40" concept of radio, and the format system employed by most successful radio stations was developed by Todd Storz and Gordon McClendon who owned stations all over America including KLIF in Dallas and KILT in Houston.. Todd Storz became the President of Storz Broadcasting Company until his death in 1964. His innovative spirit and feeling for the public was carried on by corporation president, Robert B. Storz. The Storz chain of stations consisted of KOMA, Oklahoma City, WHB, Kansas City, WTIX, New Orleans, WDGY, Minneapolis, KXOK, St. Louis, and WQAM, Miami. All of these radio facilities served their communities with the finest in contemporary broadcasting.

In 1961, the KOMA studios and transmitter were permanently combined at one site on the south side of Oklahoma City. KOMA then became a pioneer totally automated station for a period of three years. In 1964, it was determined that KOMA could better serve the public by returning to "live" programming. Automation proved to be too sterile and impersonal, so "personality" was returned to KOMA.

Throughout the 60’s and 70’s, KOMA was the favorite of teens all across the western US. With the big 50,000-watt signal and the relatively few rock-n-roll radio stations across the plains, KOMA was the main station for the hits. KOMA (along with handful of other legendary stations including 890 WLS, Chicago; 1090 KAAY, Little Rock; 1060 WNOE, New Orleans; 770 WABC, New York; 800 CKLW, Windsor/Detroit; and 1100 WKYC, Cleveland) could be heard on car radios, in homes, and everywhere a kid could tune in. Often teens in New Mexico, Arizona, Wyoming, Kansas, Colorado, Nebraska, and other western states would eagerly await sunset when the mighty 1520 would come booming through with the newest hits of the day. They would sit in their cars on hilltops, turn it up at parties, or fall asleep with the radio next to their beds as they listened to Chuck Berry, the Supremes, Paul Revere and the Raiders, and the Beatles. Soldiers in Viet Nam even reported tuning in KOMA to give them a little feeling of being back home.

Led through the 60’s by Program Directors Dean Johnson, Dale Wehba, and Perry Murphy, some of the best-remembered DJ’s spun the hits each day and night. Charlie Tuna, Dale Wehba, Don McGregor, Paul Miller, John David, Chuck Dann, J. Michael Wilson, Johnny Dark, Buddy Scott, John Ravencroft, and many others were among those who played the hits from the studios in Moore, Oklahoma. And everyone remembers “Yours Truly KOMA” and the “kissing tone.” This was definitely an era where radio was fun. It was more than just the music. It was a magical blend of personality, jingles, contests, and fun mixed with the greatest music that defined the era and continues to live today.