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WRHI RADIO:
Broadcast Pioneer Continues
to Serve Rock Hill
By
Haney
Howell of
Winthrop University
December 1944 was a time to dust off
dreams. Allied forces were pushing at the Germans from both sides, the Normandy invasion a
success. The Japanese were retreating toward the home islands in the Pacific, setting the
stage for their final push. people could again afford to pursue their dreams, to think of
a life without war.
In the Carolinas, another delayed dream
came true. WRHI Radio in Rock Hill, South Carolina, broadcast for the first time, becoming
the ninth station in the state and one of the first 600 in the nation.
Few stations signed on in the United
States during the war, first because of a freeze on building permits then restrictions on
equipment purchases.
WRHI made it on the air despite
overwhelming odds, wartime restriction and one of the dreamers death at Normandy. The 250
watt signal on 1340 was as much a bureaucratic miracle as a technological one. The story
of WRHI is also the story of one strong-willed individual with a dream of community
service. While the forces of war delayed plans for radio in Rock Hill, the efforts of this
man brought it to reality. James S. "Jim" Beaty, Jr. was a young broadcast
engineer who believed in community broadcasting. He felt that
Rock Hill needed more that a newspaper
and regional broadcast stations. He was a sick child, almost dying of pneumomena in the
second grade. He quickly ruled out physical activities and searched for areas he could
conquer with his mind. He witnessed the phenomenal growth of radio during the 30's,
listening to stations across the nation late into night. "I was interested in radio
since the time I was old enough to recognize a radio crystal set."
He started in radio as an amateur,
building receivers and transmitters from scratch. An aunt promised him a kit radio while
in high school if he made As. Not only did he receive the kit, he located a man who was an
expert builder to teach him. Friends were amazed at his skills with building electrical
circuits and other detailed work. Beaty overcame the slight shaking of Parkinson’s
Disease and became a master builder. However, he avoided work with high voltage and high
gage wires, fearful that he’d have an accident.
Beaty grew up in Greenville, South
Carolina, while part of the family remained in Rock Hill. He attended Clemson University
for one year in the mid 1930's before his Parkinson Disease and the Depression forced him
to drop out. He loved electronics courses and asked more questions of his professors than
most. His health would play a major role in the history of the station, forcing him to
stay behind during World War II.
He soon turned his skills to broadcast
engineering, building and maintaining equipment for stations. His first job was at WMRG in
Greenville, and he vividly remembered that job interview 50 years later." I walked
into that station a combination of transmitter and studio building and there was this
fellow leaning on the carpet putting a mike receptacle in, and I asked him , how about a
job? and he said, "What field? Announcing or engineering.?" I said engineering.
and he said, "Hand me that pair of pliers over there and get on the other end of this
wire..."
Beaty learned the basics of putting a
station on the air. When the Greenville station changed management, he followed the man
who originally hired him to Burlington, North Carolina. That is where he spent most of the
war, and pulled together his hometown radio station. As he gained experience, he planed
for a station of his own. He gained another supporter when he married Anne in the late
30s.
Rock Hill was covered by WBT and other
regional stations. What Beaty sought was a voice for his own community, a station that
represented the people of Rock Hill and of South Carolina. While only 25 miles separated
Rock Hill from Charlotte, North Carolina, those miles and a state line created a
major gulf.
In the early 1940s, Beaty convinced his older brother William that a
radio station was both needed and wanted in this textile mill and farming community south
of Charlotte. No county in the upper tier of South Carolina had a station and the Beatys
did not feel that the local newspaper fulfilled the need for more instant news and live
local entertainment.
The brothers approached Ernest Carroll, a local soft drink distributor
and a founding member of Rock Hill National Bank. His son, Ernest Carroll, Jr., had an
intense interest in theater and performing. The elder Carroll thought the radio station
would give his son a challenge, and he also agreed with the Beaty's for the need for a
station in Rock Hill. Carroll put up $10,000 in seed money, and offered them space in the
new Rock hill National Bank building downtown. Jim Beaty's dream was now moving forward,
and as with other challenges in his life, he wasn't about to give it up.
By late 1941, plans were well underway and an application was filed with
the FCC. There were others seeking to put a station in Rock Hill. It was the largest of a
number of small to mid-sized towns which dotted the Carolina Piedmont. A large part of the
economy was based on textiles and cotton. It was a town dominated by a handful of powerful
people, and Ernest Carroll was one. Jim and Bill Beaty's Father, Dr. J.S. Beaty was a
local Physician who rapidly established himself in the community. Their reputation and
Carroll's financial backing greatly influenced the Federal Communications Commission. Jim
Beaty memorized the rules and regulations, closely monitoring the application each step of
the process. it seemed only a matter of time. Then came the Japanese attack on Pearl
Harbor. The application was frozen and the lives of the dreamers changed. Bill Beaty
became an Army officer, serving in the pacific. Ernest Carroll, Sr. became a Marine
officer, and his son later entered the Army. Only Jim Beaty with his physical deferment,
was left to tend the dream.
Jim Beaty correctly guessed that a license might be granted long before
the freeze was lifted on equipment. Commercial and even amateur production was taken over
for military and war related communications. Amateurs were off the air, and many basic
parts were in short supply. It was "somewhat like the used car business. There’s
plenty of used equipment, and I started making friends with different stations and with
the chief engineers and finding the surplus equipment."
Beaty started collecting spares from various stations, putting together
the needed pieces for a transmitter. He purchased metal trunks from the YMCA to use as
cabinets. A used tower found in Roanoke, Virginia, wound up stored in sections in his
mother’s back yard. Earnest Carroll Sr. kept up his interest from afar, providing Jim
Beaty with a large room in his home to store the needed equipment. Ernest Carroll has no
doubts about how the station got on the air. "The reason we were able to get on the
air was that Jim shopped around everywhere he could find pieces and parts and he got
lockers from the YMCA, old lockers, and he built the equipment into those
lockers...That’s the way we got on the air. There were several groups...at least two
that I know of...who were planning on attempting to put a radio station in Rock Hill, and
planned and talked about it for several years, but they couldn't...they didn’t have
Jim Beaty...they would have to buy new equipment, so they were stalled while we went
ahead...and Jim got it on the air."
Bill Beaty remembered the first time well. "Jim ...a first class
engineer...who knew everything about building and maintaining equipment, started
assembling parts for a radio station wherever he could find them. All the stations have
certain parts, duplicates so to speak, and he was able to find a lot of pieces of
equipment which he was able to buy. He built the first transmitter from scratch. It was
not a commercially built transmitter."
Others watched the process with amazement. "Jim
Beaty, who was
great at this sort of thing, put the thing together with haywire and whatever he could
find, and got it on the air..."
By mid - 1943, some of the restrictions on licenses were lifted by the
FCC. Jim Beaty, pushed the paperwork and continued gathering needed equipment and parts.
His application won out over the others, and on August 2, 1944, Beaty received a
construction permit. It specified direct crystal control on 1340 kilocycles, 250 watts
output with two RCA 805s in the modulator for high level modulation. The antenna would be
177 feet tall with 120 copper wire radials buried in the ground. "That was when the
FCC ruled that anyone who had the equipment or could get it and could show cause for the
need for a station ... Rock Hill didn't have a
radio station and there wasn't one in the Fifth
Congressional District."
The FCC regulations on the types and quality of equipment used at
broadcast stations was and continues to be strict. Not only did Jim Beaty construct the
first transmitter from spare parts, it passed muster with the field inspector as well. The
original control room console was constructed in a steel YMCA trunk, and early announcer
Buddy Fields remembers having to give the board "a
kick from time to time" to free up the relays.
Jim Beaty located and purchased a lot for the tower and transmitter, and
Ernest Carroll sent a couple of hands from his family farm to Rock Hill with a mule to
plow the ground and lay the radials for the tower.
The source of the wire for the tower radials is still a mystery. Copper
was in very short supply, and it=s thought that
the ground radials Beaty was forced to use have a high steel content (they are still in
use). Whatever the source and composition, the wire arrived by train and was taken to the
transmitter site in a mule-drawn wagon.
Choosing the call was left up to Jim
Beaty. He later told Carroll that
he wanted Rock Hill reflected in the letters, and said that the "I" on the
end was simply available at the time. His choice was good. The station still uses the same
call.
While Jim Beaty moved toward the fulfillment of his life goal, fate
stepped in and shook the original group to the core. Ernest Carroll, Jr. died in combat
during the invasion of Europe. His father was serving in the Marines in the Pacific, and
was sent home and eventually discharged following the death of his son. Bill Beaty was in
the Philippines, fighting not only the enemy but tropical diseases which would plague him
for the remainder of his life. He would not join the station until 1946.
Jim Beaty said that the next six months seemed like an eternity.
"It was slow. First we had to get a building ... we
had to get a fellow to modify the building to house the transmitter." Once the station was transmitting, it was time to
build a staff. Jim Beaty brought in Al Drew from Roanoke Rapids, Virginia to help him set
up the station and train the announcing staff.
First hired was Bob Carroll, a local high school student and assistant
manager of the local theater who had singing experience. One of his teachers contacted
Drew, who auditioned Carroll and gave him the job. Carroll's only previous radio experience was singing with the
Winthrop College as a boy soprano on WSOC during the late 1930s.
Jim Beaty was concerned about more than just getting a signal on the
air. Before the official sign on, the station ran numerous test programs from midnight
until 6 a.m. to test the equipment and more. "We
ran full occupationally capacity, we ran 15 minute shows, 30 minute shows, the widest
diversity you could think of, everything from disc jockey shows to religious shows to
interview shows, anything you could think of to give us the background experience before
we went on the air." Carroll felt that Al Drew
was a Key element to the success of the basics of good radio broadcasting.
Despite the death of his son, Ernest Carroll continued to help with the
station. "When I got back and had not been
discharged from the Marine Corps, I would drive up here from Beaufort-Paris Island- and
for several months I kept listening when I'd
come up ... I knew what the frequency was going to be and hoping to heart it on the air.
Actually, it was several months after I got up here (after my discharge) before we signed
on." If his son could not be a part of the
station, at least Ernest Carroll could see his son's
dream come true.
December 14, 1944 was a bitter cold day. The staff arrived by 5 a.m. and
awaited the 5:30 a.m. sign on. Al Drew asked Bob Carroll if he'd like to sign the station on for the first time.
"I was so thrilled. He was so gracious to do that, to
have a young greenhorn come in and sign the station on was just prodigious. When
Al
signaled me, I threw the switch and said, this is WRHI in Rock Hill, South Carolina, 1340
on your radio dial, signing on for the first time."
The staff understood that they were making history, but they also kept
in mind the times. "It was a very poignant sign
on, because at that time there were still troops all over the world, and not only were we
telling the listening population that we were remembering the men that were fighting on
foreign shores all over the world, and wishing the best for them, and that the war would
soon be over and things would come back to normal."
At sign on, Jim Beaty was at the transmitter, and in the control room
that morning was Al Drew, Fred Lowery, and Bob Carroll. As soon as they signed on, they
started their normal schedule.
Ernest Carroll remembered the first day of broadcasting.
AI remember the dedication ceremony quite well. "We had
special programs ... had a good friend of mine from Fort Mill who was an expert pianist,
and he played "Danny Boy" for me. The station was dedicated to the boys who
had lost their lives in the Second World War. That was the theme of it. Of course to me,
that was really important. We got a lot of comment, publicity and a good many people were
kind enough to complement me on my dedication address...which I made over there and
dedicated the station ... The war was fresh then, you know...to those loss of lives. We
had a good many here in Rock Hill who lost their lives in the second world war.
"You know how wars are like
the little boy sliding down the roof and saying, "God,
don't let me say it, don't let me fall..."
People are very much that way, you know...they forget very quickly and for several years
now... they don't believe George Washington
slept here and all that kind of thing, then when the war comes again the military people
are very prominent... right now they are held almost in contempt."
When the station signed on, WRHI was independent, and filling the air
time "ran us ragged". Later the station joined the Mutual Network before switching to CBS and
finally ABC. Most of the programming was live and local, since transportation were
expensive and rare. Most important was the early morning programs, focused on the
listeners in the then predominately agricultural and textile community.
"It was a wonderful proving
ground for a young man starting in radio, because you did get such a wide diversity of
programs. You had to learn to do a little bit of everything."
Over sixty years later, WRHI continues to serve the community. In an age of
AM stations loosing focus and going under, the current ownership took a hard look at Jim
Beaty's original dream and realized that he was
right. WRHI has remained a station that focus on Rock Hill and serves the community. He
understood his home town then and made certain that the staff understood as well.
Bob Carroll spent his career in broadcasting, both radio and television. Yet one of the
things he learned at WRHI stayed with him. Jim Beaty told him, never underestimate your
audience. This is really true, and I think today that too many people do that.
Jim Beaty remained involved with WRHI until it was sold in the mid
1970s. Brother Bill returned from the war and handled the business side of the operation.
Ernest Carroll and his wife Virginia sold their interest in 1947 to Harper
Gault, a local
newspaper writer. Years later, Carroll still regrets selling out, and considers his
involvement with establishing WRHI as one of his significant achievements in a life filled
with success in business.
While WRHI ranks as a pioneer broadcaster, it represents more that just
another radio station. It is the fulfillment of one man's dreams and a
community's needs.
The technology and programming have changed, but the basic thrust of serving the community
has not. What made WRHI a success in 1944 continues to carry the station into its second
half century.
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