Goodson McKee, 80, was a teen when he started work at radio station WACO-AM 1460 in the Amicable Life Building, now known as the ALICO. He was hired as a radio engineer in 1943 to replace a woman who had joined the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps, he recalled.

But because so many of Waco’s grown men had been called into the service during World War II, he was soon pressed into announcer duties as well as running the electronics board.

McKee said WACO was first licensed as WJAD in 1922, a 15-watt station that broadcast three hours a day from a storefront studio at 906 Franklin Ave.

In September 1923, when the signal was boosted to 150 watts, the WJAD studio moved to the top of the Raleigh Hotel, McKee said. It was popular in those days for radio stations to locate in hotels because the hotels offered free lodging to key employees and the station would promote the hotel on the air.

In the late 1920s, WJAD’s signal was boosted to 1,000 watts, thanks to a transmitter built at what is now North 42nd Street and Hillcrest Drive. The station was sold in 1930 and re-dubbed WACO. By the middle of the decade, a new transmitter tower was erected atop the ALICO, Waco’s tallest structure.

Bill Oliver, 82, worked at the station from 1943 through 1946 and shared some of those early radio adventures with McKee. Oliver said he was trained on the night shift for a few months before starting the full-time shift of six hours a day, seven days a week — for $1 per hour.

“Whatever came up on your shift, you had to do it all,” Oliver said. “Sports, weather, local news and most importantly the commercials. You had to catch the 30-second break between network shows, too.”

During his era, he said, WACO was part of the Mutual Broadcasting System and carried some programming from NBC Blue, a network that eventually became ABC.

Oliver recalled that “Ranch Party,” a 6 a.m. Saturday country-western music show, was his least favorite chore, “because I just don’t do well with hillbilly music.” But he did enjoy the time Ernest Tubb and his Texas Troubadours appeared at the weekly live remote.

He said that for many years, a fixture of the late-night Saturday lineup was a live remote broadcast from Arnold’s Supper Club, 19th Street at Park Lake Drive, with jazz pianist Estella Maxey and “Her Boys,” as her orchestra was known.

“She liked to keep her beer stein on the piano, and the more beer she had, the louder she played,” Oliver said.

Because Arnold’s was also a venue for illegal gambling, he said, she had a musical cue she would play if the law arrived. “And the Band Played On” was the signal to shut down the slot machines in the back, he said.

tjryan@wacotrib.com

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