HomeMy WebLinkAboutBill Watkins on WTAW Name Transcript, WTAW First 100 YearsProject HOLD
WTAW Interview
Bill Watkins | Former WTAW Owner
Tom Turbiville | WTAW Radio Host
Daniel Hayes | Transcriber
Transcript
00:00:01 Dick Bolin (DB)
College Station, Texas, April 24th, 1947-
00:00:04 Speaker 2
Now let's go to the bonfire site where WTAW's Tom Turbiville-
00:00:07 Speaker 3
WTAW election night coverage. All 8 voting centers in Brazos County have been counted-
00:00:14 Speaker 4
Today on WTAW, we're joining with businesses from across the Brazos Valley to support our
1620 WTAW-
00:00:22 Tom Turbiville (TT)
This is WTAW, the first 100 years. I'm Tom Turbiville. Yes, it was October the 7th, 1922.
Listeners first heard the call letters WTAW. It was operated from the campus of the Agricultural
and Mechanical College of Texas. And yes, indeed, it was then A&M student W.A. Tolson who
pushed the student body to vote for those call letters.
00:00:49 Bill Watkins (BW)
Doc Tolson just said that the student body voted on uh, uh-watch the Aggies win. That's what
they wanted the call letters to be.
00:00:57 TT
That was the recollection of Bill Cotton Watkins, a former salesman, general manager, and
owner of WTAW. So, the students obviously thought that was, as they say, good bull. It was the
year before, in 1921, you may have heard that the very first play-by-play of a college football
game was broadcast from Kyle Field's press box via the campus wireless station. Call letters,
5XB. Aggies versus Longhorns. Fast forward a couple of decades to the World War II era, and
WTAW was still on campus. They had moved from the Electrical Engineering Building to the
YMCA Building. And for student Dick Bolin, being on the radio was good bull.
00:01:41 DB
Well, I remember it as uh something that, for me, relieved the uh, the strong, hard military life of
the time on the campus. It was a way I got a break to uh do something different, completely out
of this world.
00:01:55 TT
This is WTAW, the first 100 years.