Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutBill Hicks Discusses Meeting Cotton Watkins Transcription, WTAW First 100 Years Project HOLD WTAW Interview Tom Turbiville | WTAW Radio Host Bill Hicks | Former WTAW Radio Owner 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 signed where WTAW's Tom Turbi-? 00:00:07 Speaker 3 -WTAW election night coverage. All 8 voting centers in Brazos County have been counted - [Unintelligible sports broadcaster and crowd of screaming fans] 00:00:14 Speaker 4 Today on WTAW, we're joining with businesses from across the Brazos Valley, to support our- 00:00:20 Speaker 5 16.20 WTAW. 00:00:22 Tom Turbiville (TT) I'm Tom Turbiville. Listen to WTAW owner Bill Hicks tell the story of when his dad, John Hicks, hired Bill Watkins, who would later manage and own the station. 00:00:35 Bill Hicks (BH) This guy that they found in West Texas, and my dad knew-knew and knew about. And so, we hired him with that in mind. And his name was Cotton Watkins. Cotton Watkins worked at KTBC. So, he came in on a weekend and… to interview. And I remember [laughs] they put him up at the Driftwood Motel in Port Arthur, Texas. And my dad had told him, y’know y-you're going to get in Friday night, we'll meet with you at the house on Saturday, and we'll talk there, and then I'll take you to the station and show you around. Because it had to be done on a weekend, because he worked during the week. The next day I can remember, you know, family dinner or whatever, this uh, this guy, Cotton Watkins, comes into the house, and they start talking, and he says, how's the Driftwood Motel? He said, fine. He goes, did you have the fried shrimp special that's really great? He said, yeah, I di, I-I I did that. He goes, I've never had fried shrimp before. He goes, I really, he goes, was it good? He goes, yeah, it was, it was pretty good. He goes, although I found those tails to be really crunchy. So, Bill Watkins was Cotton Watkins and my first exposure to him as a kid in 1960, I was probably six or seven years old listening to these men talk about fried shrimp. 00:01:49 TT Well, Bill Watkins went on to have a long history with WTAW and with fried shrimp. This is [laughs] WTAW, the first 100 years.