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WTAW Radio
WTAW Radio Station Ownership and Prior Bids
Tom Turbiville | WTAW Radio Host
Laura Quezada | Transcriber
00:00:00 Dick Bolin (DB)
College Station, Texas, April 24th, 1947, Dick Bolin talking. Here's the latest news from the
Associated Press…
[Unintelligible news broadcaster speaking]
00:00:07 Speaker 2
Aggies win 74-72! Here's your right…
00:00:12 Speaker 3
…1620 WTAW.
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00:00:19 Tom Turbiville (TT)
This is WTAW, the First 100 Years, I'm Tom Turbiville. July of 1957, quite a significant month in
the history of WTAW. That's when the station transferred from Texas A&M's hands to private
ownership. A month earlier, an article in the Bryan Eagle boasted the headline, “6 bids submitted
for WTAW”. Yep, Texas A&M had owned the station since 1922, but the school's hierarchy
decided to get out of the commercial radio business and sell the station at public auction. The
bids ranged from the winning bid of $35,000 from Hardy C. Harvey and R.E. Lee Glasgow of
Waco, to a lowball bid of $7,010.89 from a fellow named Merton Glant of Bellevue,
Washington; now how Mr. Glant came up with that number, have no idea. And the middle bids
were from Brazos Broadcasting Company of Bryan, $32,100, Southwestern Broadcasting
Company of San Antonio was willing to pay $21,151, and H.W. Womack, Jr. of Texarkana,
$19,244, and W.C. Burks, and W.R. McAtee of Victoria, well, they bid $10,500. Just 4 years
later, in July of 1961, John H. Hicks of Port Arthur purchased the station under the name, Radio
Bryan Incorporated, and today, ownership remains with John's son, William “Bill” Hicks. There's
just a little more history of WTAW, the First 100 Years.