He spent 30 years as an International Correspondent for NBC News.

     I'm not sure why I was hired at KXLJ.  I think it was that Barclay Craighead and I were fraternity brothers. At a station that small, everyone did about everything but my main jobs were making out the daily radio log showing where and which  commercials were supposed to be inserted into the programming and writing copy for the commercials. I went to work at KXLJ in September of 1958 and left to go to KFBB in May of 1959.

        Sweep The Tower?

    One day I heard Barclay talking to Ed Craney in Butte and reporting a problem that Donnie the chief engineer had told him about. Donnie had said there were harmonics and overtones in the signal being sent out from the transmitter and that the station should hire a company to come and "sweep the tower" to rid the signal of the problems. Unfortunately Barclay had no idea what Donnie was talking about except that it would cost money to hire the sweeping crew. His explanation to Craney was unusual to say the least. He said, "Ed, Donnie tells me we have hormones in the transmitter and we have to hire some outfit out of Salt Lake City to sweep the tower. Now, that's going to cost a hell of a lot and I don't see why our boys can't go up there with brooms or what ever they need and sweep the tower."  As I recall Craney later talked to Donnie about it and the problem got corrected. 

    During the legislative session I was offered a part timer job (meaning I would work about 12 or 13 hours a day) by United Press to help cover the capitol.  Barclay said I had too much work to do and turned Charnock down. I did some work on the sly for United Press and I think Dick paid me out of their expense account budget.

     Every week night during the legislative session Barclay would go on the radio with a 15 minute review of the events or lack thereof at the capitol that day. The show was written by one of the UP reporters for a few extra bucks a week.  One night Barclay called the station and got me. He said he had a bad cold and wouldn't be coming in to voice the 9:00 p.m. legislative report. He suggested I tell the announcer on duty to do it. Turned out the announcer was not only running a DJ program for Helena listeners but also taping NBC's incoming programming and doing the commercials in a basketball game being carried live on the XL network between two of the better high school teams. He said there was no way he could also read the legislative report at the same time. Nine o'clock was rapidly approaching. So I made an executive decision and became the voice of the legislative report. No one called to complain. The next day Barclay (who was not given to handing out compliments indiscriminately) said that I had done an okay job and he was tired of coming in at 9:00 p.m. so I could do the program from that day forward for an extra 20 dollars a month.  That brought my salary up to $335 a month. A week or so later he added the duty of writing the program as well. No extra money for me but he didn't have to pay the UP reporter any longer.

     At some point (early in 1959 I think) KXLJ-TV was taken off the air by Ed Craney because competition from the cable company bringing in programming from Spokane stations had made it virtually impossible to sell time to local or regional advertisers. My job at that point was to write strident op-ed page pieces about the need for regulation of the cable industry to prevent it from forcing small stations out of business. The op-ed pieces were sent to every daily and weekly in the state and some papers actually ran them.

                            MAVERICK TRIVIA

   James Garner was Bret and Jack Kelly played Bart.  Who was the other Brother?

   The other Brother was Brent Maverick.      

Played by Robert Colbert, Brent only appeared in

two episodes.

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  Who was Beauregard Maverick?

   Beauregard was Maverick's Cousin.  Cousin Beau was played by Roger Moore.

      One thing I do remember was that Donnie and I were both big fans of the western program "Maverick" and very unhappy we could not watch it because neither of us made enough money to afford the cable. The problem was solved for us by Donnie who would fire up the dormant microwave signal from Butte to Helena every Sunday night, connect it to one of the TV monitor's in the control room and he and I and a six pack of Great Falls Select would watch the latest exploits of Bret and Bart  Maverick.

When it was over he would shut down the microwave, lock the door to the control room and we would go home. 

Best,

      Don

     Don has returned to Montana and is an Adjunct Professor at The School Of Journalism at the University of Montana in Missoula.