’Twas the 1963 Saturday night Miss America contest on live TV.
We were viewing three miles outside Abilene, our West Texas home, when my three daughters wanted to disown me. Not only did the 13-year-old huff away from the television set, she also led her two younger sisters, ages 12 and 11, in a scornful walkout.
My failing was showing our jackrabbit symbol on the television station I managed. Or, specifically, NOT showing the beauty queen contest.
My KPAR-TV station contracted for the Lubbock CBS affiliate to deliver a microwave feed of the CBS live Miss America telecast. And the Lubbock station wasn’t delivering.
(You need to know Lubbock locates on Texas High Plains. And that Sweetwater and Abilene locate downhill, on the highway between Fort Worth and El Paso. Helps to understand relay stations were needed to repeat the CBS network signal for over a hundred miles .)
On. Then Off went our CBS microwave signal.
I’m talking long distance pleading with engineers in Lubbock to restore their intermittent microwave signal. When we lost signal, our engineers inserted a cartoon of the KPAR-TV mascot, a jackrabbit pushing a wheelbarrow loaded with a television set, captioned:
“Signal lost between here and origination.”
I’m distraught, near tears. But from another room I hear my three darlings, and I think their mother, weeping. They had telephoned their in-town friend. Bad news. Pennie Lee Rudd, our Miss Texas entry, was crowned second runner-up to “Miss America.”
That’s when my telephone rang. I answered, and heard:
“Mister Elam. We’ve been watching the KPAR-ticular Miss America contest:
“Did the rabbit win?”
Image by lorilynnoliver from Pixabay
