WUEV: A "Short" History of the Station

Until April, 1931, all programs were given in the station's studio. On April 8, 1931, the first program was presented from the College, a telephone line to the city studio having been provided by WGBF. In 1931 WGBF acquired a second station with call letters WEOA, and until 1946 both stations broadcast Evansville College programs, although not simultaneously. For several years a small room on the auditorium balcony adjacent to the stage served as the studio. This location with its drapes, rug, and front curtain was a fairly satisfactory but makeshift studio. During some of these years Dr. Imri M. Blackburn was in charge of programs.

Beginning in 1938 and continuing for two years, the College was host each week to a high school in the area, whose students prepared programs to be broadcast from the College studio. Radio was still new enough that high school students were delighted to give programs, knowing certainly that at least their home town residents would be listening. The visiting students were guests of the College at dinner following the show. Another program broadcast at about this time was the "Battle of the Classes," patterned after a popular quiz program of the time called the "Battle of the Sexes." In a series of six programs the freshmen won first place with a score of 68 per cent. Professor James E. Morlock was the judge of the correctness of the answers. Professor Gaylord Browne and Ralph Olmsted were the M.C.'s. Without the finesse and professional skill used later in television, it was a kind of a forerunner on radio of the College Bowl series, which ran through most of the 1960's on national television.

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