News Giant

Jack Shelley
(Wartburg College image)

My first job out of college was in Osceola, Iowa where I was News/Farm/Sports Director for KJJC-FM radio.  One responsibility was producing a half-hour public affairs program each Sunday.

Jack Shelley was a guest on one of those shows, which aired in either 1985 or 86.

It was a cool thing for a young journalist, interviewing a legendary broadcaster.  Someone who had been there and done that long before I was born.

According to a tribute in the Archives of Iowa Broadcasting, Mr. Shelley started as a newspaper reporter before joining the staff of WHO radio and later WHO-TV.  He left the airwaves to become a professor at Iowa State University in 1965.

The biography on the link mentions he was a rare local reporter who covered World War II from the field - literally the fields of battle in both Europe and Pacific theaters.

During out interview, he told me about reporting on the development of nuclear weapons and covering an early atomic tests,  He and other reporters were in a bunker at a distance considered safe.

He was a gracious interview, friendly, and willing to share stories.  I'm sure I was just one more young reporter asking questions he had answered hundreds of times before, but I never got that impression from him.

Shelley lived a very full life.  He died in 2010 after 98 years of legendary living.

Writing about radio reminds me... starting tomorrow the On The Air blog serial returns with an introduction going live at 9 am and then two chapters a day beginning September 14 publishing at 9 am and 3 pm.