To tell the Marvin Vines story is a challenge. When listeners talk about KAAY, seldom is mentioned the farm service director. When employees of KAAY talk, he is almost always mentioned. Marvin ran his own show, brought in lots of money, and was interested and made friends of all the rock and rollers. According to the publicity sheet, (everyone had one) Marvin started with KTHS (predecessor to KAAY) in 1953. He was one of the few people and the only on the air person to make the change to KAAY.
Marvin's talent was not so much on the air, as it was driving 64,000 miles a year and speaking everywhere he could. My memory of Marvin was his terrible coffee. He arrived at the station early (like 4AM) to prepare his show. The all night jock was not interested in making coffee so the first pot of the day was made by Marvin and it was terrible. I arrived at 6 AM as Marvin was doing the farm reports. By then it was old and terrible. But Marvin was always in a good mood and even had his own contest and promotions for the farm shows.
David emailed me this memory of Marvin:
My favorite memory of Marvin was one day in the summer
of 1971, when he went to Pat Walsh proposing that no
farm-related advertising be sold on the station within
15 minutes either side of the noon farm show. This
produced a famous Walsh Tirade, which could be heard
from one end of the building to the other. It went
something like this:
"Hell, Marvin, that's THIRTY MINUTES! Thirty f******
MINUTES! Do you have any g****** IDEA how many
commercials I can sell in thirty minutes?"
I do not know the outcome of this little meeting in
the hallway. Fearing that things might get ugly, I
escaped out the back door!
Regardless of this exchange, Marvin was one of Pat's favorites. In one of Pat's last comments to me recalled Marvin's funeral:
Marvin Vines, Farm Director died in the late 70's his funeral was huge. Attended by 2 sitting U S Senators, 1 sitting Congressman, a sitting Governor and 1 past Governor as well as the Secretary of Agriculture.
Also, according to David:
I am pretty sure that Marvin was doing the farm
reports at KAAY as late as November of 1977. It was
May of 1978 when he was killed in a tractor accident.
The accident was on Marvin's farm and his tractor turned over on him.
1 comment:
Marvin Vines was my grandfather. Thanks for the post as well as the sound check from 1971 where his voice is heard briefly at the beginning. I had not heard his voice in almost 30 years. I appreciate your work on this blog and in keeping the memory of the great KAAY alive.
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