Happy Anniversary, WAGM
BUG GUTS & BEAUTY
By Orpheus Allison
When one is a kid something that is 60 years old is old. 1956 was a long time ago. Then all county schools let out for the potato harvest. Farmers had hundreds of barrels and trucks. People learned to roll barrels so that potatoes could be moved from one location to another.
A harvester was a guy or gal in boots with brown cotton gloves and a basket who dug the spuds out of the ground. There were some early mechanical harvest aids that rattled and smoked their way across the horizon.
Sixty years ago there was no Maine Lottery or Powerball. Eleven years had passed since the end of World War II. Loring Air Base was just beginning. Not bad for a quiet place in The County. The 1950s were an exciting time. Technology was beginning to impact every aspect of society. The nation was experimenting with rockets, space was a new frontier and the heavens were only beginning to be populated with space junk.
Radio had entered its Golden Age to the sounds of “Gunsmoke” and the “Lone Ranger”. Radio nuts were intrigued by this new field, television! The radio teams at the airbases in Aroostook County lived, talked, ate, slept, and were fascinated with television. Cobbling together tubes, wires, and power supplies, the radio lovers built a television station. Television came to the place where “Aroostook Grows More.” The Federal Communications Commission assigned the call sign WAGM and since 1956 Aroostook County has had television.
This, the 60th year, WAGM has been broadcasting, viewers have been treated to clips of former personages important to making WAGM what it is today. It is where I began my journalism career. In college, excited by potentials yet unrealized, the offer of an internship was made, accepted, and a future chosen. What kid would not be thrilled to have access to a million dollars’ worth of toys and get paid for the privilege?
Lots of personages entered the scene, made statements, and left their mark on the station and those who worked there. Some have shared their memories in clips playing now on the airwaves of the station. Nice to see old colleagues and remember the antics of a workplace looking to the future. In that newsroom the basics of news were taught, grammar honed, and storytelling developed.
As one of the photographers at the station it was part of the job to get sports stories. Long drives to the St. John Valley schools for shots of basketballs being sunk and hockey played underwater come to mind. Maine winters are cold and dark. Thanks to Rene Cloukey’s determination to showcase every high school in The County during the winter sports season, miles were marked on the station vehicles. Rene, Mr. Aroostook Sports, Cloukey was, and remains, champion of all things sports.
It was a pleasure to work with these people over five years. So Happy Anniversary WAGM. May there be 60 more years of local coverage.
Orpheus Allison is a photojournalist living in The County who graduated from UMPI and earned a master of liberal arts degree from the University of North Carolina. He began his journalism career at WAGM television later working in many different areas of the US. After 20 years of television he changed careers and taught in China and Korea.
