Ray,
I knew it, I knew it! The second I heard former Arizona Governor Dan E. Garvey on the recording, and it had to be an acetate disk, I remembered it was he whom I attempted to imitate after I wrote the stunningly corny script for a series of commercials for Rubitom's Records, in which I played the role of Senator Cyrus P. Claghorn from the Southland.
I also used a falsetto voice to perform the role of southern belle Melanie Claghorn, the Senator's daughter - in a voice akin to that of Blanche DuBois, played by Vivien Leigh in the motion picture version of "A Streetcar Named Desire." Of course, the "spots" were absolutely sophomoric, but Tom Jones, the owner of the record store on Speedway, loved them.
Tom could mimic one line of the Mexican Bandit's best remembered speech in "The Treasure of Sierra Madre" (I don't need no stinking badge), but he could not do Brando's famous scream "Stella..... STELLLAH! while playing Stanley Kowalski in "Streetcar" - so for this or some other reason vague in my memory, I had to cut him from the cast of the Claghorn series of spots. (Pop Quiz: Why did they call it Rubitoms? The winner receives my personal CD of excerpts from the Jerry Stowe Show on KTKT from 1961). I will mail the CD to Mr. Lindstrom for whomever sends the Webmaster the earliest eMail with the correct answer. Even if it comes from Tom Jones himself.
Now the reason I chose the voice of Dan E. Garvy for Claghorn was because boss Garvey (I have to comment upon the name of a lifelong, professional office holder - isn't it just perfect?) was still around in some capacity or another when I managed KTKT.
I do remember he never turned down an opportunity to speak. He was a nice, neat man. Knew everyone's name and where they came from. One should never have offered to bet Dan he could not name your spouse and all of your offspring. Ready to help dedicate anything. However, he did not look like he sounded. Sort of like Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky on Oxycodone. Well, listen to the recording on the KTKT99.com website. Matter of fact, I guess I don't sound like I look (Colonel Sanders?). The only broadcast personality who has always sounded like you imagine he looks is Jack Jacobson - A really nice, warm person, whom you wish was a close relative.
Arizona's eighth governor was born in Vicksburg, Mississippi in 1886 and must have come to Arizona before he was 40, since he had to gather some political capital before being elected to the Tucson City Council. My birthplace in Illinois was closer to Vicksburg MS. than Chicago, IL and I can still recognize a Mississippian anywhere if they speak. For one reason: they cannot pronounce Mississippi. A true son or daughter of the Magnolia State calls it Missippi. Even Elvis did.
On the recording available on the KTKT99 website, Garvey said he came to Arizona in nineteen hundred and nine (Or more like nahnteen hunderd un nahn) and died in 1971. Nineteen hunderd and seventy one. We oldsters always add "and" in the middle of dates. This is twenty thousand and ten.
He was on the Tucson City Council by 1930 and Pima County Treasurer in 1935. Then Tucson Treasurer. Shortly after that, he got a job as assistant to the Secretary of State Harry Moore. When Moore suddenly died in 1942, Governor Sidney P. Osborn appointed Garvey Secretary of State. Then, when Osborn died suddenly in 1948, Garvey became Arizona's 8th Governor. Yes, I know.... but for some reason, people never worried then about a series of coincidences, such as the succession described.
Ol' Sid Osborn was rumored to have been mummified and carted off to the Arizona State Museum after inadvertently naming his successor. I seem to remember that his hallowed remains were reportedly later found in a locked closet there by some telephone line repairmen.
Osborn himself was no slouch at politikin, either. He had held one office after another in the Territory even before Arizona became a State. I recall reading that Osborn was rebuffed by the voters three times before becoming our governor. Yet, his longevity pales in comparison to Garvey's.
It is a paradox that Osborn was immortalized by the City of Phoenix when an early main thoroughfare in the Capitol was named after him. Though one may exist, I've yet to find Garvey Avenue, Street, Place or Way anywhere in our State. His remains however, rest in an exclusive section of Evergreen Cemetery on North Oracle.
Daniel E. Garvey was to politics in Arizona like Babe Ruth was to baseball. Like Ali is to boxing, Brett Favre to football or Rickey Rooney to marriages. After losing in a gubernatorial primary to a woman you've never heard of, Anna Frohmiller, Garvey was appointed Administrator for Arizona for the Federal Reconstruction Corporation and then later State Examiner, where he warmed a seat until 1969. You can check all of this out in Wickipedia - or will able to, soon as this hits the Web. I think I may have illustrated the vulnerability of this unreliable source of information - available for anyone to edit and re-edit.
Anyway, thanks for reminding us Mr. Webmaster, of Dan E Garvey by way of the Opening Day documentation on KTKT. The moral to this story has been recounted many times before: "Be nice to them while you're going up, so they'll be nice to you on your way down.” Even his former political opponents were nice to Garvey.
I could also do a much shorter and even more dramatic piece on Gail Hummel, shown in the photographs, who was the original Manager of KTKT and who like me, thought for a time that he was a co-owner of it and was even more bitter than I was, when he discovered, like I did, that this was not to be. Gail was the owner of the Coca Cola franchise when I came to town in 1960. We probably met or talked on the phone over a thousand times, and only once did he allude to his disappointment.
-Phil Richardson
To see and hear the sights and sounds of KTKT's opening night, click here.
Letter from Phil Richardson, KTKT General Manager for almost all of the 1960's.
Phil read the details of the opening of the station in 1949, saw the photos, and heard the audio tape. It is featured elsewhere on this site.
He wrote this letter to me (webmaster Ray Lindstrom) and makes comments about it and other connections he recollects. Phil is long retired and lives in the same home he lived in while he was GM in the 60's, in Oro Valley. .
