Believe me when I say that Gordon McLendon’s “KLIF-AM, 1190 on your radio dial,” was “the station” to which all my friends listened, except a few “holdouts” for KBOX-AM, 1480, which later became a “country station,” when most of us country kids in Forney listened to “pop radio.” O. K., this opening is my opinion and subject to rebuttal!
Jack Woods was a disc jockey, using the pseudonym of “Charlie Brown,” and Ron Chapman was his partner, using the pseudonym of “Irving Harrigan” and drinking Dr. Pepper!
Supposedly, the two of them, when the “President Kennedy 50-mile hike” had made headlines, made an announcement that they and the station were going to sponsor a 50-mile hike and that “everyone” should show up with hiking gear and water/rations and prepare to walk from the Sheraton Hotel to the “Life” building (on the same block). Thousands showed up; filming was being done; the signal was given to start walking, and the giant group did so! They walked around the corner, and then Brown and Harrigan stopped and said, “O. K. That’s it! Thanks a lot for going with us!” The crowd was really “teed off,” and THEY LOVED IT! This type thing was what the duo did each day on air, constantly “putting on” the audience, who loved it!
According to what I can find, RON CHAPMAN (youngest of 3 children) was born in 1936 in Newton Massachusetts, as Ralph Chapman, and said that “he was a poor kid, who grew up behind his father’s grocery store (supposedly without an automobile, telephone, or real bathtub) in Haverhill, Massachusetts.” Ron (what he later called himself) and the other kids grew up, pretending their living room was a stage and that customers were audiences. He often said that he “LOVED APPLAUSE.” He never went to college, but vowed to “show them” by out-working and out “street-smarting” everyone else, which most of his acquaintances swore that he did!
In 1953, right out of high school, he worked as a disc jockey for WHAV Radio Station and then served in the armed forces in South Korea, producing a radio show for the “Voice of the United Nations Command” until 1959, when he moved to Dallas and spent the next decade as Irving Harrigan for KLIF Radio, “The Mighty 1190,” and featuring the Beach Boys, Herman’s Hermits, Beatles, Stones, Dave Clark Five, Four Seasons, and so many other groups that “ruled the music scene!”
As the AM Radio scene began to dwindle around the end of the ‘60s and beginnings of the ‘70s, Chapman returned to his real name and “ruled the airwaves” at KVIL-FM, staying there for more than 30 years and changing it from a standard adult airway to a contemporary success. His ratings were always especially high, and his humor/stunts drew more and more listeners when the word spread as he broadcast out of a “skydiving” airplane and from a “haunted house.”
When Ron hired his “buddy,” Jody Dean, at KVIL, the station continued to increase, and Dean later followed Chapman’s footsteps at Radio Station KLUV-FM, an “oldies” station at that time, and continued to associate with him for several years, again with joy after joy and success after success! Dean more than once commented that “Ron Chapman was one of those guys who made this a better place to live!”
Actress, Morgan Fairchild, remarked that “Ron was a legend in Dallas, and I would go over to the set of Sump’n Else (which he hosted) and dance and dance.” “Ron was always warm and sweet and welcoming to the ‘kids’ and loved teenagers and the music scene!” He did not spend his whole personal or work life “doing just radio shows,” though, and “tried his hand” at many ventures. No one quite knew what he might do next!
However, more than one source noted that Mr. Chap man was sort of a “dual character, who could be a Luke Skywalker sometimes and sometimes a Darth Vader.” And Dean seemed to agree, at least to a certain extent, when he said Ron was a champion but could also be a “strict taskmaster!” Maybe a measure of “strictness” (for himself and others) was the key to his successes!
Let me close with what I think was a “neat” final to Chapman’s show when Sump’n Else broadcast its final performance. Chapman’s final song on the set was by the Byrds—“To Everything There Is A Season” (Turn! Turn! Turn!).
This 3-time radio “Hall of Famer” and local icon passed on to the next life on Monday, April 26, of natural causes. I hope his “stone” has “KLIF” and “KVIL” and “KLUV” near his name in bold letters, followed by “Irving Harrigan.”
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