October 16, 2023 • 12 mins
Byron Crawford talks some of his media memories, the many cultures of Kentucky, and his new book, "The Back Page: Byron Crawfrod's Kentucky Living Columns"...
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Weis, gentlemen, we have KentuckyMedia Royalty on the line this afternoon.
(00:05):
One Byron Crawford is joining us livefrom I don't know where, which county.
Man, What a build up,what a build up? Hello,
young man. It is great tobe on the radio with you again.
You and I spent a lot oftime on Milton Metsa's show over the years.
But people, let me remind folks, because you've had a lot of
jobs over the years. Byron,Yes, that's right. Let's see.
(00:27):
You of course did k e T'sEmmy Award winning Kentucky Life series. You
were a Courier journal columnist for almostthirty years. You worked here at WHAS
Radio and Television, Wacky Radio inLouisville, w c KY in Cincinnati,
and you've been telling stories about Kentuckiansfor low these many decades, Low these
(00:50):
many decades. Gosh, when youthink back to when you and I were
together at HAS, that's a longtime ago. I don't know if you
ever stopped to think about that.Yeah, occasionally it dawns on me that
I have aged out a little bithere. But you, Byron, sounds
perfect and I know people are goingto get a chance to visit with you
(01:12):
over the next few days, becauseyou have a book the backpage Byron Crawford's
Kentucky Living Columns, and so thisis it three hundred pages? Did I
just see that? It's something alittle over three hundred pages. Yes,
it's all the stories I've done overthe last it's almost all the stories I've
(01:34):
done over the last twelve years inKentucky Living. Of course, a lot
of people in Louisville don't get KentuckyLiving because unless you're a member a customer
of ruc C Rural Electric, youdon't automatically get that magazine, although we
do have some subscribers, but itcirculates around over all of Kentucky, I
(01:57):
think at least, well almost allcounties in the state. So it's it's
it's the largest print publication in thestate right now, all right on Thursday,
to the back page, to theback page, and that the calm.
I know you have done it forall those years. But on Thursday
this week you're going to be atFraser History Museum. And is this a
(02:21):
sit down? Are you going todo a Q and A and all that
business. Well, that's what Iunderstand. One of your old colleagues there
at h One of your former colleagueat HS, Joe Arnold, who was
at the TV station for I don'tknow how many years he worked at HAS,
(02:44):
but he's now the vice president ofStrategic Communications at the Kentucky Association of
Rural Electric Cooperatives SO of Electric Cooperatives, and so he'll be asking some questions.
And then another one of your colleagues, Rachel Platt, who's now with
(03:05):
the Fraser Museum, will be askingsome questions about things I've done. I
can only imagine what they'll ask.Well, here's the thing about Rachel Platt.
She's gonna squeeze your hand when sheasked the hard questions, So you're
gonna WinCE. I just want youto be ready for that. I got
a few questions for you too,Byron. Go ahead. How different are
people from say, the area ofMurray, Kentucky, to all the way
(03:30):
over in mud Creek in the easternpart of Kentucky. I mean, this
is such a long state. We'relike worlds apart, aren't we, in
sort of our mentality. It's alwaysfascinated me because you know, I've worked
over the entire state, and you'reright you go from Sleugh's and all kinds
(03:53):
of southern landscape down in western farwestern kent at real Foot Lake, cypress
swamps, all the way up toMajestic in Pike County, you know,
and Black Mountain and all that mountainlore. And then you come in between
those, you hit the beautiful bluegrassarea and get on down toward Hopkinsville in
(04:21):
the Pentorile, and it's just youcan almost find any kind of culture you
want if you want to spend alittle time in Kentucky. There's no doubt
about it. How did you,you know, like when you're rolling around
for the Courier Journal for all thosedecades too, how did you gain someone's
(04:41):
trust? I mean a lot oftimes, like when I went to UK,
a lot of people say to me, you're from Louisville, and they
look at me a little skeptical,like like they thought, maybe, you
know, we were like big citytroublemakers or something. I don't know,
But how did you gain someone's trustto get them to tell you their story?
Well, tell you what never hurts. If you're in eastern Kentucky,
(05:01):
if you know someone who's from thatcounty or from that particular area, in
a given county, if you knowsomeone up there, it always gives you
up a step ahead. And ofcourse I went to school for a while
at Murray State in far western Kentucky. I grew up in central Kentucky on
(05:25):
a family farm. So you kindof need to, I think, speak
the language, which of course hasgotten a little diluted over the years,
even since you and I worked together, because the culture has changed. I
was thinking the other day the stuffthat I did on TV when I worked
(05:45):
at WHASTV would probably not fly atall now. But we were in the
era then of the Andy Griffith eraand PM magazine. You remember that show,
and there was a show called That'sIncredible and he Hall was big.
(06:06):
So you know, things have changed. I know that you and I don't
want that to happen, but theyhave. I used to be doing news
right there and well, not whereyour studio is now, but in the
Whas studios. I used to bedoing news at this time of day,
(06:27):
right back in the early to midseventies. Yeah, I heard, I've
heard tapes. You were you onthe day of the tornado? Yes,
yeah, I worked nine hours straightthat day, and my goodness, what
a what an effort that was atyou know, WHAS really came really showed
(06:49):
its worth that day. The signal, the news, the announcers, everybody,
and you know, with that greatsignal that we have at WHAS,
people really needed to hear what wasgoing on. Well that's all they had.
That was the only connection that theyhad. So I was really pleased
(07:14):
with the effort that I was ableto participate in that day. Yeah,
I've heard you guys, I've heardthose tapes before, and then you know,
everybody's trying to scramble and find accurateinformation. But after a tragedy like
that, that's a challenge because everybodyelse in the streets is in pandemonium and
in shock, and you're just tryingto find facts. I know I was.
(07:38):
I happened to be on the airwhen Jane Willis called in. She
was with the newspaper in Mead County. She called in from Brandenburg to let
us know that in fact, yes, there had been maybe somewhere in the
neighborhood of twenty eight to thirty twodeaths in Brandenburg, if my memory served.
(08:01):
Don't hold me to that, butyou know, to hear that when
you're on the air Live with Somebodyis is a jolt, Yeah, I'd
say so, and a lot ofus and a lot of us there that
day. Terry didn't know if ourfamilies were okay because they were in different
parts of the state. Even mymother, my parents outran a torny,
(08:24):
you know, in central Kentucky,and I didn't even know if, if
if my family was was okay.Assumed that they were because we tried to
check, you know, but itwas. It was total chaos, le'd
say so. Speaking of families,you, Byron Crawford, have had a
couple of media members out of youroffspring, and I know you're proud of
(08:50):
that. I mean, you bragon them. Well, you know,
I didn't hear. Honestly, Ididn't encourage my kids to go into media
work. I had three. Wehad three sons and one daughter, and
actually every one of them have beeninvolved in media work at one time or
(09:11):
another in their lives and careers,and all of them were pretty good at
it. But Eric is a sportscommentator on Channel forty one DRB Now and
a fine photographer. On top ofthat, he's a good photographer, and
he is of course a former sportscolumnist for the Courier Journal. And then
(09:39):
my son Joe, who's in SaltLake, was for thirty years almost exclusively
a morning man for stations from allthe way from Pittsburgh to Seattle. And
he's now retired. He's not inradio anymore. He works, well,
he's not retired completely, but he'sretired from he worked for Goldman Sachs in
(10:01):
Salt Lake. So and then ourdaughter Andrea, who lives in Louisville,
has done uh some media work onair work. She didn't choose to go
that direction. And then Wesley,our youngest son, worked at h AS
for a while. He's worked atWave and he was a sound man for
(10:24):
ABC News for five years. UhSo he's all of them have dipped their
feet into the media pool because theylove their daddy. Well, they put
up with me. All right,we're gonna have to work, we're gonna
have to wrap. So I wantedyou to brag on your family a little
bit, but I want people toknow that your book, with these columns
(10:46):
in it, is filled with allkinds of great stories about Kentuckians, so
must have Well, thank you.And I heard I was reading something the
other day and saw Max Miners Ithought he's a little boy. No,
no, it sounded important, butI'll let leave that for you later.
Well, thank you, buddy,you are very welcome. He's an important
(11:07):
figure there at WHASTV loves making funof his dad. All right. Your
book is called The back Page ByronCrawford's Kentucky Living Columns. It's published by
Kentucky Electric Cooperatives. People can seeyou at the Fraser Museum this Thursday,
Thursday night, right, that is, there's a reception at five point thirty,
the event six thirty eight pm,and then the Q and A we
(11:30):
mentioned, and then Saturday you areat Joseph Beth Booksellers in Lexington for the
Kentucky Book Festival ten am to fivepm. And that'll go all day.
Thank you, Terry. It's goodto hear you again. You don't change
man, Hey, Byron, Unfortunately, Byron, we've had a lot of
fun over the years. Is thisgreat to hear your voice again. And
you are too. You've been aleading edge for all of us in media.
(11:52):
We appreciate it. Yay, you'retoo kind. Thank you great talking
to you. Okay. That isByron Crawford. You can see him at
the Fraser Museum and you can getinformation about his book at Kentuckyliving dot com.
Slash the backpage that's the name ofthe Byron Crawford book. You'll be
at Fraser Museum Thursday night. Goto their website if you need info,
(12:13):
and then Joseph Beth Booksellers in Lexingtonten till five this Saturday.
Weis, gentlemen, we have KentuckyMedia Royalty on the line this afternoon.
(00:05):
One Byron Crawford is joining us livefrom I don't know where, which county.
Man, What a build up,what a build up? Hello,
young man. It is great tobe on the radio with you again.
You and I spent a lot oftime on Milton Metsa's show over the years.
But people, let me remind folks, because you've had a lot of
jobs over the years. Byron,Yes, that's right. Let's see.
(00:27):
You of course did k e T'sEmmy Award winning Kentucky Life series. You
were a Courier journal columnist for almostthirty years. You worked here at WHAS
Radio and Television, Wacky Radio inLouisville, w c KY in Cincinnati,
and you've been telling stories about Kentuckiansfor low these many decades, Low these
(00:50):
many decades. Gosh, when youthink back to when you and I were
together at HAS, that's a longtime ago. I don't know if you
ever stopped to think about that.Yeah, occasionally it dawns on me that
I have aged out a little bithere. But you, Byron, sounds
perfect and I know people are goingto get a chance to visit with you
(01:12):
over the next few days, becauseyou have a book the backpage Byron Crawford's
Kentucky Living Columns, and so thisis it three hundred pages? Did I
just see that? It's something alittle over three hundred pages. Yes,
it's all the stories I've done overthe last it's almost all the stories I've
(01:34):
done over the last twelve years inKentucky Living. Of course, a lot
of people in Louisville don't get KentuckyLiving because unless you're a member a customer
of ruc C Rural Electric, youdon't automatically get that magazine, although we
do have some subscribers, but itcirculates around over all of Kentucky, I
(01:57):
think at least, well almost allcounties in the state. So it's it's
it's the largest print publication in thestate right now, all right on Thursday,
to the back page, to theback page, and that the calm.
I know you have done it forall those years. But on Thursday
this week you're going to be atFraser History Museum. And is this a
(02:21):
sit down? Are you going todo a Q and A and all that
business. Well, that's what Iunderstand. One of your old colleagues there
at h One of your former colleagueat HS, Joe Arnold, who was
at the TV station for I don'tknow how many years he worked at HAS,
(02:44):
but he's now the vice president ofStrategic Communications at the Kentucky Association of
Rural Electric Cooperatives SO of Electric Cooperatives, and so he'll be asking some questions.
And then another one of your colleagues, Rachel Platt, who's now with
(03:05):
the Fraser Museum, will be askingsome questions about things I've done. I
can only imagine what they'll ask.Well, here's the thing about Rachel Platt.
She's gonna squeeze your hand when sheasked the hard questions, So you're
gonna WinCE. I just want youto be ready for that. I got
a few questions for you too,Byron. Go ahead. How different are
people from say, the area ofMurray, Kentucky, to all the way
(03:30):
over in mud Creek in the easternpart of Kentucky. I mean, this
is such a long state. We'relike worlds apart, aren't we, in
sort of our mentality. It's alwaysfascinated me because you know, I've worked
over the entire state, and you'reright you go from Sleugh's and all kinds
(03:53):
of southern landscape down in western farwestern kent at real Foot Lake, cypress
swamps, all the way up toMajestic in Pike County, you know,
and Black Mountain and all that mountainlore. And then you come in between
those, you hit the beautiful bluegrassarea and get on down toward Hopkinsville in
(04:21):
the Pentorile, and it's just youcan almost find any kind of culture you
want if you want to spend alittle time in Kentucky. There's no doubt
about it. How did you,you know, like when you're rolling around
for the Courier Journal for all thosedecades too, how did you gain someone's
(04:41):
trust? I mean a lot oftimes, like when I went to UK,
a lot of people say to me, you're from Louisville, and they
look at me a little skeptical,like like they thought, maybe, you
know, we were like big citytroublemakers or something. I don't know,
But how did you gain someone's trustto get them to tell you their story?
Well, tell you what never hurts. If you're in eastern Kentucky,
(05:01):
if you know someone who's from thatcounty or from that particular area, in
a given county, if you knowsomeone up there, it always gives you
up a step ahead. And ofcourse I went to school for a while
at Murray State in far western Kentucky. I grew up in central Kentucky on
(05:25):
a family farm. So you kindof need to, I think, speak
the language, which of course hasgotten a little diluted over the years,
even since you and I worked together, because the culture has changed. I
was thinking the other day the stuffthat I did on TV when I worked
(05:45):
at WHASTV would probably not fly atall now. But we were in the
era then of the Andy Griffith eraand PM magazine. You remember that show,
and there was a show called That'sIncredible and he Hall was big.
(06:06):
So you know, things have changed. I know that you and I don't
want that to happen, but theyhave. I used to be doing news
right there and well, not whereyour studio is now, but in the
Whas studios. I used to bedoing news at this time of day,
(06:27):
right back in the early to midseventies. Yeah, I heard, I've
heard tapes. You were you onthe day of the tornado? Yes,
yeah, I worked nine hours straightthat day, and my goodness, what
a what an effort that was atyou know, WHAS really came really showed
(06:49):
its worth that day. The signal, the news, the announcers, everybody,
and you know, with that greatsignal that we have at WHAS,
people really needed to hear what wasgoing on. Well that's all they had.
That was the only connection that theyhad. So I was really pleased
(07:14):
with the effort that I was ableto participate in that day. Yeah,
I've heard you guys, I've heardthose tapes before, and then you know,
everybody's trying to scramble and find accurateinformation. But after a tragedy like
that, that's a challenge because everybodyelse in the streets is in pandemonium and
in shock, and you're just tryingto find facts. I know I was.
(07:38):
I happened to be on the airwhen Jane Willis called in. She
was with the newspaper in Mead County. She called in from Brandenburg to let
us know that in fact, yes, there had been maybe somewhere in the
neighborhood of twenty eight to thirty twodeaths in Brandenburg, if my memory served.
(08:01):
Don't hold me to that, butyou know, to hear that when
you're on the air Live with Somebodyis is a jolt, Yeah, I'd
say so, and a lot ofus and a lot of us there that
day. Terry didn't know if ourfamilies were okay because they were in different
parts of the state. Even mymother, my parents outran a torny,
(08:24):
you know, in central Kentucky,and I didn't even know if, if
if my family was was okay.Assumed that they were because we tried to
check, you know, but itwas. It was total chaos, le'd
say so. Speaking of families,you, Byron Crawford, have had a
couple of media members out of youroffspring, and I know you're proud of
(08:50):
that. I mean, you bragon them. Well, you know,
I didn't hear. Honestly, Ididn't encourage my kids to go into media
work. I had three. Wehad three sons and one daughter, and
actually every one of them have beeninvolved in media work at one time or
(09:11):
another in their lives and careers,and all of them were pretty good at
it. But Eric is a sportscommentator on Channel forty one DRB Now and
a fine photographer. On top ofthat, he's a good photographer, and
he is of course a former sportscolumnist for the Courier Journal. And then
(09:39):
my son Joe, who's in SaltLake, was for thirty years almost exclusively
a morning man for stations from allthe way from Pittsburgh to Seattle. And
he's now retired. He's not inradio anymore. He works, well,
he's not retired completely, but he'sretired from he worked for Goldman Sachs in
(10:01):
Salt Lake. So and then ourdaughter Andrea, who lives in Louisville,
has done uh some media work onair work. She didn't choose to go
that direction. And then Wesley,our youngest son, worked at h AS
for a while. He's worked atWave and he was a sound man for
(10:24):
ABC News for five years. UhSo he's all of them have dipped their
feet into the media pool because theylove their daddy. Well, they put
up with me. All right,we're gonna have to work, we're gonna
have to wrap. So I wantedyou to brag on your family a little
bit, but I want people toknow that your book, with these columns
(10:46):
in it, is filled with allkinds of great stories about Kentuckians, so
must have Well, thank you.And I heard I was reading something the
other day and saw Max Miners Ithought he's a little boy. No,
no, it sounded important, butI'll let leave that for you later.
Well, thank you, buddy,you are very welcome. He's an important
(11:07):
figure there at WHASTV loves making funof his dad. All right. Your
book is called The back Page ByronCrawford's Kentucky Living Columns. It's published by
Kentucky Electric Cooperatives. People can seeyou at the Fraser Museum this Thursday,
Thursday night, right, that is, there's a reception at five point thirty,
the event six thirty eight pm,and then the Q and A we
(11:30):
mentioned, and then Saturday you areat Joseph Beth Booksellers in Lexington for the
Kentucky Book Festival ten am to fivepm. And that'll go all day.
Thank you, Terry. It's goodto hear you again. You don't change
man, Hey, Byron, Unfortunately, Byron, we've had a lot of
fun over the years. Is thisgreat to hear your voice again. And
you are too. You've been aleading edge for all of us in media.
(11:52):
We appreciate it. Yay, you'retoo kind. Thank you great talking
to you. Okay. That isByron Crawford. You can see him at
the Fraser Museum and you can getinformation about his book at Kentuckyliving dot com.
Slash the backpage that's the name ofthe Byron Crawford book. You'll be
at Fraser Museum Thursday night. Goto their website if you need info,
(12:13):
and then Joseph Beth Booksellers in Lexingtonten till five this Saturday.
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