Ed "Weatherman" Bowman
Ed Bowman was born and raised on a farm in Iowa City, Iowa. Early on he was an active pilot. Those were the qualifications he thought were needed for anyone to talk about the weather.
His first broadcast job was at WHO in Des Moines where Ronald Reagan was the Sports announcer. Ed arrived in Denver at KOA-AM on New Year’s Day, 1950.
When Television came to Denver, Ed became “Weatherman” Bowman and the rest is history. He was the first Weatherman on KOA-TV Channel 4 and stayed there for 12 years. Being a Weatherman in the 50’s was much different than today. There were no computer graphics so common today.
Fortunately, Weatherman Bowman was an artist. He created weather maps in front of your eyes nightly. Maps filled with marvelous clouds and “troughs aloft” that were real works of art. His hand-drawn weather maps became collectors’ items.
When he left TV, he did radio weather broadcasts for a Kansas network from his studio in his Denver home. His distinctive mid-western drawl and no nonsense approach made him a media Icon. Ed “Weatherman” Bowman died July 4, 1994.
Jim Hawthorne
Jim was born in Victor, Colorado. He was the first voice heard when KMYR signed on the air on April 21, 1941.
After military duty, Jim found a home in the Los Angeles market where his radio and TV programs established me as a national personality. His “nutty” radio shows were carried on ABC, NBC, CBS and Mutual Radio networks in the 1940’s. In the 60’s, Hawthorne was a success with his “unusual” TV Programming in LA.. Steve Allen wrote about Jim’s TV and radio innovation in three of his books about broadcast talent and programs.
In 1965, he “retired” and went on a vacation to Hawaii. He stayed there 4 years, developing a children’s show called “Checkers and Pogo” with a former KIMN Radio personality Pogo Poge.
Hawthorne returned to Denver in 1974 and went to work for KOA Radio, eventually becoming Promotion Manager and Program Director.
Fred & Fae Taylor
Fred and Fae Taylor were kids from Altoona, Pennsylvania who got married on Thanksgiving Day, 1945. They found out you could make a living in vaudeville pantomiming records. They played the famed Palace Theater in New York twice, did Grossingers, & the Ed Sullivan Show. Leaving a gig in North Dakota, they were looking for a place to park their trailer. That place was Denver.
Local TV history was made on December 19, 1953 when the “Soda Shop” began on KFEL-TV, Channel 2. In 1955 Fred and Fae moved to Channel 9 with the “Club House Gang”. In 1957 the move was to Channel 7 for “Fred ‘n Fae”. An estimated 55,000 kids got to be on TV with Fred ‘n Fae during their 15 years on TV. Fred and Fae went out on top in December 1967.
Fred died far too early. Fae was able to join the inductees into the Hall of Fame in 2001 and accept the award for Fred and Fae. She passed away a short time after her induction into the Hall of Fame.
Starr Yelland
Starr Yelland got his first broadcasting break at WMT in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Proving “there’s no business like show business,”
Starr worked as an MC for a touring table tennis night club act and traveled in San Francisco. While there, he auditioned for and was hired to do radio shows at the Golden Gate Exposition. Then, he met Lloyd Yoder who was about to become manager at KOA in Denver.
Starr moved to Denver in 1940 to work for KOA. He was called into service and served in the South Pacific, including time on Iwo Jima. After that, it was back to KOA until 1954 when he moved to KLZ.
Starr hosted the first radio talk show called “Party Line”. On TV, in addition to his well remembered evening sports reports, there was “Starr’s Matinee” and “Dialing for Dollars. He interviewed more than 5,000 people on TV and many more than that on radio. Television enabled Starr to provide a completely new perspective to his work and allowed his unique personality to come out.
Starr was the consummate sports journalist. He was Channel 7’s primary sports anchor for many years, and he continued to contribute features after retiring from the anchor desk.
Starr Yelland feature on fellow Hall of Fame inductee Ray Durkee