75th Anniversary: Female visionaries of KFOR
OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) — Channel 4 is celebrating 75 years on the air this year.
The very first broadcast aired June 6th, 1949.
Back in those days, Channel 4 used the call letters WKY-TV.
Channel 4 has always been a leader in innovation: the first television station in Oklahoma, the first color broadcast west of the Mississippi and the first tornado warning.
75th anniversary: The birth of Oklahoma television
In those early decades, there was something missing from the newcasts: women.
While channel 4 was making history on the air, off-camera, an army of women was making it happen.
Charline Caruthers came to work at Channel 4 in 1953.
“This was a new life, and it was hard work,” Caruthers remembered. “I started as a receptionist and relieving on the old switchboard.”
In the 1950’s, women’s roles were limited in this male-dominated industry.
Ladies were often hired for secretarial work, entertainment positions and jobs behind-the-scenes.
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Caruthers was the first female employee to be promoted from receptionist to film editor.
She specialized in football highlights, often working through the night, splicing together game footage for the legendary Bud Wilkinson Show.
“They would fly the color film to Dallas, process it and get it back to me to start editing,” Caruthers said. “The film might arrive in the middle of the night, and I would work all night to get it on the air by 9:00 in the morning.”
In 1972, the first news woman joined the broadcast, Pam Henry.
Five years later, a wide-eyed, OU grad walked through the door.
“When I was in college, I had done radio, I had done newspaper. The only thing I really hadn’t done was television,” said Linda Cavanaugh. “So I came up here, and I talked to Jack Ogle about a job.”
Linda Cavanaugh worked for free, at first.
Six months of job shadowing, and she was hired on by KTVY News Director, Ernie Shultz as a reporter.
Cavanaugh doesn’t remember feeling like a pioneer.
“No. I felt like an idiot!” she laughed. “I thought I had so much to learn.”
It was the beginning of a historic 40-year run at News 4 for Cavanaugh, who swiftly advanced from reporter to anchor.
“Ernie Shultz called me in the office and he said, ‘Well, we want to try something new. We’d like for you to start co-anchoring the news, but it may or may not work.’ And I said, ‘Well, we can give it a try,’ and I guess it worked!”
The experiment was a wild success, securing Linda Cavanaugh as a household name in Oklahoma.
She loved everything about the work.
“I loved the photography. I loved the editing process. I loved meeting people and going out and finding stories,” Cavanaugh said. “There was nothing I didn’t like. It was almost as though it was meant to be.”
Cavanaugh’s singular career opened the door for a number of award-winning newscasters, including Uzi Brown-Washington, Bella Shaw and Jane Jayroe
As Miss America, Jayroe was the first to travel to a war zone; the first to entertain troops in Vietnam; and channel 4 was there too.
75th Anniversary: Channel 4 legacy stands strong as first television station in Oklahoma
After her reign, and a short stint in Dallas, Jayroe joined the team at News 4 alongside TV legend, Linda Cavanaugh.
It was 1984 and Channel 4 was once again smashing stereotypes with two women on the news desk in prime time.
“It’s really amazing to think that we stepped out into that arena to be the first women who were on primetime newscasts,” Jayroe said. “I’m so glad, so grateful, that I got to be in that class of women that began that trend.”
Seventy-five years trend-setting at the Circle 4 ranch; local programming, innovative storytelling, glass ceiling smashing by a generation of women who refused to stay in the shadows.
“What hasn’t changed in those 75 years is the the demand for quality,” said Cavanaugh. “It was here the day I came, and it was here the day I left. (At KFOR) if you were going to do something, you needed to do it right. And if it wasn’t right, then don’t air it.”
It is an unwavering standard that remains our guiding light today, in the 75th year of local broadcasting at News 4.
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