SOONER MEMORIES

Streeter Stuart :NEWS VOICE OFNEW ENGLAND

At OU his interests were modern languages and music;he intended to be a college professor.Then somewhere along the way,

someone sat him behind a microphone .

By PAUL SPIERS

1989 FALL

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WBZ Radio's Streeter Stuart (left) interviews movie legend Jimmy Stewart duringa Boston visit in the late 1940s to plug his latest film, "The Mountain Road."

University of Oklahoma alumnusStreeter Stuart adds luster to the def-inition of Renaissance Man.The boy who traveled across the

prairies in a covered wagon also hasdistinguished himselfas radio's "NewsVoice of New England," one of thatarea's first television newscasters, pro-fessor of romance languages, WorldWar II propagandist, religious missionorganizer, photographer, book trans-lator, world traveler, nutrition expert,proud father-and a man ofscruples.

This remarkable octogenarian, whoreceived a B.A . degree from the Uni-versity in 1932 and a master's in 1936,explains that he has had a "broadsweep" and "life has not been drab forme."

Physically and mentally spry,Stuart took a break in the health foodstore he owns and operates in subur-ban Boston for a recent Sooner Maga-zine interview. He concedes that hehas had a "pretty good perspective ofwhat's happened in the news business"over almost half a century.

"I seem to `feel' the news . I hadtraveled a lot, and when I'd read thoseinternational stories, I'd be thinking`that's where I was;' I could visualizeit . That gave a depth to my reporting ;

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other people could feel it, too ."I nearly always wrote my own news

copy. I knew pretty well what was im-portant news, and what seemed impor-tant to me seemed to coincide with thethinking of most of the people. I stillhave people come into my store andsay I was their favorite newsman .That's a satisfaction ."Among those who admire Stuart's

talents is Daniel J. Finn of Boston,long associated with Boston Univer-sity as a graduate, vice president andtrustee . "You trusted Streeter," Finnsays . "He was a pro's pro . He was thetops for a long time ."A colleague who knew Stuart well

at WBZ-for decades a dominant50,000- watt New England station-isIran Berlow, who later joined the fac-ulty at Boston University and is nowretired in California .

"Streeter was a little more intelli-gent than his peers in the sense thathe had a broader cultural perspec-tive," Berlow recalls . "He was very ar-ticulate, affable and always dressedimpeccably. A very meticulous gentle-man. Just first-rate all-around . Hewas one of the very best."

Stuart, who looks and sounds todayas if he could still credibly present a

television newscast, didn't get into thenews business the routine way. Hisstart on the curiosity trail came as afive-year-old on the family trek fromOklahoma to Colorado in 1913 ."We were living in Oklahoma City,"

he recalls, "and my father discoveredthat he could file for government landin Colorado-320 acres just by filingand then cultivating it. He had a teamof horses, and he built a coveredwagon ."Before we left, my mother baked a

lot of cookies and bread and storedthem in the wagon in a huge lard can .In the covered wagon, there were twomattresses for my parents and myolder brothers and myself. We had amonkey stove, a small cast-iron pot-bellied affair for heat and cooking .

"We'd stop along the way and builda fire at the side of the road to cook .Usually I would get sunflower stalksand break them up to make the fire .My mother would cook graham mushor something like that, and, ifwe wentby some farmer's, we'd get some milk.I thought that was just great ."A lot of the time we were not travel-

ing on roads-there just weren't thatmany roads-but rather right acrossthe prairies making our way throughthe blowing tumbleweeds . We finallymade it to Chi Chi Flats-now calledBranson, I believe-where we weregoing to settle . My father and olderbrother dug blocks of earth to makeadobe, and we set the framework ofthe covered wagon on those adobeblocks . Later we built a real housewith a packed-earth floor and a tinroof."As he grew to young manhood,

Stuart followed an academic route toa professorship in romance languages .He attended Anderson University inIndiana for three years, then transfer-red to the University of Oklahoma ."My life was entwined by a lot of

the life at the University of Okla-homa," says Stuart . "While there Iwaspresident of the Spanish Club and amember of the French Club . I playedfirst trumpet and then flugelhorn inthe Pride ofOklahoma marchingbandand the concert band and was a vocalsoloist in the concert band. I wasbaritone in the University male quar-tet under the direction of Earl Virdenand sang in the glee club."

He proudly recalls working in thebiology department laboratoriesunder George L . Cross, who later be-came president of the University, andbeing soloist in the Baptist Churchchoir. The congregation included OUPresidentWilliam Bennett Bizzell andUniversity secretary Emil Kraettli .

His later studies included two yearsat the University of Toulouse inFrance, where he was awarded severalcertificates for French languagestudies, and graduate work at Tufts,Boston and Harvard universities . Hefound academic life so satisfying thathe taught four years at SoutheasternOklahoma State University in Durantas professor of modern languages .While at Durant, he reviewed scoresof books in Spanish and French forBooks Abroad, the OU internationalliterary quarterly (now World Litera-ture Today), and mainstream books forThe Daily Oklahoman .Admittedly happy as a professor,

constantly surrounded by books,Stuart launched his New Englandbroadcasting career in 1940 by hap-penstance, his only training being onecourse in basic public speaking .

"I came to Boston as a result of hav-ing visited Westinghouse's KDKA inPittsburgh, the country's first radiostation . The news director learnedthat I was a professor of modern lan-guages, and he said, `Hey, we're start-ing a newshort-wave station up in Bos-ton . It will be 50,000 watts .' Westing-house had never had a 50,000-wattshort-wave station .

"I was the first one hired for the an-nouncing staff. I translated and broad-cast daily programs to Spain, Europeand South America."

In 1941, theState Department askedStuart to work for Nelson Rockefeller,the coordinator of inter-American af-fairs . "They offered me double the sal-ary I was getting, so I went to NewYork where I supervised a number ofpeople broadcasting in Spanish toLatin America over the short-wavefacilities of CBS and NBC."Returning to Boston and WBZ,

Stuart announced the first live FMbroadcasts in New England on a seriesof concerts by Arthur Fiedler and theBoston Pops Orchestra .Primarily a newscaster on WBZ-

AM, he also had to spin records . "They

hadn't invented the disc jockey yet .Later on they divided the staff, andwe had to choose whether to be a reg-ular announcer or a disc jockey . Ialways felt closer to the news thanspinning records, so I became a full-time newsman, commentator and cor-respondent . Because of newscasts tothe national NBC network, they calledme by such prominent news names as`the Lowell Thomas of New England'or `the Walter Cronkite of New Eng-land."'Among the announcer competitions

Stuart won at the station was the"Esso Reporter" - "as far as I know Idid the first full commercial radiobroadcast from an airplane ."

Stuart attributes his meticulousenunciation and pronunciation to hisparticipation in OU's male singingquartet and glee club ."We paid attention to enunciation

because people in the audience usu-ally have no idea what the singers aresinging about."

Despite a 40-hour-plus week atWBZ, Stuart managed to teachSpanish and French at Boston Univer-sity for five years in the late '40s andearly '50s and also took course workthere himself. "It was very satisfyingat Boston University, although I wasalways pressed for time ."The pace quickened . Television

reached Boston in 1948, and Stuartand the late Arch McDonald were thefirst two television news personalitieson the air in New England . Stuartnever says "TV," it is always "televis-ion" - endowing the medium with acertain dignity."We didn't have any film," Stuart re-

calls of television's embryonic days."We used slides and a rear screen pro-jector. The announcer had to pick outthe slides to go with the news, thentime the program before going on theair..For Washington stories, about the

only thing visual we had were picturesof the White House and the Capitol .It was really crude."Undaunted, Stuart tried to enliven

his newscasts a bit . "I remember doinga story on UFOs. I took a kitchensaucer and threw it in front ofthe cam-era and said, `This is a flying saucerstory.",

Fifteen years ago, at age 65, in good

health and doing well, Stuart wasforced to retire by Westinghouse's em-ployment policy. When numerous of-fers to join smaller radio stationsfailed to entice him, a change of em-phasis seemed to be called for inStuart's life, this time as a religiousmission executive .He joined the World Radio Mission,

headquartered in Lancaster, NewHampshire, as international coor-dinator. His language background fit-ted neatly into translating literatureinto Spanish and French and arrang-ing translations into other languages .He traveled around the world twice forthe mission and coordinated a crusadein India .After two years, Stuart resigned to

begin a new career workingeight-and-a-half-hour days, six days a week athis own nutrition store .

Assisting in the store are his wife,Merle, 84, and their daughter, Twyla,who has a B.A . from Boston Universityand a master of divinity from Prince-ton Theological Seminary. TheStuarts' other two living children areStreeter Stuart Jr., professor of Greekand New Testament at United Wes-leyan College in Allentown, Pennsyl-vania, and Douglas Stuart, professorof Hebrew and head of the Old Testa-ment department at Gordon-ConwellTheological Seminary in Wenham,Massachusetts.His business doesn't leave him time

to see movies anymore - not even"Broadcast News." However, he doeswatch one or two network televisionnewscasts each evening, then turns tohis evening reading of The AmericanJournal of Clinical Nutrition or Or-thomolecular Medicine or The Interna-tional Journal ofApplied Nutrition .

Stuart does find time to accept invi-tations to speak at service andwomen's clubs, often aboutthe old daysof radio and television. He obliges be-cause, "I really enjoyed broadcasting."

Occasionally Stuart broke out oftheBoston and New England news scenewith trips to Central and SouthAmerica, the Middle East and Egypt,shooting feature films and makingtravelogues of each trip. On one Cen-tral and South America trip, he con-ducted three hour-long background in-terviews with U.S . ambassadors andspent several hours with the then-

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In the midst ofyet another career, Streeter Stuart stands in front of the BelmontNutrition Center, the health food store he ownsand operates insuburban Boston.

president ofGuatemala . But the high-light was being detained by theParaguayan police for unknowinglysitting in the theater seat of the dic-tator, President Alfredo Stroessner.The next day when Stuart left forBrazil, Stroessner was at the airporttoshake his hand and wish him well .As he looks back over the years, he

considers many broadcast profession-als on the national level to have beencapable, especially Robert Trout ofCBS ("a good newscaster with a voice,presence and dignity") - and mostespecially Walter Cronkite "becausehe seemed to take everything in stride .He was very serious . I felt he didn't

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have any particular irons in the fire .Cronkite presented the news as he sawit . He spoke distinctly and didn't race."On the regional level, Stuart is

equally candid . "Not to be egotistical,but I didn't think anyone at WBZ-and we were always a step ahead ofeverybody intown-was a betternews-man than I was."

It may well be that no broadcasterin Boston had more integrity. At theheight ofhis popularity, he was askedby a major wine company to be its ex-clusive announcer on all radio andtelevision commercials . He declined .

"As a teetotaler, I feltmaybe it wouldnot be a good influence for the kids

and some other people . I told them I'drather not. They couldn't believe that .Here was a chance to make a pile ofmoney. They finally were reconciled tothe fact that I had some scruples."Stuart views changes in the media

since pre-World War II as good newsand bad news .

"There's good technology now . Videotaping was a good step forward to getstuff faster. Now, television is not toomuch slower than radio .That is good .

"I think most people try to do a goodjob . However, some do not reallybotherto polish their English . They don'tenunciate as well as they could, andtheir pronunciation sometimes is justwrong .

"I'm not a purist in that I pick upthe flaws in everything I hear, butthere are a lot of announcers whomight not have made the grade at onetime . You might think it would bemore select now, but there are so manystations that sometimes they getpeople who are really not top quality.I see some guys who actually look likethey're asleep on television . I wonderabout that."Another problem that disturbs

Stuart is "racing .""A lot of the announcers are being

prodded to race . You notice especiallywhen they're doing long items thatsome of the announcers are going tothe very depths of themselves to tryto speak asfast as they can . Well, that'swrong because the people listeningcatch some of this tenseness . It is notas enjoyable because the announcersdon't integrate what they're sayinginto their thinking .

"Part of the problem, of course, istime restraint . The administratorsover them like to hear it zipping offwhether anybody understands it ornot."As Stuart looks back on the media

from his "broad sweep" since 1940, heis proud of the "somewhat major role"he played in the history of radio andtelevision in New England . "In fact,my life has been very interesting tome . I've enjoyed it thoroughly and stilldo.

"I'm not one who is ready to quit.One of my professional friends askedme, `Are you just going to keep goinguntil you fall over?' My answer is,`What's wrong with that?"'