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A WREN’s tale

route56

route56

Recently, The Watkins Museum in Lawrence put on display a restored concrete wren.

IMG_5056.jpeg

This big bird was one of two statues that originally graced the front entrance of the WREN building in Lawrence. They stayed behind after the station moved to Topeka, but lost their original home in December 1969, when a major fire destroyed the building.

From there, the wrens were repaired and put on display in South Park. During their tenure there, they were repeat victims of vandalism. At some point, the twin wrens were separated. This one was found in a ditch north of town, where a local resident recovered it and placed it in their personal storage. The family eventually worked with the descendants of WREN’s original owners on the restoration and finding its new home in the museum.

IMG_5055.jpeg
 
I've updated my WREN history to reflect the statue's reveal at the Watkins Museum.

www.route56.com

History of WREN

WREN returned to the air in 1998 after going silent the previous year. WREN obtained a construction permit to move to Kansas City, Kansas. As this history indicates, it was a return trip home for W…
www.route56.com www.route56.com

Three statues were made, of which two are now confirmed to be extant. A larger version of this statue currently overlooks traffic at 12th/Huntoon and Topeka Boulevard in Topeka. When @Mark Roberts originally wrote the WREN page, he noted that he observed the wren on the top of the Topeka WREN building in the late 80s around the time the station went dark. He then referred to the "World's Largest Things" website, which described it as being in a 'pocket park.' Mark speculated that these may have been separate birds, but a later edit from WLT indicates that the bird was acquired by Historic Topeka and moved to its current site in the 1990s. WLT also noted that this bird was originally located at the Tonganoxie transmission site. I presume that all three wrens were created at the same time - two for the Lawrence building, a larger one at the transmitter.
 
route56 said:
I've updated my WREN history to reflect the statue's reveal at the Watkins Museum.

www.route56.com

History of WREN

WREN returned to the air in 1998 after going silent the previous year. WREN obtained a construction permit to move to Kansas City, Kansas. As this history indicates, it was a return trip home for W…
www.route56.com www.route56.com

Three statues were made, of which two are now confirmed to be extant. A larger version of this statue currently overlooks traffic at 12th/Huntoon and Topeka Boulevard in Topeka. When @Mark Roberts originally wrote the WREN page, he noted that he observed the wren on the top of the Topeka WREN building in the late 80s around the time the station went dark. He then referred to the "World's Largest Things" website, which described it as being in a 'pocket park.' Mark speculated that these may have been separate birds, but a later edit from WLT indicates that the bird was acquired by Historic Topeka and moved to its current site in the 1990s. WLT also noted that this bird was originally located at the Tonganoxie transmission site. I presume that all three wrens were created at the same time - two for the Lawrence building, a larger one at the transmitter.
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My friend Jim Doblin, then at WIBW, pointed out the bird on the Topeka building when I visited him in, I think, 1989. By then the station had been off the air for a couple of years.

The reference to Tonganoxie as a transmitter site is probably related to when the station was licensed to Lawrence, before being moved to Topeka. The post-move site was at Grantville. I drove by there a couple of times: four towers, very tightly spaced. By then, WREN had been on the air only sporadically during
the 1990s. I don't remember who had the bright idea to move it into Kansas City, but it's probably doing better there than it would have been in Topeka.

With so much more source material being available online these days compared to the 1990s, I think several questions that were unresolved in the original versions of my articles could be answered now. I just took a look at the KFRU article and a couple of things I wrote should be fixed at some point in the future.
 
Leaving aside the two preceding pointless remarks, WREN was established in Lawrence by the manufacturer of Jenny Wren flour as a promotional tool. Another such tool comprised cookbooks such as the one described on this blog: The Food Company Cookbooks: Jenny Wren Flour

Later in the 1930s, WREN tried to rimshot Kansas City before being moved to Topeka after World War II.
 
That was a great station. I know of it mostly from its rep, as when I first lived around Topeka was in the station's latter days.

Louie, Louie (Lou Constantino) was once a deejay there, IIRC. Got to meet him several times. Great oldies host.
 
Dondd said:
That was a great station. I know of it mostly from its rep, as when I first lived around Topeka was in the station's latter days.

Louie, Louie (Lou Constantino) was once a deejay there, IIRC. Got to meet him several times. Great oldies host.
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I think Louie, Louie was on WHB toward the end of its run as an oldies station. That would have to been before the end of September of 1993 when Shamrock sold it.

Edit: He was indeed on WHB; I found an aircheck I made on the second-to-last-day of the oldies format; Louie, Louie pulled down the 7 pm shift that day (September 25), called "Solid Gold Saturday Night". He mentioned that his show would be continuing under the new ownership, something of a departure from the farm-oriented and country-music programming that was to be installed. The show was mostly syrupy 50s and early-60s oldies.
 
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I first met Lou Constantino (Louie Louie) at some kind of dedication or removal ceremony of the wren figurine from the former station building or something in Topeka (my memory is hazy) in 1992, and recall hearing him on one of the Topeka stations. I thought it was WREN.

Later, he was on KHUM-95-something FM. He did a remote with a $50 cash prize if you could come see him at a Lawrence dealership. I diverted my driving route and saw him there, winning the prize, IIRC.

A couple years later his show was on KMAJ-FM Saturday nights, then, on 102.-something when the station was oldies.

Was saddened to learn he had died recently. He was a great oldies deejay.

LOUIE TRIBUTE | wrendigitalmedia

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Dondd said:
I first met Lou Constantino (Louie Louie) at some kind of dedication or removal ceremony of the wren figurine from the former station building or something in Topeka (my memory is hazy) in 1992, and recall hearing him on one of the Topeka stations. I thought it was WREN.

Later, he was on KHUM-95-something FM. He did a remote with a $50 cash prize if you could come see him at a Lawrence dealership. I diverted my driving route and saw him there, winning the prize, IIRC.

A couple years later his show was on KMAJ-FM Saturday nights, then, on 102.-something when the station was oldies.

Was saddened to learn he had died recently. He was a great oldies deejay.

LOUIE TRIBUTE | wrendigitalmedia

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View attachment 8464
Click to expand...
I enjoyed listening to Lou's program when we lived in Topeka. Very polished presentation
 
Learning of Lou Constantino's passing put me in sour mood.
I keep hearing of people I knew, worked with, went to school with, knew of, or people who were famous when I was a young man...
...and I don't feel so well.

I actually met Lou, several times, and wish I'd spent more time with him, so he wasn't only a voice on the radio.

Visiting my uncle in Topeka over the holidays one year, I heard Lou's radio show. Called him and thanked him for playing The Regents' (the original Barbara Ann) Runaround, from 1961.
He also loved that song which I first heard on Louie, Louie's oldies show.

But still... at 62 (the same age as the year of my birth, 1962) ... these passings aren't great.
 


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