It was 40 years ago today that Mahlon Aldridge, once the longtime part-owner of KFRU in Columbia, Missouri, passed away at the age of 71. Aldridge had retired from the station a couple of years earlier. He was on his way to a vacation in Maui when he suffered a series of heart attacks.
Known to employees past and present as "The Boss", Mahlon was best known to the public as the founder of the Missouri Sports Network, where he called University of Missouri football and basketball games for 26 years, ending in 1973 when the university sought a more lucrative broadcast arrangement.
Mahlon came to Columbia from St. Louis in 1945. The St. Louis Star-Times owned both KFRU and KXOK at the time. After the Star-Times downgraded KFRU in 1941 to a local channel to move its desirable 630 frequency to St. Louis, the Columbia station reportedly suffered financial difficulties. Mahlon was sent to Columbia to get the station back to profitability. Three years later, he teamed up with Columbia Daily Tribune publisher Jack Waters to buy the station. Still broadcasting from an old-style longwire antenna on the Stephens College campus at that point, Aldridge moved the station to a new site with a modern antenna in 1950. The station remained in those facilities into the early 1990s.
KFRU was immersed in its community, emphasizing news and sports coverage. Until the university put KBIA(FM) in the air, KFRU also served as a teaching laboratory for broadcast journalism classes. Even after that, many students had part-time jobs in the news and sports departments at KFRU. Mahlon also developed a close working relationship with the Missouri Highway Patrol, and later served on the Missouri Boat Administration, according to newspaper obituaries from 1986.
I worked for Mahlon from 1979 until he retired from the station. KFRU remained what we would now call a "full-service" station into the 1980s. There were still traces of block programming; for example, two hours of country music in the morning. Mornings were devoted either to "Dial 1400", an interview program, or to "Party Line", where callers were given exactly two minutes to speak their minds. The rest of the day was composed of newscasts and features, with adult-contemporary music taking a secondary role. Mahlon wasn't on the air much by then, but, on occasion, he would still anchor the "Sports Page of the Air" nightly at 6 o'clock. He was a good announcer.
He was committed to the news operation: as news director, I had a full staff and was rarely turned down for budget requests as long as they didn't involve acquiring equipment. Election nights were especially a showcase for KFRU, with extensive preparation and coverage that rivaled big-city stations. Still, Mahlon could be resistant to change, particularly for the newscast schedule, and I got the impression that he was kind of worn out. But I want to stay positive here: Mahlon had integrity and maintained a strict separation between the news department and the more commercial parts of the station. For example, newscasters weren't allowed to read advertising copy, not even anything like, "the 11:55 news is sponsored by D&H Drug Store" - DJs had to read those liners.
After he left, KFRU went into decline, eventually facing an IRS lien for unpaid taxes but was rescued in 1992 by crosstown FM station KARO (now KPLA). KFRU is now part of the Cumulus cluster in the Columbia-Jefferson City market, with a fairly standard talk format. KFRU celebrated its 100th anniversary in Columbia last year.
I've only scratched the surface about Mahlon and KFRU, and, no doubt, I've left out a lot, but the impact he had on Missouri broadcasting is worth noting.
Known to employees past and present as "The Boss", Mahlon was best known to the public as the founder of the Missouri Sports Network, where he called University of Missouri football and basketball games for 26 years, ending in 1973 when the university sought a more lucrative broadcast arrangement.
Mahlon came to Columbia from St. Louis in 1945. The St. Louis Star-Times owned both KFRU and KXOK at the time. After the Star-Times downgraded KFRU in 1941 to a local channel to move its desirable 630 frequency to St. Louis, the Columbia station reportedly suffered financial difficulties. Mahlon was sent to Columbia to get the station back to profitability. Three years later, he teamed up with Columbia Daily Tribune publisher Jack Waters to buy the station. Still broadcasting from an old-style longwire antenna on the Stephens College campus at that point, Aldridge moved the station to a new site with a modern antenna in 1950. The station remained in those facilities into the early 1990s.
KFRU was immersed in its community, emphasizing news and sports coverage. Until the university put KBIA(FM) in the air, KFRU also served as a teaching laboratory for broadcast journalism classes. Even after that, many students had part-time jobs in the news and sports departments at KFRU. Mahlon also developed a close working relationship with the Missouri Highway Patrol, and later served on the Missouri Boat Administration, according to newspaper obituaries from 1986.
I worked for Mahlon from 1979 until he retired from the station. KFRU remained what we would now call a "full-service" station into the 1980s. There were still traces of block programming; for example, two hours of country music in the morning. Mornings were devoted either to "Dial 1400", an interview program, or to "Party Line", where callers were given exactly two minutes to speak their minds. The rest of the day was composed of newscasts and features, with adult-contemporary music taking a secondary role. Mahlon wasn't on the air much by then, but, on occasion, he would still anchor the "Sports Page of the Air" nightly at 6 o'clock. He was a good announcer.
He was committed to the news operation: as news director, I had a full staff and was rarely turned down for budget requests as long as they didn't involve acquiring equipment. Election nights were especially a showcase for KFRU, with extensive preparation and coverage that rivaled big-city stations. Still, Mahlon could be resistant to change, particularly for the newscast schedule, and I got the impression that he was kind of worn out. But I want to stay positive here: Mahlon had integrity and maintained a strict separation between the news department and the more commercial parts of the station. For example, newscasters weren't allowed to read advertising copy, not even anything like, "the 11:55 news is sponsored by D&H Drug Store" - DJs had to read those liners.
After he left, KFRU went into decline, eventually facing an IRS lien for unpaid taxes but was rescued in 1992 by crosstown FM station KARO (now KPLA). KFRU is now part of the Cumulus cluster in the Columbia-Jefferson City market, with a fairly standard talk format. KFRU celebrated its 100th anniversary in Columbia last year.
I've only scratched the surface about Mahlon and KFRU, and, no doubt, I've left out a lot, but the impact he had on Missouri broadcasting is worth noting.