Daily Bulletin | Dec. 18, 1943 Radio listeners throughout the United States from Maine to California will hear the ceremony at 10:45 Sunday morning in which the world-famed North Platte Canteen will receive a citation for meritorious wartime service. The program will be broadcast over the NBC ra- dio network, with 142 radio stations participating. It will be the first coast-to-coast program originat- ing in North Platte. Arrangements for the broadcast were completed yesterday by John J. Gillin Jr., president of WOW, Omaha, and KODY, North Platte. … Receiving the citation for the Canteen will be Mrs. Adam [Helen] Christ, who has been in charge since the departure of Miss Rae Wilson, organizer and first commander. Miss Wilson was contacted at her new home in California. She endeavored to make reservations to come to North Platte by plane and train but was unable to do so. By telephone and telegram she conveyed her heartfelt interest in the organization that has served uncounted thousands of service men and women during its two years of existence. The program had been tentatively set for after- noon, but Gillin found the only available NBC broadcast spot at 10:45 Sunday morning. … Gillin yesterday made the following statement: “We’re hoping this program will show the entire country just what wonderful work our Canteen folks have done and are doing every day.”
William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody. The new KODY-AM, which debuted Dec. 13, broadcast NBC Radio pro- gramming 18 hours a day over an 80-mile radius (on its still-current frequency of 1240 AM). On Dec. 18, the day before the Canteen’s award presentation, North Platte learned all America would be listening.
A visiting Canteen soldier named Hansen (also seen in the group photo on p. 5) helps an unidentified volunteer hang a curtain in the Canteen room in December 1942.
So on Dec. 19, 1943, six days before its Christmas birthday, the Canteen received its na- tionwide audio close-up. Telegraph | Dec. 20, 1943 The North Platte Servicemen’s Canteen re- ceived high praise from Col. Groves B. McGary, [Nebraska] Governor Dwight Griswold and William M. Jeffers, Union Pacific president and former North Platte resident, when the Canteen was presented a War Department award for meritorious service in morale building in a presen- tation ceremony that was broadcast on the NBC chain, originating at North Platte’s station, KODY, Sunday morning. The citation ordered by Maj. Gen. Fredrick E. Uhl, commander of the Seventh Service
Canteen workers Dorothy Bolding, left, and Jessie Hutchens welcome Ovin Bolding during his 1943 Canteen stopover.
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