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Reprinted with permission from the
Wethersfield Post, March 15, 1973.
Famous Wethersfield Voices on the Air
Bob Tyrol
by Cynthia Lang
From the youngest announcer in the history of WTIC to Vice
President and General Manager-Radio-TV, Channel 3
"We were young and crazy then," Wethersfield's
Robert S. Tyrol was reminiscing about an earlier day at WTIC. A day when the station was
located in the Travelers Building on Main Street and Central Row. The days before
Broadcast House on Broadcast Plaza was built to house the 50,000-watt WTIC-AM-FM-Radio TV
Channel 3 station of which Bob Tyrol is Vice President and General Manager-Radio-TV.
The "we" of whom he spoke were Floyd Richards and
himself. For five years the two did the "Cinderella Weekend Show." A quiz show
for women, it was on the air daily, Ryan's Restaurant (then on Pearl Street) the point of
origin. "We took the stage version of the show to almost every town in Connecticut.
It had a long life for a show of its kind."
In his not so very long life Bob Tyrol has done a lot of
things. Among the things were some pretty impressive "firsts." But first he was
born; in East Hartford on May 3, 1923 the son of Mr. and Mrs. Otto R. Tyrol: "Dad is
still in East Hartford. Mother is gone. My sister Elizabeth lives in East Hartford."
Bob graduated from East Hartford High: "I came her (WTIC) in 1940 when I was 17 years
old. My record-keepers found a picture that goes all the way back." he grinned as he
slid a photograph of the 17 year old youth (the youngest announcer WTIC has ever had)
across the desk. "I was a mail-boy here for six months and worked closely with the
announcers. They all helped me and finally persuaded the boss, then Paul Morency. to give
me an audition which I passed."
In the year 1940 he was also attending UCONN. In 1942 he
was assigned to do a program, "The U.S. Coast Guard on Parade," direct from the
Academy in New London featuring the Academy Band. "I think that as a direct result of
this I joined the Coast Guard." He left the station for the Coast Guard in 1942 and
in 1943 received his commission and command of a subchaser. An Ensign, Bob was the
youngest officer in the United States Coast Guard.
In January 1944 he married a Hartford girl, Virginia G.
Stoneburner, who worked at Travelers (the same place Bob Steele, Floyd Richards and
Leonard Patricelli met the women they were to marry).
Bob's ship was assigned the Key West to Havana run:
"In the spring of 1944 my ship caught fire in the Gulf of Mexico, a gasoline fire. We
were dry-docked in New Orleans after the fire and my wife came to New Orleans and spent
some time there." Then to Long Beach, California where Virginia could be with him
before Bob took off for nine months in the Pacific, "Saipan and Tinian."
After the war-back to WTIC
Discharged from the Coast Guard after three nd one-half
years he went back to WTIC and it was very shortly after that the Station established
"Cinderella Weekend" the program which was to become enormously popular.
"The other show I was best known for was "Songs
from New England Colleges," for which Al Jackson was the engineer, I was the
announcer and Leonard Patricelli was the producer." Of Leonard Patricelli, his
immediate superior, (Mr. Patricelli has been President since 1967 of Broadcast Plaza,
Inc., which includes Broadcast House and all of the Plaza) Bob said, "He was then one
of the troops. The three-some comprised a broadcast team." The program was a college
choral concert broadcast weekly on Sunday, live, from the campuses of each of 26 colleges
from Yale to the University of Maine in Orono. We traveled every weekend. Worked 60 or 70
hours a week. The program was sponsored by Monsanto Chemical Company, starting in the
early 50's and continuing for four years." The program went out over the New England
Regional network.
From Groton, Connecticut on January 21, 1954, Robert Tyrol
broadcast the launching of the first atomic submarine, Nautilus. "Fortunate or
Unfortunate, it was my job to cover the Worcester tornado in 1953, Hurricane Carol in
1954. I "did" the dreadful disaster on the carrier Bennington at Quonset Point,
Rhode Island, May 26, 1954 ... over 100 men were killed that day as a result of the fire
and explosion on the ship of which Captain William F. Raborn, Jr. was the skipper. All the
coverage was cost-to-coast in addition to WTIC."
"Those are the big ones. There were news-casts,
weather reports, commercials, sports, things that make up a regular eight-hour da,
40-hour-a-week schedule in addition to the specials."
In 1956 Bob decided to leave the are and was asked by
management to join the Sales Department. He then became the local Sales Manager, then
General Sales Manager. Next, Vice President in Charge of Sales, then Vice President of
Administration: "Then Vice President and General Manager and a Director of the
Corporation." The duties as Vice President of Administration were then dual
administrative roles including radio and TV, still under his aegis.
Future of radio and TV
His feeling regarding the future of TV? "The future of
TV, I think, is bright and will be extended through the introduction of cable TV this
giving the viewing public an even greater diversity of programs."
Does he feel the same about radio? "The future of
radio,. I think, is extremely bright because it will always be a very personal medium. The
reason for that is that radio is a companion-medium, it permits you to do other things
while being informed or entertained. Let's speak to FM (radio). In recent years it has
shown just tremendous growth potential." There is much t be gained in the marketing
approach to this field.
Since we were discussing present and future roles of the
media I asked Mr.Patricelli (a resident of West Hartford, home of the Post's sister paper,
The West Hartford News) his opinion of the role of the weekly press. His reply, concise
and without hesitation: "It plays an important part in the community. Weeklies fill a
role the daily press cannot fill."
WTIC-TV has recently taken steps in the area of the
interchange of idea and cultures with the Japanese through the establishment of a
sister-station relationship with Sanyo Broadcasting Co., Ltd., 2-1-3 Marunouchi, Okayama
City (a city on SW Honshu, in SW Japan with a population of over 300-thousand). "We
hope to being about a better understanding of our ways and their ways in keeping with the
principles of President Nixon," Bob said. Morizo Tatsumi is President of Sanyo
Broadcasting. "Leonard Patricelli went to Japan and the Japanese came here and
planned. This will happen some more. It will be an interchange on an on-going basis. Some
of our people will be going there, conceivably this fall."
On the local level, Robert Tyrol is proud, as a member of
the Rotary International, to have been a Board Member and Part-President of Hartford
Rotary. He is a member of the Hartford Club, Hartford Golf Club, Connecticut State Police
Auxiliary, International Radio and Television Society, Broadcast Pioneers and is on the
Media Associate Advisory Committee, Manchester Community College.
As Honorary Member, Connecticut Association of Chiefs of
Police, a Board Member of Connecticut Broadcasters Association, he is also a Corporator of
The American School for the Deaf; and a Faculty Associate; University of Connecticut
School of Business Administration. Thirteen previous affiliations included such
interest-spanning areas as President, Connecticut Broadcasters Association, Board Member:
Retail Trade Bureau, Better Business Bureau, Broadcasting Executives Club, Travelers Aid
Society; Board Member and Radio & TV Director, Connecticut Society for the Prevention
of Blindness; Member, NAB Freedom of Information Committee; Vice Chairman Fund Campaign,
Charter Oak Council BSA.
Being an advisor to the Cub Scouts in Wethersfield was a
natural for Bob and Virginia Tyrol residents of Ridge Road, Wethersfield, have two sons,
both grown now and with children of their own. Lee Robert Tyrol is 27, The State Marketing
Director of the Commission on Special Revenue ("a fancy way of saying The
Lottery," according to his father) Lee, two, live in Glastonbury. Bradford Robert
Tyrol will be 24 in August. He, his wife, and two-year-old Erik Robert live in Deep River.
Brad is General Manager of a nautical gift shop owned by
his Mother. "It's called `Hull of a Ship' and it's located in Old Saybrook." The
shop will be three years old this year; "A little of my Coast Guard influence; I
always wanted to have a nautical museum but my wife if more of an entrepreneur."
`Hull of a Ship' deals in binnacles, harpoons, ships-lamps, scrimshaw and French glass,
Daum. "Probably second only to Steuben," Bob pointed to a beautiful glass
dolphin in his fourth-floor office as an example of Daum. He smiled as he asked if we
could print `Hull of a Ship' in the Post. I told him that we could. It sounds pretty
see-worthy to me (a little of my Navy influence).
He spoke of Wethersfield;s Bob DuFour, now manager of
Program Practices for Television, who was once a producer and before that an announcer.
"He always did the 5:54 news which he began with `It's 6:54 with Bob DuFour'"
(His son, Steve, has contributed some remarkable photographs to the Post, and his
daughter, Lynn Low, fine prose and poetry).
There are and were many other Wethersfield people, part of
the WTIC establishment. Channel 3-AM-FM-radio and TV where they are turned-on to the
world. Tine in. You'll hear the Famous Wethersfield Voices on the Air.
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