The Good Word

KGO 810 Radio,
San Francisco

1947

A pair of recordings of “The Good Word,” a spelling bee quiz hosted by Evangeline Baker and Tom Paxton (“KGO’s Popular Young Man With Words”), with announcer Herb Ellis, and broadcast over the facilities of KGO Radio in San Francisco.

Six cities are represented in the quiz competition — Richmond, Burlingame, San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley and Alameda — in a nine-week competition, culminating in a final championship round in week ten. A grand prize of $100 cash awaits the team that wins the “ABC Bay Area championship title.”

The first half-hour recording presented here is the second episode of the competition, pitting the men of the Burlingame Lions Club against the women of the Richmond Venture Club, broadcast on July 23, 1947.

The second recording, from September 3, 1947, is the seventh episode in the series, with the Richmond Venture Club women taking on the Berkeley team, represented by the ladies of the Theta Sigma Phi international journalistic honors society. Stay tuned following this program for an interesting internal closed-circuit communication from ABC’s Hollywood broadcast center.

Both recordings, obviously extracted from electrical transcription discs, are marred by occasional skips and pops, as well as precarious drops in volume, especially among the contestants.