Radio pair to sign off after hosting longtime music show out of Port Angeles

PORT ANGELES — Paul and Shirley Bragg are leaving KONP radio, but don’t call it a retirement.

The couple, who have between them 116 combined years in the commercial broadcast radio industry, are leaving only live radio.

This Sunday will be the final live broadcast of their 11-year radio show, “Memories in Music,” which airs from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. each Sunday.

When they sign off, Paul Bragg, 82, and Shirley Bragg, 79, will leave live radio for the first time since Paul began broadcasting in 1955. However, they plan to continue working, perhaps on a pre-recorded radio show.

“We’ve done it all,” Paul said as he prepared for his second-to-last show last Sunday at the KONP studio at 721 E. First St.

The show features popular music from the 1940s through the ’60s, with some tunes from the ’70s.

“Memories in Music” will be replaced with the John Tesh national radio show “Intelligence Is Your Life,” said Todd Ortloff, general manager of KONP, 1450 AM and 101.7 FM.

Beginning Monday, KONP will air the Tesh show from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. Sundays through Fridays, Ortloff said.

The Braggs have hosted “Memories in Music” at KONP since August 2003.

They first worked at KONP in 1969. Shirley did producing, while Paul hosted two shows and introduced such radio contests as the Turkey Shoot, Porky Shoot and Cherry Tree Chop.

In “Dock Time,” a morning show, Paul interviewed visitors coming off the MV Coho ferry.

“Bragg About Washington” was a travel show. Pamphlets by the same name touted local destinations.

“Bragg About Washington” quickly grew and eventually led the couple to Olympia.

They worked there for some time and, after a failed attempt at retirement, returned to Port Angeles and KONP in 2003.

While they will no longer host a live radio show, the couple have no intention of entering a traditional retirement.

“We tried that. It was terrible,” Shirley said.

Instead, they plan to find a new forum for “Bragg About Washington.”

They are working to turn the pamphlets into a book and possibly create a pre-recorded radio show that would include interviews with the people who remember — or learned from their parents or grandparents — lesser-known aspects of Washington’s history.

The stories will not include the macabre, such as the well-known tale of the Lady of the Lake, but instead the adventures and misadventures of life in Washington state.

Whatever stories the Braggs have to tell in the future, their years of experience in the industry have produced many of their own stories.

Paul has been in broadcasting since his first radio job in 1955 in Bozeman, Mont., where he met Shirley, a singer and state government office employee,

Shirley joined him to become the other half of their broadcasting team in 1957, when the couple married and moved to Livingston, Mont.

Their first home was in the radio station building where Paul worked.

Paul later became manager of KSOP, the first FM stereo country-western radio station in Salt Lake City.

“In ’68, we drove through on vacation and met George Buck, who owned KONP,” Shirley said.

The pressures of KSOP were wearing on the couple, and they had two young children to raise.

In 1969, the family made the move to Port Angeles, to work for KONP.

One of their sons, Dennis Bragg, eventually went into video broadcasting and was co-owner of the Peninsula News Network until 2007.

He now is now a news broadcaster at KPAX in Missoula, Mont.

Paul and Shirley said they have outlived most of the musical artists with whom they developed relationships during their years as radio broadcasters and coordinators for concerts at KSOP.

Johnny Cash, Roy Clark, Marty Robbins, Red Foley and Minnie Pearl were among the stars the couple met and, in some cases, with whom they became friends.

While Paul managed the station, Shirley organized live concert broadcasts.

Paul said that once, when Johnny Cash’s plane arrived late, the Braggs kept sending opening acts back to the stage to keep the audience entertained, but the crowd was getting angry.

“When an audience comes to see Johnny Cash, that’s what they want to see,” Shirley said.

State Patrol troopers, hearing the restive crowd over the radio, offered to help and met Cash at the airport.

“They put him in their car and drove him to the stage,” Paul said.

Cash had just been served for a divorce from his first wife, Vivian Liberto, and Shirley said he was looking very rough.

“Fifteen minutes later, his manager had him cleaned up. He said, ‘I got it,’ smiled and grabbed his guitar. He did the most sensational program we ever saw,” Shirley said.

Shirley said she learned a lot about the stars backstage.

“Minnie Pearl had terrible stage fright,” she said.

Because of the layout of the venue, the famous comedienne had to walk down the aisle between fans to get to the stage, and she froze, terrified to enter the room, Shirley said.

“She said, ‘What if I fall?,” and I told her that if she fell, she would get the biggest laughs ever,” Shirley said.

Pearl went on stage without falling and put on a wonderful show, she said.

In addition to the loss of many of the early stars of radio, the industry itself has changed, the Braggs said.

Changes in industry

“Automation was way in the future when we got into the business,” Paul said.

There were a few pre-recorded programs available, sent to radio stations on vinyl records, he said, but the vast majority of shows were hosted by live disc jockeys.

“In fall of 1959, a fellow brought in a device to demo automation. We were not impressed and thought it would never replace live radio,” he said.

However, he said he wished he did have automation while he was at KSOP radio in Salt Lake City.

When DJs would call in sick at the last minute, he would have to fill in for them after a full day of work, then continue through the next day.

He said that since then, automation has undergone a lot of changes and is more usable, but ultimately, there is still no replacement for a live host.

“The industry has gone overboard on equipment and gizmos,” he said.

“It is losing the human touch,” Shirley added.

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Reporter Arwyn Rice can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5070, or at arwyn.rice@peninsuladailynews.com.