If the power of its transmitters ensured people heard WRVA, its staff,
announcers, performers, and programs made sure that people listened.
Over the years, WRVA has offered a variety of programs, including
news, special-interest, talk radio, and music and entertainment.
Throughout WRVA's broadcast history, there was considerable emphasis
on the state's regional culture, on sporting events, and on special
local programming. Special-interest programs included Virginia
congressman Vaughan Gary reporting directly to listeners on events in
the nation's capital in the 1950s. Closer to home, the Capitol
Squirrel editorialized on matters of local concern. And Calling All
Cooks featured a live cooking program. The Radio Scholarship Quiz
offered competing area high school seniors, while the Quiz of Two
Cities pitted Richmond against Norfolk in a popular quiz show. Walter
R. Bishop, the station's public relations manager, hosted Bishop's
Cracker Barrel, a program largely devoted to stories about Virginia's
politicians.
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Two of the more unusual personalities
on WRVA were Millard the Mallard and the Capitol Squirrel. Millard
joined Alden Aaroe's morning show in 1972. The Capitol Squirrel
reported on events in downtown Richmond.
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WRVA also broadcast extraordinary musical shows, all of them
devoted to local performers. Both the Corn Cob Pipe Club, first
broadcast on February 25, 1926, and the Old Dominion Barn Dance
(1946-1957), were so successful locally that they were syndicated
nationally over the networks. The Corn Cob Pipe Club featured local
fiddlers, Hawaiian guitar orchestras, harmonica players, comedians,
and spiritual singers. Broadcast from the Lyric Theatre on the corner
of 9th and Broad Streets, the Old Dominion Barn Dance was a country
music variety show featuring Mary Higdon "Sunshine Sue" Workman and
her husband, John Workman, as hosts. Among its performers were the
Carter Sisters, Grampa Jones and Ramona, the Tobacco Tags, Chet
Atkins, and Earl Scruggs. The Sunshine Hour, begun in the 1930s, was
also widely popular. Holland R. Wilkinson, known as the singing
evangelist, hosted the program, which featured hymnals and gospel
music. The Silver Star Quartet began singing religious spirituals on
WRVA Radio in 1939 and continued entertaining listeners into the
1990s.
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Associated with WRVA from 1946 to
1993, Alden Aaroe is best remembered for his morning show and for
helping to establish an annual shoe fund to provide shoes for children
in need.
Brochures soliciting donations to
WRVA/Salvation Army Shoe Fund. 1970s.
Alden Aaroe's shoes.
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Bertha Hewlett began working for WRVA
in 1925 as the station's music librarian and hostess. She also played
piano and organ on the Sunshine Hour and the Edgeworth Glee Club Hour.
She retired in 1973 as the station's office manager. The traffic board
detailed the schedule of programs.
Bertha Hewlett at traffic board. Photograph |
At first supported by Larus &
Brother, owners of Edgeworth Tobacco, as a non-commercial station,
WRVA had a fully operational sales department and national
representative by 1928. Although the station used local talent,
in 1929 the station affiliated with NBC, which offered programs at a
fraction of the cost the station paid for local performers. |
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