Collect Call

It was early Sunday evening, October 16th, 1977. Bill Rohde had hired me as a three-month intern six months earlier. Jane English had left, so now I was part-time on weekends, and that is why I was working that fateful Sunday evening.

We'd been off and on the air due to power problems during the day. Now it was time for shift change—Jerry King was signing off, Paul Kirby was signing on—I was doing the news, and the station went off the air again! A few seconds later, we were back on the air, so I finished up my weather. After I turned off my microphone, I began to realize that something was not normal because I heard multiple police officers reporting from multiple locations “the lights are out here.”

I gathered the outage locations from the police radio and reported them between the records Paul was playing.

Some guy (I never found out who it was) called in, and helped with reports of what was happening in downtown San Antonio. And…he was really good at it!

The news hotline phone rang. When I answered it, the operator said, "I have a collect call. Will you accept the charges?"

I thought, "Oh my gosh…I don't know if I can accept a collect call!"

Suddenly I heard in the background over the operator's voice, "Accept the collect call, Crissie! This is Rohde!"

Bill's phone call consisted of "The power's out! We're coming in!"

Wow! This power outage must be huge for Bill Rohde to come into the station!

Soon, not only did Bill Rohde come in, but also Pat Tallman, Pat Fitzgerald, and Joe Simpson. The newsroom became quite crowded. An hour or so later the power came back on. Everyone left and things went back to normal.

The next day, I went into Bill's office, and I said, "Bill Rohde, I want a raise! I want a dollar-an-hour raise because I proved myself—I didn't crater in a crisis."

Bill replied, "But you wouldn't accept my call!"

So, for that, I only got a fifty-cent-an-hour raise!

Chrissie Murnin

Chrissie Murnin

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