Tom Bigler: Mentor, Boss, Friend

It's not that I expect any of you, dear readers, to know of, or care about, Tom Bigler who died this week at age 85. He was a singular man whose sphere encompassed the gritty anthracite coal region of northeastern Pennsylvania known as Wilkes-Barre. Even though you may never have heard about Tom you would have been a better person had you known him for he was a true gentleman in a very ungentlemanly game -- broadcasting.

I came to know Tom before I was a teenager. He was the voice of the news at my family's radio station, WILK. That was back in the 1950s, ancient history in these never-look-back times. He had a radio voice and inflection that even today would rate a network slot --- smooth, cultured, evenly paced. That voice, as I later learned, was backed by both a humility and an intellect that's seldom found in the broadcasting fraternity.

By the time I turned 16 my voice had changed and my father, patriarch of the station, deemed it time to put me on the air. He turned the job of making his wacky kid a radio announcer over to Bigler. Tom, no fool he, gave the onerous task of teaching the boss's kid the arcane art of radio broadcasting to probably the most talented and, thankfully, patient announcers on the staff, Dave Teig.

We spent hours going over the multitude of switches and volume controls, called 'pots' on the old Collins console in the Control Room. Dave would stand across the room and have me talk to him, not yell at him. It was called 'projecting' one's voice. He drilled into me the Golden Rule of broadcasting that was simply that you may have been reaching many, but you spoke to one (imaginary) person every time you opened your mike. He even managed to get my voice down a tone or two and he taught me how to speak in commas and periods. I've never forgotten. When Teig said I was ready, Bigler assigned me to an air shift: 5:15 in the afternoon to 1:15 the next morning. Then he had the great sense to let me sink or swim.

As it happened, I ran the consoles each and every night at 6:00 p.m., when Bigler was doing his half hour local news program. Yes, I did the mechanical stuff and ran the commercials, but I also listened and learned the newsman's craft, perhaps by osmosis, from Bigler. He used no canned wire copy, he wrote every word himself on a mechanical Remington typewriter on yellow copy paper. When the broadcast was over the script went into a bin for filing later. As the evening wore on and I was tasked with being Arjay the DeeJay, spinning mindless rock'n'roll tunes I'd steal over to the copy bin and pluck out that night's script for some serious reading. I learned how it was that you typed out sentences that looked a bit odd on paper, but sounded just right when read. Believe me, it's an art not easily learned by one who was schooled by rigorous grammarians.

The scene shifts. We got television. I became a cameraman, Bigler became an anchorman. Of course, in those early days all he had to anchor was himself and whatever local accident or fire film that happened to be in the queue. We were learning as we went.

Time went on and I left broadcasting for print journalism....and writing as I spoke became my style. The WILK TV station was sold, Bigler became News Director of a former competitor. I found myself back at the radio station, this time as News Director. Got Bigler's old office and, best of all, his old Remington typewriter. I also inherited his local news broadcast. I thought I was pretty darn good at it too, but given more sober reflection lo these years later, I realize I wasn't half as good as I thought --- more a mud slinger than the thoughtful, progressive, positive guy I'd replaced.

Our paths diverged widely. I went back to newspapering and writing magazine articles and lots of other stuff to keep body and soul together, he continued on to become Dean of the newspersons in Wilkes-Barre, college professor and newspaper columnist.

Now that he's gone my last connection to those early, idealistic, times is gone. But, I'll sign this piece with his tagline...."And that's the news till now."

Arjay