The Fraser Legacy

The following is a letter written to the Journal and Courier after Bill Fraser’s death in 2004.  It is used here with the author’s permission.

Mr. Fraser As In Eraser

by

Angie Klink

What is radio but words? Words that paint pictures in the theater of the mind. William S. Fraser was my high school Radio and TV instructor from 1974 to 1977. I realize now, his quick-witted verbiage was the pabulum, vitamins and minerals, from which my writing career found nourishment.

“Cooperate and graduate! Did you get a hair cut? No, I got them all cut. Be in the know with Jeff Radio. Take a shower lately? Why, is one missing?” These corny, Bill Fraser quips still float up from my high school days and insist I think of the balding, fiftyish man with dark-rimmed glasses.

Formerly an English and speech teacher, Mr. Fraser lobbied for a student-run radio and TV station for Jefferson High School when a new facility was built in Lafayette, Indiana, in 1971. His dream to teach students about broadcasting through “hands-on” learning came true the next year when WJEF went on the air at 91.9 FM, and the high school’s closed-circuit TV Studio opened its doors.

Mr. Fraser was not a prim and proper teacher. He was a let-experience-and-fun-be-your-guide mentor. He made me laugh and taught me about the “good old days” of radio. He was a salty radio warrior from the Golden Age, who spun “A String of Pearls” on 1940s turntables and announced late-breaking news on boxy, Philco microphones.

“It’s Fraser as in eraser” was Mr. Fraser’s famous line. Calling him Frazsher was a major no-no. His name rhymed with “eraser,” and we students were never to forget it.

As a green sophomore in 1974, I walked through the swinging door of WJEF and asked to be on staff. Mr. Fraser invited me into his radio-memorabilia-filled office, lit a Camel and asked me several personal questions. To audition, I read aloud a news story ripped from the Associated Press teletype machine, and that was it. I was welcomed into the “Broncho Broadcaster” fold. (Our school mascot was the broncho…spelled with a superfluous “h.”)

I found radio people to be intoxicating—witty, irreverent, high-strung, sailor-mouthed and fun. The atmosphere shimmered around microphones, turntables and modulation.

“Big Band—it’s coming back!” At the height of disco, Mr. Fraser swore the Glenn Miller sound would push the Bee Gees aside and reemerge for another go-around. He only allowed “Middle of the road”—MOR—tunes (think elevator music or “Muskrat Love”) on WJEF.

Mr. Fraser said my maiden name, Lipp, was a great radio moniker, and suggested a show called “A Tip from the Lipp.”

It never happened, but I did host “Listen Ladies.” I read fluff—household and beauty hints—that came click-clicking over the AP wire. During the show, the instrumental music that played from a “cart” (It looked a lot like an eight-track tape.) was Bob Dylan’s “Lay, Lady Lay. Lay across my big brass bed.”  It was another not-so-subtle clue to Mr. Fraser’s bent for the lascivious. But he was a teddy bear at heart.

Mr. Fraser owned a pristine, forest green Model T Ford. He drove it to school a few times, and my friends and I got to look it over and check out the rumble seat that popped up in back. He invited us to ride with him in the Lafayette Christmas Parade. None of my friends could make it, so I was the only one to tool down Main Street with him, waving to people. Inside the tiny antique cab, we talked like we never did at school. I asked, “You have three children, right?” He said, “Yes.” Then after a pause, he added, “Actually, there were four.”

I hesitated. In my 16-year-old mind, I was not sure what he meant or if I had heard him correctly.

Then he elaborated. “One of our sons was hit by a car and died when he was three.”

From that day on, I looked at my comical, unabashed teacher in a new light. They say humor is born of pain.

By “running a control board,” producing sports, news, promos and television shows, many Fraser students later became professional broadcasters. After I graduated with a degree in communications from Purdue University, my first job was as an advertising copywriter at WASK-Radio in Lafayette.

Brian Lamb, C-SPAN founder, is one of Mr. Fraser’s proudest accomplishments. “That’s my boy,” he would puff over his former student.

I asked a friend from my high school days if she remembered any Fraser wisecracks. She couldn’t. Instead, she analyzed: “You remember what he said because you are more into words.” That’s when it hit me.

I am not a so-called Fraser “success story”—not a newscaster, sportscaster or disc jockey. I did not found C-SPAN. It seemed I only experienced WJEF for the hoots and the hollers. But, now I see those droll times as fine starter solution for a writer. Words are what I gleaned from Mr. Fraser’s company.

William Fraser spiced my adolescence with spunk and absurdity. He inspired me to kindle a bolt-from-the-blue thought or snicker. (Some of his comments if said today by a teacher to a student may put that teacher’s job in jeopardy: “You can lead a hor-ti-culture, but you can’t make her think.”)

In 2002, the Jefferson High School studio was named the William S. Fraser Radio-TV Center. Mr. Fraser passed away in 2004, having lost a leg (and, sadly, his moxie) to the rigors of diabetes exacerbated by all the Camels he had puffed over the years.

So, signing off, Mr. Fraser as in eraser, here’s your “Tip from the Lipp”: You stirred many with the love of the airwaves, and the world will forever feel your infinite reverberations.

Click the link below to listen to radio coverage of the WJJE station dedication, January 7, 1972.