My earliest "public" performance was when in the fifth grade the public schools put
on a joint production of a reading of Longfellow's "Hiawatha". That morning I had to have several stitches after a head-to-head collison playing softball. I guess I stood out from the hundreds of kids that night due to the bandage over my left eye.

At Murphy High School I was in Glee Club, Special Chorus (soloist), the Murphy Quartet and
Four Arts Club (my first play was "The 13th Chair", and I was murdered early on, only to come
back in a seance to help expose my killer.) I had the role of the father in "Meet Me In St. Louis" and
I was in the Chorus of "HMS Pinafore" and played the Pirate King in "Pirates of Penzance". I was absent the day pictures were taken, so the alternate (Francis Duke) is pictured in the year book. I came back after finishing my senior year to do the lead in "Meet Arizona".

We did a program for an assembly on the order of the TV show, "What's My Line" which we were asked to perform on the local station, WALA-TV. It was done to promote the United Fund (as it was then called). I was the announcer. The favorable comments I received my well have been responsible for my choosing a career in broadcasting.