Curt Lancaster (Texas Farm Bureau Radio Network, Waco, TX) began his broadcasting career at age 15 at KPOS-AM, Post, TX). He’s worked at seven radio stations and three radio networks (two of which he launched). Also, he worked at three television stations for voice work and writing and directing their talk shows and newscasts. Curt said, “There is nothing in the broadcasting business I haven’t done. I have been a General Manager, a disc jockey, newsman, writer and producer of radio and TV commercials, video camera operator, TV director, radio consultant, program director, and, yes, janitor.” About his early years, Curt said, “When I was kid on the farm, the radio was my constant companion along with my German Shepard. No matter what job I was doing there was a radio attached. Radio was different in the mid to late ‘50s into early to mid-‘60s. Top 40 radio was really getting cranked up, and I wanted to be a part of it. The people on the air then painted pictures for you. They were creative. When you were behind a hoe-handle and walking across a cotton field in triple-digit west Texas heat looking for weeds, the radio studio sure sounded better.” When Curt was aged 8 or 9 his mom would take him to town on Friday afternoons in the summer so he could go swimming. But, first, she would let him off at the radio station so he could watch the disc jockey on the air. “They were nice to me, and I became their ‘gofer’. They also saved a huge roll of AP wire copy for me every week, and I would read that out loud in the barn.” Curt explained, “Why the barn? I didn’t drive anyone nuts in the house, and the barn had its own reverb system like stations used in those days.
The turn in Curt’s career was when Roddy Peeples hired him in 1981 to join the Voice of Southwest Agriculture (VSA) Network. “Roddy was not only a great ag-radio teacher, he was a good teacher on life. I lost my dad as a result of a farming accident in 1991. I always said that Roddy was like a second dad to me, and I have never forgotten that. Roddy and I were a great match, both farm kids who loved radio, photography and were both pilots. About the only thing we didn’t agree on was music.” Curt concluded, “I am very fortunate, and I was very determined to make broadcasting my career. There were times in the early days I wondered why I got into the business. These days I work for great people at Texas Farm Bureau. They provided the tools and I had the expertise to build the TFB Network. There’s nothing like being on the top of the game.”
In his early years, Curt Lancaster operates the radio control board in 1972, and does an interview in the mid-1980s for the Voice of Southwest Agriculture Network.
