Vince Staten

Santa on the Radio

WKPT Radio's Santa Claus Program of the Forties and Fifties

In December 1955 I sat down and wrote the following:

“Dear Santa

“I am eight years old. For Christmas I want a Captain Space Solar Port, a Mandrake the Magician Magic Set, and a sheriff office that is 5 ft. 2 in. high. I would like a few surprizes also. I hope I am not asking too much.

“Love,

“Vincent Staten Jr.

I addressed the envelope carefully:

“Santa Claus

“W.K.P.T.

“Kingsport, Tenn.”

Then I gave it to my dad to mail.

And I waited.

Every night at 6:30 I would turn on our radio and listen to the “Santa Claus” show, which ran right before “Sleepy Joe.”

It seemed like they read letters from every kid in my third grade class, every kid at Johnson Elementary. Every night was like a Johnson roll call: Freddie, Bruce, Janice, Larry, Mary, Mike, Marty, Richard, Don, Diane, Betty, Brenda.

But no Vincent, never Vincent.

Frankly, I was getting worried. This was in the days before fax and before email. I knew that once W.K.P.T. read my letter they would have to send it on to the North Pole.

What if it didn’t get there in time? What would I get from Santa? A crummy fruit basket? A stupid belt?

I asked my dad if there wasn’t something he could do, he seemed to know everybody in town. He was working in the Mens’ Department at Penney’s then. Surely he knew someone at W.K.P.T.

Get my letter on, please, please.

He said he’d see what he could do. Then he gave me hope: “Maybe they read it the night we were at your Uncle Albert’s in Johnson City.”

Yes, that had to be it. I had sent my letter in plenty of time.

They’d read it that one night we were out of town.

I slept better. Even on Christmas Eve.

And I awoke on Christmas morning to find a Captain Space Solar Port under our tree. And a Mandrake the Magician Magic Set. And a letter from Santa explaining that he was out of the sheriff’s office and would try to bring it next Christmas.

Good enough for me.

And that made 1955 one of the merriest Christmases of my young life.

How do I know all this, how do I remember exactly what I asked Santa for in 1955?

Well, the other day I was cleaning out some of my father’s old files and an envelope tumbled out.

It was addressed:

“Santa Claus

“W.K.P.T.

“Kingsport, Tenn.”

And there was a letter inside.

My father had never mailed my letter.

But somehow Santa got my Christmas wish after all.

That’s my letter above along with the envelope.

You may be surprised. It’s typed. No, as an eight-year-old, I was not what we used to call a “touch typist.” I typed using the Biblical method: seek and ye shall find.

Who read those letters to Santa over WKPT?

Here’s the story:

The Santa Letters show came on the radio every night, starting in late November, at 6:30 p.m. and it ran 15 minutes, until it was time for “Sleepy Joe.”

In the radio listings it was called simply “Santa Claus” although it had a longer name that wouldn’t fit in the tiny listings space, “W.B. Greene’s Santa Claus Program.” It was sponsored by W.B. Greene hardware and department store.

“W.B. Greene’s Santa Claus Program” premiered on WKPT radio in 1943 and ran through 1956. And for all those years it was a big part of Kingsport kids’ lives at Christmastime because a big part of the show was the reading of letters to Santa from local kids.

Margaret Taylor Hilliard, who worked at WKPT when the Santa Claus show ran, told me she remembers typing the letters to Santa that came in the mail from kids all over the WKPT listening area and then turning them over to WKPT copy writer Isabel Baumgartner. It was Baumgartner who fashioned them into a script that was read by Reverend Kent of St. Paul Episcopal Church.

Margaret remembered, “Rev. Kent read the letters and also played Santa in the script. He had a ‘jolly’ deep voice. In fact, I remember one little boy recognizing his voice at church and telling his mother that Rev. Kent sounded exactly like Santa Claus!”

Rev. Kent was an interesting fellow. He was born Leicester F. Kent in Bethlehem, Pa., in 1884. Perfect, huh? Bethlehem.

In his early life he trained as an engineer then worked as a newspaperman before hiring on as a teacher at a small church school.

He told the Kingsport Times in 1947, “The head of the school was a saintly clergyman who began, in his quiet, unaffected manner, to bring home to my mind what a sincere servant of the Lord was really like. He impressed me deeply, and it was during that year with him that I made up my mind to tackle the problem of the ministry in earnest.”

Kent left teaching and entered seminary. “Those three years were the hardest in many respects, in my whole life. My background had been semi-scientific. Here at the seminary I was handed out great chunks of doctrines and dogma and told to swallow It. In desperation I would cross the Potomac River to Washington and spend every spare moment I could gain in the Library of Congress searching for the Truth; some solid ground upon which to rest my spiritual feet. How I ever got through the seminary I don't know to this day.”

His first posting was in Alaska in 1925. From there he was sent to Valle Crucis, North Carolina, near Boone, then on to Shepherdstown, West Virginia on the Maryland border.

“From West Virginia we returned to North Carolina; to that charming, quiet, homelike little community of Louisburg. I was very happy there. I had achieved a little peace of Soul and was about ready to say that Louisburg was to be my home for the rest of my life. But I was mistaken; I came to Kingsport.”

That was in 1943. Among his many accomplishments in Kingsport – aside from his long running gig as Santa on the radio – was the founding of the Kingsport Art Guild.

He retired from the priesthood in 1962, replaced at St. Paul by Rev. Douglas Berndt, and retired to Mountain City where he lived to the ripe old age of 90.