Wlex-tv history

The first WLEX "live truck" was a 1946 Flexibus.

Garvice Kincaid, a well-known Lexington financier and owner of WVLK radio since 1952, fought White for the channel.

More about that tower later. (At WLEX Radio Cawood Ledford, hired September 1953, called UK Basketball games.

Wayne Bell was returning from lunch in his 1954 Buick Roadmaster and stopped at the Imperial service station at Loudon and Broadway.

NOTABLE EQUIPMENT PURCHASES 1 KW Transmitter, Continental, 1955 ($36,500) Effective Radiated Power: 17,500 watts.

First television broadcast of University of Kentucky basketball (DePaul, from Chicago, February 18, 1956.

When it blew over January 21, 1959 at 2:50pm in the high wind, the smaller tower ripped two guy wires from the TV tower, which buckled and dropped within a few seconds.

The station began transmitting its signal in color in 1962.

H. Guthrie Bell died of cancer June 11, 1969.

Various WLEX employees with whom I've talked since 1971.

He presided over the last several years of the Rupp show (through the year after Rupp's retirement from coaching in 1972), and the two became good friends.

In the early seventies each newscast opened with an audio cart intro by WLEX President Harry Barfield, and Billy's first on-camera words were always "Thank you, Harry." Billy lost to cancer May 3, 1977, his funeral in Georgetown attended by Adolph Rupp and former Governor Happy Chandler.

In 1984 another long-time director, presumably schizophrenic, was shot and killed by Missouri police after killing his father and wounding his mother.

(In 1996, primary ownership was as follows: Bank One as trustee for Monnie Gay Long, Elizabeth Gay Van Nagell, and Julie Gay Lisle, 50.27%; Jean Bell, 16.26%; others less than 10% each.)