AUSTIN LILLY, UK CLASS OF 1919

On a recent Saving Stories segment, WUKY's Alan Lytle and Dr. Doug Boyd, Director of the Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History, featured UK graduate Austin Page Lilly.  https://www.wuky.org/term/saving-stories#stream/0    

Entering UK in 1914, a friend influenced Austin Lilly to major in home economics, one of the fastest growing departments in the university, rather than chemistry.  Still, her new major required that she complete four years of chemistry with the male students.  She recalled that, "Some of us were better students than some of the men in chemistry.  We weren't taking a back seat!"  Austin thought that during her student days women were well on their way to equality within American society.  

Austin Lilly remained single and spent her career teaching at the high school and college level.  When asked on a 1938 Alumni Questionnaire to give the full name of her husband or wife, Lilly wrote in large letters across the page, “neither-nor.”

WBKY/WUKY

Today, March 19, 2018, WUKY marks a new era of broadcasting in its new off-campus facility.

University of Kentucky radio broadcasting began in April, 1929 when Dr. Frank L. McVey announced into a radio microphone in Lexington: "The University is on the air...."  For the broadcast of educational programs from studios on the Lexington campus, WHAS Radio in Louisville (Kentucky's first radio station) agreed to install all necessary equipment and direct telephone lines; the university and the station would share equally the transmission charges.

This agreement began a partnership which attracted national attention.  President McVey's, somewhat apprehensive about the whole idea but willing to take a change with it, expressed his hopes for the medium during the maiden broadcast:

"Life is faster with greater possibilities and subject to disasters as always.  This is the sort of universe we live in.  Now comes the radio, bringing to every part of the world the sound of the human voice from every country of the globe.  No such possibilities of good and no such opportunity for mere bunk, have been offered to the public as through this amazing invention.  The University of Kentucky is not interested in adding to the trivial, so two important forces for constructive effort in our state have agreed to cooperate in giving to the radio audience, what is hoped will be interesting, stimulating and helpful."

From the WHAS studio in Louisville, owner Robert Worth Bingham, who also owned the Louisville Courier-Journal and Louisville Times, reiterated WHAS's noble intentions of reaching the isolated and uneducated -- "it is for those whose need is greatest who fill my mind as I think of what this work of our may mean to them."

The University of Kentucky programs were aired Monday through Friday at noon, initially for fifteen minutes and expanded by 1931 to forty-five.  While primarily offering agricultural information, lectures on a variety of topics, as well as musical presentations, were also offered.  From the beginning, the university appreciated its responsibility, and under the guidance of Elmer G. "Bromo" Sulzer, who began his work at UK in public relations, energetically and successfully lobbied for the expansion of its radio commitment.

For additional information see "WHAS Radio and the Development of Broadcasting in Kentucky, 1922-1942"
https://uknowledge.uky.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.bing.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1014&context=libraries_facpub