Ray Call

Sunday afternoon on the William Allen White Porch. A beautiful day, clouds, upper 70s with a light breeze.

The William Allen White House is a Kansas State Historic Site.

Tom Eblen, of Lawrence, introduces today’s speaker – Ray Call.

He said of Call, “He’s widely known and is respected by the Kansas Press Association, of which I’m still a part.”

Eblen is a former editor of the Kansas City Star and a retired University of Kansas journalism professor. He serves as chair of the William Allen White Foundation.

Ray Call

Call began his career at The Emporia Gazette as a photographer in about 1955.  And he retired, as executive editor, in 1996.

He spoke about William Lindsey White – White’s editorial style, how it differed from his father’s (WAW), and told about W.L. White’s personal accomplishments.

Upon W.A. White’s death in 1944, W.L. “Bill” was called “home” from New York City by his mother, Sallie White, to run The Gazette. Harvard-educated Bill, who had created quite a name for himself already in journalism during World War II, and his wife, Kathrine, a Kansan with her own New York career, were not thrilled about their return to Emporia.

“They came back to a life they really didn’t want, I think,” Call said.

Call said that Bill rode a bicycle to work. He wore a monocle. “And at Harvard he had acquired a good strong English accent. This isn’t the picture of a good ol’ boy on Main Street. He stood out.”

W. L. White started up a cable company in Emporia and for a while in the early ’60s, Call broadcast local news over local television.

So much is written about William Allen White, and locals just aren’t as familiar with W. L. White’s history. Ray Call helped fill in some of those blanks for a nice-sized crowd of about 36 folks this afternoon.

After the talk, Tom Eblen visits with Patrick Kelley, editorial page editor for The Emporia Gazette.

White genealogy – a PDF on the Kansas State Historical Society site.

P.S. A personal note about Ray Call – I remember his editorials about how he thought pickup trucks shouldn’t be allowed to park downtown in diagonal slots – because they caused such a visual obstruction if you happened to be parked next to one.

I think of those editorials from time to time – because, whenever possible, I park next to short cars rather than pickups and SUVs.

But those editorials created some public wails in this region which is heavily populated by farmers and ranchers and other pickup-driving folks.