2/21/2008:
Sometimes North Dakota winters seem to drag on and on and there really isn’t too much to do. Now we have lots of electronic gadgets but on this date in 1963 there were only three TV stations to watch and no remote control. Generally there was one theater per small town which ran the same show for four days but, of course, shows were cheap since you could take a date for a dollar and that included pop and popcorn. Cruising main took four minutes, if you stopped at the only stop light in town for one minute.
Kennedy was president, Richard Nixon was running for governor in California and a kid by the name of Garth Brooks was only a year old. By 1963 everyone agreed to what Danny and the Juniors had been telling them for five years - that "Rock and Roll Was Here to Stay" and the avenue for that was radio. Radio was still king on this date in 1963. The crooners of the ‘40's and 50's were being replaced by the teen idols such as Bobby Rydell, Bobby Vinton, Bobby Darin and our own Bobby Vee, but radio played them all.
Competition was keen in the radio business with the likes of Padres Platters in Bismarck or Jim Johnson from Minot and gimmicks were used to try and capture the audience. In 1961, Johnson set a record of 104 hours of continuous broadcasting which seemed like a beatable feat to a couple of Rugby men. The two, Paul Kaye, a radio DJ, and George Vangsnes, a furniture salesman, conceived the idea as a marketing gimmick for the Voeller Furniture Store and so began the quest for the title. Grabbing his stack of 45's with songs by Elvis, Chubby Checker, Connie Francis, and all of the various Bobby’s of the day, Paul Kaye set up shop in the Voeller Furniture store with George at his side to help keep him awake.
KGCA radio would be on the air for the next four days—non stop. Local teenagers stayed with the two throughout most of the night hours and farmers from across the listening area called in at all hours of the day and night. Vangsnes said that towards the end he began hallucinating a little. After 107 hours and 47 minutes with the title in hand, they terminated the show. Kaye said by that time he lacked all sensation, no headache, no pain, but aside from mixing up the call letters or a few names, he felt none the worse for the ordeal - which was just one of the fads from the Fabulous Sixties.
By Jim Davis
Sources:
Pierce County Tribune February 28, 1963