John C. Crabbe Papers

From 1937 to 1958, John C. Crabbe worked for the College of the Pacific, Stockton, California where he started the first broadcasting degree major west of the Mississippi River. There, he also worked for KUOP-FM as its station manager, having assisted in putting the station on the air in 1949. During World War II, while in Baltimore, Crabbe lobbied the Federal Communications Commission for reserved FM channels for educational use which was finally granted in April 1952. Meanwhile, from 1950 to 1953, he also served as President of the Association for Education by Radio-Television. In 1961, Crabbe worked as a regional consultant to a National Defense Education Act survey on the need for television channels in education. Other positions held throughout his career include: general manager of KVIE-TV of Stockton, California (1958-1969), vice-president of the Western Radio and Television Association's Western Educational Network (1967-1968) and then president (August 1968 to 1969), director of University of Southern Colorado Telecommunications Division (1981), and general manager of KTSC, Pueblo, Colorado. The collection consists of publications regarding instructional television in California, television in education as well as the interaction between children and television. It includes the 1952 FCC allocation report, Crabbe's personal recollections of KVIE's history and an audio cassette of a 1949 interview with "Death Valley Scotty" and a 1952 recording of an Institute for Education by Radio and Television featuring the cast of "Kukla, Fran & Ollie.