George Dewey Hay (November 9, 1895 – May 8, 1968) was 
an American radio personality, announcer and newspaper 
reporter. He was the founder of the original Grand Ole
Opry radio program.

The Grand Ole Opry, one of the longest-lived and most popular showcases for western music, began broadcasting live from
Nashville, Tennessee on November 28, 1925. The showcase
was originally named the Barn Dance, after a Chicago radio
program called the National Barn Dance that had begun
broadcasting the previous year.

Impressed by the popularity of the Chicago-based National
Barn Dance, producers at WSM radio in Nashville decided
to create their own version of the show to cater to southern
audiences who could not receive the Chicago signal. Both
the Grand Ole Opry and the National Barn Dance aired on
Saturday nights and featured folk music, fiddling, and the
relatively new genre of country-western music.

The home of country music and original broadcasting site
of the Grand Ole Opry, the Ryman is one of the most
historic and widely visited tours in Tennessee.

Minnie Pearl (Sarah Ophelia Colley Cannon)
(October 25, 1912 – March 4, 1996)

Stephen Valentine Patrick William Allen
(December 26, 1921 – October 30, 2000

Television and radio personality, comedian,
musician, composer, writer and actor.
Steve Allen, in 1954 achieved national fame
as the co-creator and first host of The Tonight
Show, which was the first late-night television
talk show.

Allen died in his sleep from chest trauma caused
by injuries sustained in an earlier traffic accident.

“The War of the Worlds”—Orson Welles’s realistic radio
dramatization of a Martian invasion of Earth, was broadcast
on the radio on October 30, 1938.

Welles was only 23 years old when his Mercury Theater
company decided to update H.G. Wells’s 19th-century
science fiction novel The War of the Worlds for national
radio. 

It was not planned as a radio hoax, and Welles had little
idea of how legendary it would eventually become.

Sunday evening in 1938 was prime-time in the golden age
of radio, and millions of Americans had their radios turned
on. But most of these Americans were listening to Edgar
Bergen with his dummy “Charlie McCarthy” on NBC and
only turned to CBS at 8:12 p.m. after the comedy sketch
ended and a little-known singer went on. By then, the story
of the Martian invasion was well underway.

George Orson Welles (May 6, 1915 – October 10, 1985)

Dusty was one of the first female rock jocks on the West
Coast. She is shown here on the air with SiriusXM, KROQ. 

Dusty Street, the radio disc jockey who shot to popularity in
Southern California passed away Saturday in Eugene, Ore. 
after a long battle with cancer.        
   
  

Robert Edward Crane (July 13, 1928 – June 29, 1978)