St. Louis Post-Dispatch from St. Louis, Missouri • Page 67

ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCK 3E Nov. 20, 1985 KDNL's Manager Autumn Grows Old With A Storm William Childress Fights 'Rerun' Image Afij Out Of The Ozarks Dill Viands takes pride in offering viewers alternative programs This is one in a series of articles on the general managers otSt Louis television stations. tfy John J. Archibald Oi the Pott-Dispatch Staff When Bill Viands took charge of Channel 30 three years ago, he didn't like the fact that people regarded it as "a rerun station." He was bewitched.

It was enough to give a general manager different strokes. Viands could have cried, "Gimme a break! That's not what's happening." "The truth is, 25 percent of our programs are first-run," said the KDNL boss. "Take our December schedule, for example. We'll show the 'Lawrence Welk Christmas Special' the first time it's been seen anywhere, and St. Loui-sans love Welk.

"We'll also have Shirley MacLaine and Barbara Man-drell specials and we carry a heavy schedule of live sports 'anfl taped events that haven't been shown before. In addition to Steamers soccer and Blues hockey games, there's the Blue Bonnet Bowl, the Freedom Bowl, and the Libertv Bowl football classics I 1 fi jjW Thor was at it again, rolling his iron carriage across heaven, throwing his hammer and striking fire sending messages of thunder to the hills below. Never mind that he was a Norse god and this was the Ozarks. A good god should not be wasted, and this one heralds the aging of autumn. Trees bend like summer grass as the wind hits.

No artillery can equal the sustained sound of a late fall storm. The rain is on the march but march or not, I must hie me to Anderson before the market closes. Somehow, lost in my paper world, I've run out of rations. Wombulla, wombulla, woooomm. Lightning filigrees the dark sky, traceries of silver a heavenly embroidery that surely awes the angels.

Black clouds scud past overhead. A widowmaker, long overdue to fall, crashes to the floor of my small forest, frightening a calf who breaks for the pasture and the safety of the herd. I wonder if Dad, alone now since Mom has moved away, is heading for the storm cellar. Inching the car out the gate, I move down the tunnel of trees that always makes the lane so magical at night Headlights carve ghostly sculptures from brush and trees. Their limbs thrash wildly, like the tentacles of some mythical beast That old Ozark magic's got me in its spell, That old Ozark magic that I know so well.

Time has got away again, spinning around the platen of my IBM. It had been a busy day. A lawyer from St Louis, driving through, had stopped to chat Two elderly travelers had come later to talk with me about the Ozarks. "When are you going to write a book?" the latter asked. When, indeed.

It's impossible to answer that question, because I don't know the answer. I tell them I hope it is soon, and wave them on their way. Just past Pleasant Grove Church, with its lonely tower beseeching god to be there for mankind's ever-mounting needs, a sodden toad flops across the asphalt In the glare of my headlights, the rain looks like wires strung from some heavenly harp. No night to be out but a favorite for me. I'm a storm junkie.

So powerful is the wind, it turns raindrops into tumbling bullets. The tiny missiles veer and yaw, as though chasing some unseen enemy rain rockets blasting so hard they make my wipers falter. The lightning has become steady pulses of light now. The constant firing gives the wiper blades the illusion of being multiplied. It's the stroboscope effect; quick, bright flashes that make rotating objects jerk as they move.

Wind, rain, roadside oaks in a helpless ballet these are why I love night driving in Ozark storms. The rain has filled the roadside ditches. Brown water seethes between grassy banks, spills over the road In low places races headlong towards Elk River, Buffalo Creek, Big Sugar, Little Sugar, and finally to Grand Lake across the Oklahoma line. Then, as suddenly as it came, the storm is gone. The wind dies.

The scudding clouds turn to fish scales, lighten, swim on to the east toward St. Louis. Stars start to appear, glittering like Insect eyes, and the crispness of an autumn night is once more with me. Near town, the red tail lights of cars headed for the local movie merge with Highway from side roads parents going in to pick up their kids. They are so pretty in the silent darkness.

Like distant necklaces strung together. Like rubies dancing through the night. Viands sees Channel 30 as an entertainment station, an alternative choice for viewers. "When the network-affiliated stations are showing news, we offer situation comedies," he pointed out. "When the nets carry sports, we give people movies." Channel 30 doesn't go in much for news.

It broadcasts a half-hour of Cable News Network headlines at 5 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. daily, and two-minute "local updates" at 1:30 and 9 p.m. "TV has diversified, just as radio has," Viands said. "It used to be that the family would cluster around the only set in the house and battle over which show to watch.

Now there often are many sets and people scatter to watch the program they prefer. "I even have a mini-set that I take to the football games, i to be sure we're on the air." Channel 30's shows are carefully selected to appeal to at least some family members. "About 5 percent of our programs are specials," Viands said. "Twenty percent are classic sit-coms 'I Love 'Andy 'I Dream of ''And 50 percent are either movies or network winners shows that research Indicates St. Louisans want to see again." Viands, 48, was named general manager at KDNL in 1982 when Cox Communications purchased the UHF station.

He was directing a Miami radio station for Cox for five years before that. "This was my first experience with television," Viands said, "and I think I brought a little different kind of thinking, a sense of urgency that I acquired in the radio business. "In Miami, the competition included 48 other radio stations that could be heard in our area. When I got here and found that we were already No. 5 in audience (among five commercial TV stations), it seemed like a breeze." wWhen Viands was growing up in Pontiac, he always knew he wanted to be in broadcasting.

His goal -th? was radio, because television was just beginning. -L'Af the University of Michigan he received a degree in business but took elective courses in broadcasting and worked on the campus radio station. 2My first job was in sales, for a TV station in Parkers-bulg, W. in 1960, but I also did a 2 H-hour dance party show every afternoon after selling all day," Viands recalled. Hints From Heloise Ted DarganPost-Dispatch Bill Viands "Dick Clark, of course, was already doing a show like that.

I'm always amazed at how Clark has continued to look so young, knowing he's eight years older than me." Viands spent 11 years in sales with a Miami radio station, then in 1972 was hired by Cox Communications for similar work in the company's New York office. He managed WSB radio in Atlanta for two years, returned to Miami to run WIODWAIA for five years, then moved to St. Louis. When Viands took charge of Channel 30, it was in its "Preview" operation, in which the evening movies were "scrambled" and only viewers who rented an unscrambling device could receive a clear picture. "That lasted from June 1982 until February 1983," Viands said.

"The growth of cable TV killed it "It was at that time that we began a $2 million modernization of our building and facilities." Living in St. Louis has reawakened Midwestern values that Viands said he'd nearly forgotten. "Learning about the city has been pure pleasure," said the general manager. "I go to all the neighborhood celebrations Bevo Day, chili cookoffs, barbecues in Ladue, parties on The Hill, the Strassenfest. I get the newspaper's Calendar section and plan my weekends around what's going on.

"I see practically all the Steamers and Blues games, and football and a lot of baseball. And parades! You know, parades aren't fashionable in some cities anymore, but St Louis has them for every occasion, and I'm always in the crowd. "I've had to put my golf on the back burner in order to get to know the city, but there'll be time later on. St Louis has all the advantages of New York, with none of the disadvantages." DEAR HELOISE: Because I do a lot of sewing on many different kinds of fabrics and realize the importance of using the right needle in the sewing machine, I must remember what I am using. I have the needle sizes marked in the storage package with removable, stick-on labels.

When I remove a certain size needle, I also remove the label and place it on the machine. In this way, if I change fabric, I always know what size needle is in the machine without having to try to read the tiny markings. Eureka! No ripples, no skipped stitches just neat, even sewing. DEAR HELOISE: My children are scattered all over the United States. They are forever calling me for someone's birthday or anniversary, so I came up with this solution.

I bought each one a new calendar and marked all the important dates of our immediate family on it. They in turn add the dates they want to remember for their own families. These calendars are one of their presents for Christmas or the beginning of the year. Since I started this nearly three years ago, there have been no forgotten birthdays or late anniversary cards. An amazing feat in a large family, but it works.

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