Indiana Broadcast History Archive

Howard "Tommy" Longsworth

Photo Courtesy Indiana Broadcast Pioneers

Howard "Tommy" Longsworth was born in 1909 to a pig farming family in Van Wert County, Ohio. After the Longsworth family’s livestock was plagued with Cholera, the business was ruined and Longsworth Senior picked up a job with the railroad, moving the family from their small Ridge Township farm in Ohio to Fort Wayne, Indiana. 

Tommy Longsworth stayed back in Ohio for one year before moving out of state to be with his parents. During that year, Tommy Longsworth stayed with a doctor and his wife where he helped with the house and office work. 

He accounts his first memories with radio broadcasting down to just a few stations; outside of St. Louis, Detroit, New York, Los Angeles, New Orleans and one in Kansas City, Missouri which broadcasted from a prison. Before his family secured a radio set themselves, Longsworth would go over to friends’ houses or the local drug store to listen. Radio at the time was still very trivial, but Longsworth was captivated by the new technology. The first radio set the Longsworth family got had headphones. Tommy Longsworth recalls placing the headphones into a bowl to amplify the sound to two or three listeners. 

Tommy Longsworth went on to work 60 hours a week at Perfection Biscuit Company after he graduated high school. With 12-hour late night shifts Monday through Friday with a wage of about $12.50 a week, Longsworth decided he didn’t want to continue his career that way. 

Longsworth started working with musicians and performers who played for entertainment, which ultimately led him to radio broadcasting; WOWO Fort Wayne. With the radio station, Longsworth got involved with one band in particular called Earl Gardner, nicknamed “band with a million friends,” who would play for commercials. 

It was the Great Depression and there wasn’t much money to be made in radio besides commercials. Outside of Earl Gardner, Longsworth also played with Fred Tangeman, Maury Cross, and Dick Galbreath for the group called “The Kroger Country Club” which played about three times a week.  It was the first commercial program that Kroger ever put on the air, and the first commercial for Longsworth that came with a contract and a guaranteed amount of payment. Mary Berghoff, a Fort Wayne socialite, was the vocalist. 

The radio work at WOWO was very trial-and-error and very little of it was planned. At the time, there weren’t any sound effects for commercials. Longsworth would bark for the Wayne Dog Food programming and would get paid for it – he recalls that as a highlight of his career. 

As it was the Great Depression, Tommy Longsworth would come and go at WOWO. At one time when he had left, Longsworth would travel with big bands, he calls the time the “big band era.” He worked in places like Savannah, Cleveland, and Saratoga Springs. 

When Longsworth returned to WOWO, the station had been purchased by Westinghouse and he was hired as the staff musician. Longsworth said that move was the best thing to happen for the station. Under Westinghouse, popular programs were revamped like “Hoosier Hop” which became a nationally broadcast network show, which Longsworth was a regular performer on. Westinghouse was even the first station to broadcast a cigarette announcement. 

During Longsworth’s time with WOWO, he worked with notable personalities like Eldon Campbell, Steve Conley, W.C. Swartely, Franklin Tooke, and Carl Vandagrift. 

Longsworth worked as the music librarian and even worked in radio sales before retiring in 1972. Longsworth passed away on February 26, 2022. 

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By Grace Romine

Information obtained from "In the Public Interest: Oral Histories of Hoosier Broadcasters" and Indiana Broadcast Pioneers