Gordon Hinkley was a 51-year veteran radio and TV personality, spending 42 years at WTMJ-AM, Milwaukee. Hinkley first took to the airwaves in 1941 while still in high school in Wisconsin Rapids with his own weekly piano show on WFHR-AM. He continued his career on Armed Forces Radio while in military service and then served as a morning show host on WSAU-AM, Wausau, in the year prior to his move to WTMJ in 1950. In the mid 1950’s, he served as a radio staff announcer and hosted a live musical variety show and a nightly interview show on WTMJ-TV. In 1961, Hinkley began a 23- year run as host of “Top O’ The Morning”, one of Milwaukee’s most widely listened to wake-up shows. He hosted “Ask Your Neighbor”, a daily call-in show he began in 1961, as well as one of the longest running shows in Wisconsin radio history, “Invitation to Beauty”, a weekly program of light classics and popular music on Sunday mornings he put on the air in 1951. He has been honored for his community service contributions by such groups as the Salvation Army, Make A Wish Foundation, The Medical Society of Wisconsin, Broadcast Pioneers and Badger Chapter of American Women in Radio and Television. In 1988, the Milwaukee School of Engineering conferred upon Hinkley the honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters.
Gordon Hinkley passed away on December 23, 2013.
A wonderful human being. Always positive on the air waves. I think Gordon was the MC for JOE SHOT & THE HOT SHOTS on WTMJ TV. That goes back when I was a kid; and i’m 73. MAY HE REST ETERNALLY WITH GOD’S GRACE AMEN
Yeah my dad worked at wtmj. Back in the 50s the feds forced them to switch to television broadcasting when they were just a radio station. Gordon one time came to my house to borrow dad’s camper trailer. Do you know that Bob Alison in Detroit also started ask your neighbor show. Maybe Gordon was the original?? Quite conservative man Gordon was. A very talented and hard working man that had a sense of humor.
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The Wisconsin Broadcasters Hall of Fame was created in 1989 to honor those broadcasters who have devoted their careers to broadcasting and its development in Wisconsin, to recognize their outstanding service to broadcasting, their communities, and their state, over at least a fifteen-year career in the industry, at least ten of which were served in Wisconsin.The first twelve members of the Hall of Fame were inducted during the 1989 WBA Summer Conference. Inductees are chosen each year from among nominations by WBA members. Broadcasters who have been inducted into the Hall of Fame include managers, personalities, engineers, reporters and those broadcasting pioneers who were at once all of the above.
In October, 1989, Alfred C. Sykes, then Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, came to Wisconsin to formally dedicate a Hall of Fame display, including plaques honoring the inductees, at the State Historical Society of Wisconsin Library in Madison. In 2010, due to remodeling of the SHSW facility, the display was removed. The Hall of Fame exhibit was relocated to the Hilton Milwaukee City Center in 2015 and enhanced with a touchscreen display featuring all inductee commemorative videos.
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