Sharing My Story

In early November 1971 I packed up my trusty 1969 Dodge Dart
(a college graduation present from my folks) and heading down
Interstate 10 to my new work at Arrowhead Springs the
Headquarters of Campus Crusade. I probably stopped on
the way to visit brother LeRoy and his family in Portland,
Oregon and stopped again in Grants Pass, Oregon (stayed
with my great uncle Alvin Bailey) overnight before arriving
in San Bernardino.

When I got there I was assigned to the tape duplication section
of the Audiovisual Dept. Bill Knop a tall, lanky former minister
was the head of the tape dup area and the area specialized in
producing lecture tapes on reel to reel and cassette tapes which
becoming very popular at the time. The cassettes were made on
a large AmPex duplication machine that made 15 dups at a time
in 10 minutes. The original tapes were made at Central Record,
a small recording studio, that was located in the Arrowhead Springs
hotel and could record discussions, sermons and talks in all of the
lecture rooms and halls on Arrowhead campus. After the talks were
recorded a master tape was made that was used to edit out all the
distracting noise from the original. The master tape is was used to
make duplicates from. Since Campus Crusade had many speakers
and teachers and the demand for the recordings was large especially
among the staff and students who attended the lectures a good-sized
staff was kept been recording duplication and mailing these tapes.
I know that I personally listened of many of these tapes again and again.

I personally was involved in the tape duplication area but never
got involved in the recording or editing aspects of the department.
Here is an excerpt from my December 1971 newsletter.
"I am thankful for the work at headquarters that I am engaged in.
I have been very busy learning the "tricks of the trade" as it were.
I have been specially working at labeling cassettes and reel tapes,
checking, erasing, packaging, and mailing tapes (both for purchases
and the lending Library) and also have been duplicating reel tapes.
I have also been involved in redoing the master tape catalog that
will help speed up orders. Soon our tape mass production will be
speeded up considerable. We will get a duplicator that will produce
15 cassettes every 10 minutes. Our present duplicator makes only 4
at a time. As it was the first week I arrived I worked we got out over
2400 tapes in orders mailed. This ministry is rapidly expanding now
and will virtually explode after Explo '72. God is working by His Spirit
through these tapes in the lives of people." Other people that I met
there was Steve Rentz (who came on staff at the same time as myself
and arrived earlier) a real go getter who fairly soon left the Audiovisual
Dept. for more Administrative work. Others included Dave Bruce,
one of the recorders and editors, Brad Basham, who mailed the CCC films
and Brian Webb who was a tall friendly Texan who was
Chuck Younkman's assistant. Another one who came on staff at the
same time was Gene Frink, a former school teacher who wrote
course curriculum. Charlotte Smith was Chuck Younkman's pretty
secretary and a heart breaker. Yes, campus romances were as rampant
as you might think in a population largely composed of single
twenty somethings.

The Audiovisual department also had an artist, Johnny Meitz,
a slender mustashed Ohioan, an excellent cartoonist who drew
the Good News Glove evangelistic children's comic book and
also produced overhead transparencies for Campus Crusade
lecturers. Johnny was also a falconer who later who a book on
hawks and falcons under the named of Johnny Hawk.