Byron J. Openshaw
1918-1996
Biographical Information:
Byron J. Openshaw was born on April 18, 1918. Until 1958 when he joined station KUED, he worked at many commercial stations including KSL Radio (Salt Lake City, UT) as an announcer (1942, 1945-1948), experimental station W6XIS (later KDYL) as a production manager (1948-1950), and KSL-TV as a producer-director (1950-1958).
Openshaw began his educational broadcasting career on August 1, 1958 when he became KUED's first Program/Production Manager six and one-half months after KUED signed on the air. He has described his first years there as follows:
For the first two or three years, I worked from nine in the morning till eleven at night, except for a short span at home each night to have dinner with my family. I ordered and scheduled programs from the National Education Television and Radio Center, I created programs to be produced and broadcast on KUED. We broadcast one and sometimes two programs live each night for five nights Monday through Friday. I directed many of these myself. I hired cameramen, producers and directors to produce programs, and writers to prepare scripts. I auditioned and hired talent to appear on camera, and I even scheduled the engineers to run the on-air operation. Periodically I attended staff meetings, prepared reports and met with the University of Utah's Television Committee, of which I was a member. And each quarter, I taught a class either in television programming or production, with a two week TV workshop each summer. Everyone at KUED was equally involved because we all had a commitment to make educational television work.*
While at KUED, Openshaw served as Executive Producer for many network programs and series for PBS and its predecessor, NET. He was a charter organizer of two television networks--the Western Educational Network, and the Pacific Mountain Network--and served as an advisor to PBS for several years on the Program Managers Evaluation Committee and the Long Range Planning Committee. After 25 years as director of programming, Openshaw retired from KUED in 1983.
Openshaw received the Ohio State University programming award and the Phi Delta Kappa Distinguished Service to Education Award.
Byron J. Openshaw died on July 5, 1996.
*Source: Autobiography written by Byron Openshaw and given to his children. Used with permission from David Openshaw.
