R.I.P.: Bob Hille, Pioneer In St. Louis Radio/TV

Bob Hille

Veteran St. Louis radio/TV personality Robert E. Hille died of complications from an infection on Sunday (Nov. 23, 2014) at St. Mary’s Health Center in Richmond Heights, his family said Tuesday.

He was 95-years-of-age and lived in Webster Groves, MO., according to stltoday.com.

Bob Hille was one of the original announcers on radio station KXOK in 1938. In 1951, a few years after television arrived in St. Louis, viewers also found him on KSD (Channel 5), later KSDK-TV.
For a time, he did the 10 p.m. news on both the radio and the TV station.

He spent three decades as a pioneering newscaster here and became one of St. Louis’ best-known on-the-air personalities.

Hille said he got his start in radio the old-fashioned way — he knew somebody.

He was a former classmate of the publisher of the old St. Louis Star-Times. When Mr. Hille learned that the newspaper was starting its own radio station, he applied. As a student announcer, he didn’t see a paycheck for nearly half a year.

Hille said KXOK started with an impressive staff with a full studio orchestra and a classical quartet that included a young man named “Eddie” Arnold, who went on to become the famous country singer.

Another big talent was a young man named Paul Aurandt, who later went by the name “Paul Harvey.”

After World War II started, Mr. Hille enlisted as a private and later applied for officer candidate school. He became aide to a general who commanded the Panama Canal. He left the Army as a major and returned to St. Louis and the radio station.

Radio was live then, and announcers often read news straight off the wire. Mr. Hille trained himself to look five or six lines ahead of where his mouth was. “I made very few mistakes,” he said.