Having a voice often described as "golden" by his teachers, colleagues, family and friends, Pat Wilkins spent the majority of his career working as both a radio and television news anchor and reporter in the state of Oregon. But a brief time spent in Hawaii as KHON news anchor and news director during the late 1960s provided a memorable experience for him.
Wilkins, who turned 84 this month, was born in western Nebraska, near the town of Gordon. When Wilkins was 8 years old his family left Nebraska and headed west with stops in Northern California and Southern Oregon. "My parents migrated to Oregon in 1935 to escape the dust bowl and ruin of the Great Depression, "said Wilkins.
Soon after graduating from Klamath Union High in Klamath Falls, Ore., Wilkins enlisted in the U.S. Army and was a member of the occupation forces in Japan during World War II. After being discharged from the service in 1948, he decided to pursue a career in broadcasting.
After finishing radio school at the Broadcasters Network Studios in Hollywood, Calif., he was hired to work at a radio station, KELP in El Paso, Texas. He gained a great deal of experience with a job that included everything from newscaster and program director to disc jockey and station janitor. In 1962, Wilkins made the jump to television as one of the first news anchors for Portland’s KATU station, where he worked for five years.
In 1967, then-KHON General Manager George Hagar was looking for a news anchor and director. The late Dick Desmond, who had worked in Portland, recommended Wilkins.
Wilkins accepted the job and was surprised by the KHON newsroom upon his arrival. "What a shock it was; a cramped room about the size of a master bedroom-bathroom, with a lone dim light bulb hanging a few feet down, suspended on a frayed cord," he said. "And there was a tiny chemical bath machine chugging away in a corner developing a hundred-foot roll of film."
The KHON on-air staff was small in 1967. Desmond was Wilkins co-anchor, Bob Devine reported, Ray Sweeney handled sports and Marsha (Fried) Bohnett did the weather.
Wilkins covered the Molokai-to-Oahu race in October 1967. "This event was memorable because actor Richard Boone had volunteered his boat to be one of the accompanying power craft," Wilkins said. "The day of the race, Boone invited me aboard for the crossing to Honolulu. I had to decline because I had to be in Honolulu to film the arrival of the winning crew and took a helicopter back to Oahu to be in time."
Wilkins said traveling to Kalaupapa on Molokai to report on the sufferers of Hansen’s disease and covering Duke Kahanamoku’s memorial services, which included a police motorcade to the beach for scattering of Duke’s ashes, were memorable moments in his career.
In 1968, Wilkins decided to return home to Oregon. "The fact that I was far removed from my family and kids tugged at me," said Wilkins.
Wilkins returned to KATU in Portland where he spent many years as an on-the-road reporter covering human-interest stories. In the 1980s while working at KATU, Wilkins worked with longtime local newscaster Dalton Tanonaka and a then-unknown Bill O’Reilly.
Wilkins retired in 1990, but has kept busy. He authored four books about Oregon and is working on a fifth book, "Perfect Dog Tales: And Stories of Other Remarkable Animals."
For more than a decade he has been a columnist and book critic for the West Side Newspaper in Salem, Ore., where he now lives.
Despite his brief time spent here, he fell in love with the beauty and history of the islands. Wilkins said: "I enjoyed much of my stay in Hawaii. I did love the magnificent scenery of the islands, the warm ocean water, the great sand beaches and its history of being settled by Polynesian adventurers. With the exception of Kahoolawe and Niihau, I visited all of the islands of Hawaii either covering news or just to sightsee."
A.J. McWhorter, a collector of film and videotape cataloging Hawaii’s TV history, has worked as a producer, writer and researcher for both local and national media. Email him at flashback@hawaii.rr.com.
