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Watch News Footage Of KERA's First Day Of Operation In 1960

WFAA
/
Via SMU's film and video collection
KERA Channel 13 went on the air in late 1960 with a limited schedule of programs for teachers and students. It was the "Little Red Schoolhouse of the air."

The folks at the G. William Jones Film & Video Collection at Southern Methodist University unearthed a bit of historic KERA footage on Sunday.

The archival team is in the process of digitizing all of the films from WFAA, and it had a request come in for early 1960s SMU football footage, said curator Jeremy Spracklen. While searching for that, Spracklen on Sunday found footage of the first day of operation at KERA almost 60 years ago.

“A lot of our finds are like that. Our best previous find was when we were looking for Christmas parade footage from 1960 and found Jack Ruby in the crowd,” Spracklen said in an email Monday.

Spracklen says it appears WFAA was doing a story on KERA’s launch.

“I am guessing that this was a little last-minute prep before going live,” he said.

He can’t say when the footage aired exactly, but the date was sometime in September of 1960.

Watch the clip below. And learn more about KERA’s history here.