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Columns:There’s
a Little Known Story at Haak’s Vineyard and Winery in Santa Fe
11-3-09The
Big Hurt 10-3-09
Even
though it had come out in 1959, seven years later it remained Number 1 on the
Metropole Club Hit Parade, six plays in succession for a quarter. Its title was
“The Big Hurt.” The
Purity Ice Cream Factory and the Ten O’Clock Valve
9-6-09
Like Blue Bell ice cream, until it closed, Purity was so popular in
Galveston County that few drugstore soda fountains or neighborhood grocery stores
carried any other brand...Johnny
Garcia's Flagship
9-1-09
The Twisted Ironies of the Brantly Harris Recreational PierThere’s
Got to Be More to His “Galveston” Than That Glen Campbell Sings It 7-3-09
If
you know singer Glen Campbell’s real relationship with the island...The
Billionaire Developer: George P. Mitchell
6-1-09
George P. Mitchell was born on Galveston Island 90-years ago May 21st.
And for all 90 of those years, he’s been making history, and with a good portion
of that history he has made life better for other people and for future generations...
Play
Misty For Me - A Reprise
5-4-09
I saw the 1971 Clint Eastwood movie, “Play ‘Misty’ for Me” by accident...
But I quickly knew that the tale had to have been conceived by a late-night disc
jockey...Milton’s
Rosenberg Library 4-3-09Leon
Breeden 3-7-09
The Man from Oklahoma and Jazz: They Brought Academic Notoriety to a Podunk Teachers
College The
Island’s Terrain and Hurricanes
2-4-09
Island visitors often comment on how close together the Victorian homes
are in the East End Historic District. But it wasn’t always that way... I.H.
Kempner, Edmund R. Cheeseborough and Billy Cherry Discuss Politics 12-8-08
Galveston
was in a stark raving fiscal and financial mess, and it started at least ten years
before the 1900 Storm.Balinese
Room Had Two Last Hoorahs 11-1-08Webb
and Yankee Had Different Solutions to the Bank's Move 10-5-08An
Irony of Hurricane Ike 9-15-08Souped
Up '49 Mercury Coupe Caused Island's Most Uncool Event Ever
9-12-08Churches
Have Been Doing Their Best to Mask Financial Troubles 8-3-08Christa
Speck Was the Most Beautiful of All 6-23-08Baytown’s
DJ of the ‘50s, Bill “Rascal” McCaskill, Conducts His “Night Train” Once More
4-10-08How
Sam, Rose and Frank Maceo Created the Fabled Balinese Room 3-6-08The
Oryoku Maru and Lieutenant Walter A. Kelso, Jr.'s Journey 2-18-08No
One Who Truly Knows the Mansion Would Ever Call It The Open Gates
1-23-08Slick
the Shoeshine Man, Sam Maceo and Christmas Eve 1949 12-21-07Teacher
Paul Barbuto’s Lifetime Pursuit Was Always Just to Play in the Band 11-18-07Carolyn
and Sammy, Her Daddy's '52 Ford and the Singer Roy Hamilton 11-2-07Champ
Did His Experiment at the State Theater and in the Name of The Enforcer 9-27-07"Set
'em up, Bascigallupi!" 9-3-07George
Roy Clough Invents Call-in Radio 8-15-07One
Time a Kitten Named Elijah Came to the Passover Seder Table to Bring Wisdom
8-3-07The
Magnificent Montague 7-15-07
He’s
probably one of the most important contributors to American black culture that
has ever lived... At
First Galveston's Stewart Beach Was Called the Riviera of the Gulf 6-30-07The
Strand: A Lingering Shadow of Riches Untold, Whispering Night Bay Breezes
6-16-07
Now
that the battle that made Texas a republic in 1836 had ended, the founders of
Galveston were finally able to get down to the business of building the new city...
Jewish
Immigrants Competed with Galveston's Former Slaves in the Beginning 6-4-07
"When the Jews began temporarily
settling in the Galveston, they were faced with a new problem, one that hadn't
existed in New York and Baltimore and Boston and Philadelphia..." The
Korean War Hero Who Swung the Board of Education at Ball High
5-27-07
Lt. Col. Richard
H. Schiebel
"Wanting to defend one's country, even if it cost you your
life, was something his generation understood...."
Cartwright
5-14-07
Mayor Herbie, His
Time in Jail and the Big Downtown Parade that Followed The
Only Only 5-1-07
He
Was the World's Oldest Trapeze Artist and He Lived in Old No. 25
Stanley
Marcus 4-2-07
Columns
Beginning: April 2007
Copyright William S. Cherry
All rights reserved
| William
Speakman Cherry He
may not have been vaccinated with a phonograph needle, but his middle name proved
to be prophetic.
"Born on the island" of
Galveston in 1940, Bill Cherry became a R & B disc jockey at the tender age of
14, using the nom d'air "Brokenhearted Bill." When he wasn't talking he was writing,
and at 16 he sold his first feature story to a Houston paper. He has since written
for Fortune Magazine, The Houston Business Journal and numerous other Texas
newspapers including The Victoria Advocate, The Dallas Morning News, and
The Galveston County Daily News.
In the late '50s, Cherry was
attending classes at New Orleans' Tulane University while working for AM radio
station WWL. Broadcasting from behind a plate glass window of a French Quarter
furniture store, Cherry was the tuxedo (and short pants) host of Music 'til
Dawn. He also subbed as host for broadcasts from the famous Blue Room of the
Roosevelt Hotel.
In 1961, he married well-known St. Louis classical and
jazz concert pianist and Vogue fashion model, Judy Fosher. They traveled as a
team, each playing different venues. Cherry performed at the piano at such spots
as the St. Louis Playboy Club, New York's Waldorf-Astoria, LA's Beverly Wilshire
Hotel, Chicago's Blackstone Hotel and St. Louis' Chase-Park Plaza Hotel.
Two years after their marriage, Judy died from a heart attack. She was just
24.
In 1964, Bill returned to the University of North Texas for additional
studies and briefly worked as the second manager of KNTU, the school's FM station.
Cherry became a vice president at Houston's Guaranty Federal Savings and
Loan and headed that company's real estate investment company before moving to
Houston's Columbia Communities where he served as vice president of residential
home building. In the mid 70's, Cherry, with partner Steven Jay Rudy, founded
The Old House Company, a Real Estate company specializing in restoring historical
housing and commercial buildings.
For twenty years, Cherry was the historical
real estate consultant for George and Cynthia Mitchell (who developed The Woodlands,
Texas). The Mitchells restored and leased many of Galveston's 19th century cast-iron
buildings in the historic district now widely-known as the Strand.
Cherry
taught finance, economics and investments at Houston's St. Thomas University and
at Galveston College and even did a brief stint as a high school English composition
and debate teacher at Dallas' Thomas Jefferson High.
Cherry's childhood
memories of life on Galveston Island was the basis for his popular column in the
The Galveston County Daily News. The title Bill Cherry's Galveston Memories
was used again when he assembled 60 of his best columns for his first book: The
book's dedication is to his family, teachers and professors who had influenced
him, and to his friend, commedian-musician Steve Allen, who died just before the
book was published.
Bill Cherry's Memories, also
appeared as a series of television features in 2001, for News 24-Houston, where
it was voted the station's most popular feature.
Now living in Dallas
with his wife (a former college sweetheart), Cherry remains busy writing, doing
voice-overs for commercial films, and playing piano for weddings, receptions,
and dinner parties. He remains a real estate consultant and tax arbitrator and
is a highly regarded expert witness for real estate and business trials.
Mr. Cherry was inducted into Texas Radio Hall of Fame in 2005 as a Premier
Member and his radio experience has made him a popular after-dinner speaker.
We are proud to include Mr. Cherry's Galveston Memories as a monthly
feature in Texas Escapes. The abbreviated biography that appears here is paraphased
from his Wikipedia entry. | |
| Bill
Cherry's Galveston Memories |
| | | | |
