The Short Happy Life
of Station Ham ‘n Eggs
In the fledgling world of radio broadcasting, Hazen’s Station Ham ‘n Eggs was not among the giants that boomed their messages across the land, but on a clear Sunday afternoon it was sometimes heard as far away as Dickinson and Makoti.
Its name reflected Frank Wernli’s sense of humor. The technology was the product of Leonard Wohlfeil, in those days a young Wernli Motors mechanic-electrician who had a special flair for electronics.
Fellow employees contributed money to buy equipment; Wohlfeil cobbled it together, and Wernli became chief announcer and master of ceremonies. In today’s parlance he was a “talk-show host” – of sorts.
There was nothing formal about the Ham ‘n Eggs approach to broadcasting. On a typical Sunday afternoon Wohlfeil would spin a few discs in the attic of the Wernli Motors building, while Wernli worked the street, soliciting talent for the microphone in the lobby of the Thorson Hotel, a couple of doors south.
The talent pool consisted largely of local teenagers who casually strolled back and forth in front of the hotel hoping for their big break. Screening was not a precise art. A willing monotone was as likely to be accepted as a reluctant coloratura.
Wohlfeil recalls that on occasion people would drive in from as far away as Killdeer for a chance to get on the air. Often, however, it was up to Wernli to fill the time, a chore he thoroughly enjoyed.
A dedication might go to Ferdinand Rahn, and Wernli would improvise a song in what is sometimes known as Hazen German: “Du, Du, liegst Mir im Herzen; Du, Du, liegst Mir im Sinn; Wen die Ente Schinklen geschmoked sind; Shick Mir etliche hin.” (Roughly translated: “You are in my heart, you are in my mind. When the duck hams are smoked, send me some.”)
Such classics, rendered in Wernli’s fine bass voice, not only produced laughs and listeners, it also resulted in some smoked delicasies for the Ham ‘n Eggs staff.
Wohlfeil recalls that on occasion the microphone would be installed in the Mars Theater across the street from Wernli’s and that at least once he and Wernli were entertained with choice local gossip as Hazen matrons toiled in preparation for a home town production, unaware of an open mike.
Local legend has it that the Federal Communications Commission finally forced the station off the air, but it wasn’t quite like that according to Wohlfeil.
“We got application forms from the FCC and decided it was too much trouble to fill them out and to comply with their rules,” he recalls.
So, sometime in 1929, after about a year and a half of broadcasting, Station Ham ‘n Eggs went off the air and into oblivion.
In 1986 Leonard Wohlfeil, founder, engineer, and chief announcer of Station Ham 'n Eggs, poses with the microphone that remains as the sole remnant of Hazen's first and only radio station.