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The first voice of Fort Wayne television
On the record
Hilliard Gates was born Hilliard Gates Gudelsky in Muskegon, Michigan, on December 14, 1915, and began broadcasting at WKBZ in Muskegon in 1936. He moved to Fort Wayne in 1940 to work at WOWO for seventeen dollars a week, and he stayed for the rest of his life. During the Second World War he served in the Army Air Corps at Baer Field while continuing at WOWO part time. In November 1947 he helped launch WKJG radio as its general manager, and he was the radio voice of the Fort Wayne Pistons until the team left in 1957; on March 2, 1951, he broadcast the first NBA All-Star Game for the Mutual network. On November 21, 1953, he signed WKJG-TV on the air — the first words ever broadcast on Fort Wayne television — and served as the station's vice president, general manager, and sports director into the late 1970s — station manager Helen Meyer testified that he was discharged on 1 November 1977 over a $50-a-month car allowance; Gates himself said he was asked to leave in 1979 — and he then did sports at WOWO and WANE-TV until retiring in 1990. He hosted Gatesway to Sports, called Milan High School's "Miracle" state championship in 1954, and played the announcer again in the 1986 film Hoosiers. He was named Indiana Sportscaster of the Year seven times, was in 1969 the first broadcaster inducted into the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame, and entered the Indiana Journalism Hall of Fame in 2018. The arena at the city's university was named the Hilliard Gates Sports Center.
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- § 06 — people of the record · famous-people supplement
Sources: Indiana Journalism Hall of Fame (biography; the November 21 death date is theirs — one cemetery-derived listing gives November 20); Muskegon Area Sports Hall of Fame.