SHREVEPORT, La. — Long before Miss Rachel, Barney, or even Sesame Street, KTBS brought the magic of children’s programming to local viewers with a show called Romper Room.
Airing in the late 1950s and ’60s, the live broadcast helped shape childhood memories across the ArkLaTex.
As part of KTBS’s 70th anniversary celebration, veteran reporter Rick Rowe took viewers on a nostalgic journey through the station’s early years, starting with a beloved local version of Romper Room hosted by Miss Barbara.
“She was pretty — you can see it in the pictures — with that red lipstick,” Rowe said. “We loved her.”
Romper Room was more than entertainment; it was early education. Children were taught to be “good Do Bees” and avoid being “bad Do Bees,” a message that stuck with viewers like Mary Jo and Robert Brown decades later.
Of course, not all the memories were gentle ones. KTBS also made room for Saturday morning wrestling, featuring colorful characters like Skandar Akbar, Hacksaw Jim Duggan and the towering Ernie Ladd. The same studio that hosts today’s newscasts once echoed with the roars of crowds watching Cowboy Bill slap Jim Cornett or Dr. Death hurl a referee out of the ring.
The station also offered talent and toy shows like Tops for Toys and The Hub Brando Search for Talent, KTBS’s version of America’s Got Talent long before it hit network TV.
One of the biggest hits? The Lawrence Welk Show. Its popularity in Shreveport was so immense, Welk himself visited the studio, dancing the night away just feet from where today’s weather forecasts are delivered.
Weather has long been part of KTBS’s personality, too. Longtime viewers will remember Charles Middleton, a retired Air Force meteorologist, and his successor, John Rasmussen — a preacher-turned-weatherman known for flipping his weatherboard and surprising viewers with celebrity cameos from the likes of Jimmy Dean and Ginger Rogers.
“We’ve come a long way from that tiny newsroom I first saw in the summer of ’75,” Rowe reflected. “KTBS made a young man’s dream come true — and gave hundreds of us a chance to earn a living, feed a family, and make some memories hard to forget.”
As the station marks seven decades on the air, those memories — from red-lipsticked teachers to ringside brawls — remind us why local television still matters.
