Remember When?

1975 – California Group to Purchase KVLG

Dec. 9-12, 1975

Lloyd Kolbe announced the sale of La Grange radio stations KVLG AM and KVLG FM to a group of California investors, pending approval by the Federal Communications Commission. That review could take up to 90 days. The new owners said they would operate the stations under the name Riverside Broadcasting Co. The group’s Victor Armstrong of San Francisco planned to move to La Grange as station manager. Armstrong had owned four other radio stations during his broadcasting career. KVLG went on the air in 1959. Lloyd Kolbe came to La Grange as an announcer in 1962 after Vernon Nunn purchased the station. He acquired one-fourth interest in the station in 1965 and the remaining three-fourths in 1968. He added the FM station in 1971.At the time he announced the pending sale, Kolbe was already producing motion picture documentaries and short features in his new venture, Texas Motion Picture Service. He chartered that business in Austin in 1974. Kolbe planned to maintain the offices for his new firm in La Grange in a building nearing completion on Vail St.

The La Grange Leopards not only surged back into the Class AA football semifinals for the second straight year, but they did so in such a convincing fashion that it left the experts wondering if they were just hitting their season peak. In posting a lopsided 47-0 score at San Antonio’s Northside Stadium, the Leps not only defeated but practically demolished the outgunned Hebbronville Longhorns. La Grange senior tailback and safety Johnnie Johnson played the game of his career, running 18 times for 180 yards, scoring three touchdowns and running back four punts for 95 yards.

The fantastic Falls City offense, which had scored 472 points in 12 games, met its Waterloo at Luling on Friday night when the embattled Schulenburg Shorthorns staved off a touchdown until the final two minutes, and then broke up the running play that might still have meant victory for the Beavers. As a result, Schulenburg came out ahead, 7-6, clearing a huge hurdle in advancing to the Class A semifinals. Chris Cernosek and Willie Mathews in the front five, Neal Richter at linebacker and Jackie Machac and Edward Moore in the secondary, headed the all-out effort that limited the Beavers to 203 total yards and kept them totally off-balance until their final scoring drive.

Four Houston people miraculously escaped with only minor injuries when their single-engine airplane flipped over on its back after striking telephone cables as it was landing at Guenther Field on Thursday evening. Coming in from the north on its runway approach, the Cessna 201 went under Fayette Electric Cooperative’s lines but slammed into phone cables mounted on the same poles. After flipping, the aircraft skidded upside down across Hwy. 71, receiving extensive damage. A 1971 Chevrolet pick-up loaded with welding and other equipment that was stolen in Austin on Tuesday morning was recovered by Fayette County sheriff’s officers here shortly before noon the same day. Deputy Sheriff Vastine Koopmann related that the department had a call from an employee at the Dr. Michael R. Wirtz farm near Prairie Valley about a suspicious truck cruising around the river bottom. Officers went to the scene, apprehended the Houston driver and retrieved the truck, which had been taken from Van’s Supply Company in Austin.

A total of 1.313 Fayette County farmers and farm operators, representing 19% of the 6,963 mailed ballots, voted in the 1976 Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service committee elections. The highest vote-getters were: Reuben Coufal, Fayetteville; Frank Branecky, Flatonia-Cistern; Elmo Minzenmeyer, La Grange; and Howard Fuchs, Round-Top Carmine.

Architects Edward Mattingly and Graham Luhn opened an office at 104 S. Main in La Grange for the practice of architecture, planning and building restoration. For Mattingly, a native of La Grange and a graduate of La Grange High School, the new office was not only a homecoming but the fulfillment of a dream of many years. He had practiced in Houston for the previous 25 years, engaging in residential, commercial and industrial projects ranging from Canada to Venezuela. Locally, he designed La Grange City Hall, Fayette Electric Cooperative’s building and the Giddings State Home.

The Most Rev. Vincent M. Harris of Austin was officiating at the dedication services for St. John’s Catholic Church’s new education building in Fayetteville. The new building, constructed of brick and stone, contained approximately 3,600 square feet. Clovis Heimsath Associates, Inc. of Fayetteville and Houston was the architect and Alvin Minarcik of Fayetteville the general contractor. The new structure stood on the site of the old St. John’s Church.

The children of Mr. and Mrs. Willie Coufal Sr. of Fayetteville honored their parents with a dinner on the occasion of their 63rd wedding anniversary on Nov. 22 at the Knights of Columbus Hall in Fayetteville. Mr. Coufal and Louise Slovacek were married on Nov. 21, 1912, by the late Rev. Juren.

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