First female radio announcer broke barriers

On May 15, 1970 Misty Fincher finally got her first good night’s sleep since a tornado tore through Lubbock four days earlier

Moda Fincher, the little girl who grew up to be the first female radio announcer in the Lone Star State and, some say, the whole country, spent her early years in a tiny settlement called Bronte. The original inhabitants wanted to call their new home in the wide-open spaces of West Texas “Bronco,” but the postal authorities said that name was taken. So the town founder, who doubled as the doctor, came up with “Bronte” in honor of his favorite novelist – Emily Bronte. His neighbors, however, had the last word choosing to pronounce it “brahnt.”

Fearing they might not survive the Depression in a windswept place with less than a thousand people and limited economic opportunities, the Finchers moved Moda and her sisters the 160 miles north to Lubbock.

I did not know before researching the life of Moda “Misty” Fincher for this column that she went to school with my own mother! Clearly that was the case because they both were in the 1941 graduating class of Lubbock High School.

Moda, as she was still known, had not given up on her childhood dream of someday being the voice on the radio. She had fond memories of the nights she spent playing pretend announcer with a microphone fashioned from a soup can and a sawed-off broom stick.

Before she could figure out a way to break into the exclusive male preserve of radio, Moda toured the country with the all-girl Billye Gale Band. With a husky voice easily mistaken for a man’s in a dimly lit nightclub, she was the vocalist and self-taught drummer.

It was a fun five years, but by the early Fifties Moda was ready to pursue her lifelong ambition of a career in radio. She got her foot in the door at station KXOL-AM in Fort Worth filing albums and pulling wire reports for the sports director, but regularly reminded the manager of her burning desire to get on the air.

That was “a real thigh-slapper,” Moda recalled years later.

Then out of the blue on Mar. 5, 1955 she was handed the keys to the midnight-to-six am shift. The job came with no days off and a weekly paycheck of $40, starvation wages even for the Fifties.

Twenty-nine-year-old Moda jumped at the chance to be an honest-to-goodness deejay and even agreed to the on-air pseudonym of “The Frontier Gal.” She also had to abide by the silly but strict rule of always wearing a black Lone Ranger mask when out in public.

Not long after her promotion, Moda met the first of a long list of celebrated performers. Fame was, in fact, a few years down the road for an aspiring singer from Nashville who had come to Denton to study music at North Texas State. But Moda would always say she knew Pat Boone when.

In 1956 an AM station in Lubbock offered her a better deal for the same night owl hours. No more working seven nights a week. She got two days off and a pay boost to $75 a week.

She found her niche as well as a new name with an easy-listening format entitled “Music With Misty.” While at KDUB-AM later KBFM, Lubbock’s first FM station, she began a two-decade association with the annual Jerry Lewis telethon.

Misty had recently relocated to KLBK-AM, when the tornado that was the subject of last week’s column brought death and destruction to her hometown. The terrible twister struck during her nightly show, and she refused to relinquish the microphone at the end of her shift. In the well-founded belief that her calm and soothing words could reassure her audience, she stayed at her post for the next 26 hours.

When KLBK switched to hard rock after dark in 1974, the popular radio personality unexpectedly ended up unemployed. Unable to find a new home for Misty music, she spent the rest of the Seventies in Midland doing whatever came her way.

Misty went back to Lubbock to stay in the early Eighties. She worked on and off at different stations for a couple of years before deciding the time had come to take it easy.

In 1999 an innovative new station operating out of Lubbock’s Depot District constructed an old-style studio just for Misty. Enticed out of retirement at 75, “the little old lady” in her trademark dark glasses arrived each night carrying the vinyl records she had selected from her personal collection of 15,000 to entertain her loyal listeners.

Two months before her death in December 2006 at the age of 82, Moda “Misty” Fincher was inducted into the Texas Radio Hall of Fame. Among the many mourners were 30 great-great nieces and nephews in addition to her three Chihuahuas Sandy, Mandy and Candy.

Save $5.00 on “Depression-Era Desperadoes,” “Texas Boomtowns,” “Murder Most Texan,” “Unforgettable Texans” and “Texas Entertainers.” Mail your check for $19.00 each to Bartee Haile, P.O. Box 130011, Spring, TX 77393.