Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, October 19, 1994 TAG: 9410190040
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: ROBERT FREIS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG LENGTH: Long
Only the small frame house where his family once lived remains, as if shielded from decay by memory.
There, many years ago, the Kanodes owned the community's only radio, and turned their living room into a Saturday-night lyceum and home-companion for the neighbors.
Eleven-year-old Lewis found his calling on the day he helped his father put up the radio's antenna. He vowed, "When I grow up, I'm going to be on the radio," sister Hazel Hodge recalls.
Kanode proudly carried his roots as a country boy and the son of a second-generation Montgomery County coal miner - and never hesitated to proclaim his heritage, during a high-profile career as a local radio celebrity, music promoter and businessman.
His death Monday prompted many people to recall Kanode's sly corn-pone humor, or the 38 years of Christmas parades in Christiansburg when he dressed up as Santa Claus.
"He liked being a public figure," said his wife, Betty. "He spoke country and was proud of it."
Kanode was good-naturedly informal and imaginative, and as flamboyant as the live rooster he commonly toted into his studio each morning for his 6 a.m. show.
"The only trouble was, the rooster didn't know anything about cues. Just sound off anytime he wanted to - in the middle of a song, or a commercial," Kanode recalled during an interview a few years back. The early bird was replaced with a taped one, but the nickname took feather, advertised by Kanode on his tie clasps and the door of his black Cadillac.
Despite their tears and sorrow, family members filled Kanode's house Tuesday with gales of laughter as they told stories about "Rooster."
Kanode was on a boat steaming for the Pacific as World War II ended. But he came home with a fake newspaper and a headline that blared, "LEWIS KANODE DRAFTED - JAPS RUNS LIKE HELL."
Kanode's love of country and bluegrass music led him to his radio career. In the early 1950s he started and managed bands, played the bass fiddle, announced live, sold-out "barn dances" from Christiansburg's old Glen Theater on radio and became a pioneer among country music disc jockeys.
During those days, local DJs like Kanode helped to create a national appetite for regional musical tastes. He met and interviewed all the early Grand Ole Opry stalwarts, and had a brush with greatness that his wife still laughs about.
"He knew Colonel Tom Parker, Elvis' manager. He met Elvis a couple of times, too, and got his autograph. One time Parker asked him if he'd like to have Elvis on his show. No one knew who Elvis was then, and he said, 'Well, I'll think about it.' By the time he got through thinking about it, Elvis was famous," she said.
Kanode recalled Elvis as "a shy boy who went wild on the stage, moving like a man possessed while he beat on his guitar," said Hodge.
Kanode's radio career spanned a time of change for Montgomery County that saw the tremendous growth of Virginia Tech and Radford University and the arrival of many new residents - some of whom fancied themselves as more sophisticated than the country folk.
"Rooster" loved to needle the college crowd. During the tenure of T. Marshall Hahn, Tech's president in the late '60s and early '70s Kanode would refer to himself on air as "L. Singleton Kanode."
"He was famous for intentionally mispronouncing words. He absolutely relished it if a professor would call him up to correct him. He'd talk about that for weeks," said Kathy Stone, his daughter.
"He always said that country people didn't know the difference and the city people didn't give a damn," she laughed.
Kanode didn't stop performing after he retired from radio about seven years ago, he merely reduced the size of his audience to old friends in Christiansburg or customers who wandered into his furniture and appliance store on North Franklin Street, located beside his house.
Kanode had been visiting with friends in Cambria Monday night, and was apparently walking home along the Norfolk Southern railroad tracks when he was struck by a train and killed.
Family members said a neurological condition had robbed Kanode of most of his eyesight in recent years. Still, he remained stubbornly independent and upbeat.
Just last weekend, Kanode had his daughter Kathy drive him back to Coal Bank Hollow, where "Rooster" had appointed himself on-air as mayor years before.
Each Christmas, "Rooster" would recite his poem, "Christmas Night in Coal Bank Hollow," to his radio listeners. "With the snow up to your collar ... and a big fire in the pot belly stove," Kanode wrote of waiting with his sisters overnight for Santa's arrival.
And this is the way I look back and see/ The first Christmas for Mom, Dad, my sisters and Me/ Black coal and white snow are beautiful to see/ Merry Christmas from Coal Bank Holler and Me!
"He was really, really, really proud of the whole community," said Stone. "He thought growing up where he did gave him an edge."
Keywords:
FATALITY
by CNB