Jack Kilby Weekend — October 12-14, 2001
Great Bend, Kansas
Kilby's accomplishments traced to a Kansas blizzard in 1938
A neighbor's radio began his interest in electronics
A Kansas blizzard changed Jack Kilby’s life in ways that he would never dream. What if the blizzard of January, 1937 never hit Western Kansas? Would Kilby have still invented the microchip and launched a microelectronics revolution?
The blizzard on January 7-8, 1937 April 7-8, 1938 knocked out power and telephone lines across the western half of Kansas. Jack Kilby’s Dad, Hubert S. Kilby, was President of Kansas Power Company, which had its headquarters in Great Bend, and which owned many power plants in the affected area. The ice storm crippled communication. Kilby’s Dad couldn’t use the telephone, as the lines were down, and the severe weather prevented him from traveling to the other power plants.
Kilby’s Dad used a local ham radio operator, Roy Evans, to communicate with the other power plants around the state. According to Roy Evan's daughter, Mrs. Cleat Walters of Great Bend, her father was the first Great Bender to take up ham radio. "He was self-taught, and he had a small radio shack behind our house at 12th and Monroe. He was like a genius," she said recently. Jack Kilby and his father visited the radio shack behind the Evans family home several times during the blizzard.
60 years later Jack Kilby warmly recalled how Roy Evans helped his Dad during the blizzard. In a letter to Roy Evan’s grandson, physicist Dr. Donald L. Walters, Jack Kilby wrote: "Roy (Evans) was able to contact other amateurs and set up communications with the power company managers. I used to go over with Dad for these talks. It was my first contact with the ham community. This was a major influence on me...This was certainly the beginning of my interest in electronics. It convinced me that I wanted to study Electrical Engineering."
Following the blizzard, Jack Kilby built his own ham radio set, and became hooked on electronics. In addition to Evans, Kilby mentioned Charles Larkin and Charley Girton as local ham radio operators who helped him learn the tricks of the trade.
Roy Evans grandson, Dr. Donald H. Walters, still has the original receiver, a 1933 National FB-7, used by his grandfather when he assisted Jack Kilby’s father during the blizzard. Walters recently received his amateur radio license and received his grandfather’s old call sign----W9DKI. Sadly, the small radio shack at 12th and Monroe was torn down years ago.
Did a small radio shack in a backyard at 12th and Monroe in Great Bend change the history of the world? Yes, it did. The blizzard of 1938 and the ham radio in that shack inspired Jack Kilby to study electrical engineering, and his microchip built in 1958 profoundly changed the history of the world.
Local historian Karen Neuforth discovered an April 8, 1938 article in the Great Bend Tribune which describes the heroics of the ham radio operators in relation to the blizzard. The article can be viewed by clicking here. Although the date of the blizzard is often reported as 1937, Neuforth discovered that the blizzard was actually in 1938.