George Dewey Hay
May 8, 1968 (aged 72)
American
The Solemn Old Judge
Radio Personality/announcer/newspaper reporter and writer
Grand Ole Opry founder and member
Early newspaper and radio career[edit]
Hay was born in Attica, Indiana, United States.[1] In Memphis, Tennessee, after World War I, he was a reporter for the Commercial Appeal.[1] While on a reporting assignment in Mammoth Spring, Arkansas in 1919, Hay was invited to a hoedown in a local cabin.[3] There, a fiddle player, a guitar player, and a banjo player performed until dawn.[3] Hay was impressed, and that planted the seed for his later efforts.[3] When the newspaper launched its own radio station, WMC, in January 1923, he became a late-night announcer at the station.[1] His popularity increased and in May 1924 he left for WLS in Chicago, where he served as the announcer on a program that became National Barn Dance.[1]
Newspaper, announcing, touring and film appearance[edit]
During the 1930s, he was involved with Rural Radio, one of the first magazines about country music, developing the Opry for NBC and working on the movie Grand Ole Opry (1940). He was an announcer with the radio show during the 1940s and toured with Opry acts, including the September 1947 Opry show at Carnegie Hall.[1] He was featured in Hoosier Holiday, a 1945 film from Republic Pictures, in a cast that also included Dale Evans.
Publication and legacy[edit]
In 1945, Hay wrote A Story of the Grand Ole Opry,[2][6] and he became an editor of Nashville's Pickin’ and Singin’ News in 1953. He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1966.[2]
Death[edit]
Hay moved to Virginia Beach, Virginia, where he died in 1968. He was interred at Forest Lawn Cemetery on 8100 Granby Street, Norfolk, Virginia 23505.[2]