Darrell E. Wible papers

Darrell E. Wible began his career in broadcasting in 1949, when he got a job at WBIW in Bedford, Indiana. He was paid $33.90 a week. In 1951, he was hired as the sports director at WBOW in Terre Haute, Indiana where he broadcast a 15-minute daily sports program opposite Lowell Thomas. Wible received his Master's degree from Indiana State University in 1952.

Wible began broadcasting from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and a weekly column for The Saturday Spectator newspaper in Terre Haute, Indiana in 1953 and 1954 respectively. In 1955, he originated qualifications for the 500 Mile Race for the first time in Terre Haute broadcast history, as well as broadcast his first season of professional baseball in the Three-I League. He moved to WTHI in Terre Haute where he served as sports director, news director, account executive and director of radio in 1957. As director of radio, he was responsible for 26 percent increase in gross local sales during his first 12 months and the highest monthly profit in the station's 10-year history. In 1962, Wible's radio fishing program, The Sportsman's Club, moved to primetime television, marking the beginning of a nearly twenty year run. In 1964, a year after embarking upon Ohio State University’s doctoral program, Wible became the trackside announcer for the international MCA telecast of Indianapolis 500, a position he held through 1966.

Darrell E. Wible began his career at ball State University when he became the first faculty member hired for the Center for Radio, Television, and Motion Pictures. In 1968, Wible received his Ph.D. from Ohio State University. Wible completed The Indiana Report, an exhaustive research project on radio-TV studies offered by universities, in 1975. He sent questionnaires to more than 100 Indiana commerical broadcasters, visited more than 50 Indiana stations, interviewed top to lower management and shot hundreds of photographs. Broadcasting magazine featured the results and more than 100 universities requested copies. As a result, David Smith was hired to create and supervise an internship program, becoming Ball State's liaison with Indiana broadcasters. In 1977, he was invited to be trackside announcer on worldwide Indianapolis Motor Speedway Radio Network, continuing through 1980 with a distinguished staff of Indiana broadcasters. In cooperation with David Letterman, Wible helped create Letterman Telecommunications Scholarship in 1985. The following year, he wrote and produced The Burton Story, a 40-minute documentary about WLBC founder Don Burton. The program is in the Indiana State Museum Hall of Fame display and the National Broadcasters Pioneer Hall of Fame in Washington. In 1989, Wible established WCRD, student-run carrier-current radio station. He retired as professor emeritus of telecommunications in 1999.

After his retirement from Ball State University, Wible remained active in the telecommunications community. In 1997, he produced four-CD jewel case with booklet from play-by-play basketball in Vigo County, Indiana during the 1950s and 1960s. He completed the manuscripts for two monographs, The Letterman Gang and Memoirs of an Indiana Broadcaster: 1949-1966 in 2003. In September 2003, Wible was inducted into the Indiana Broadcasters Pioneers Hall of Fame. Both manuscripts were published in 2006. In 2008, Wible was named "Sagamore of the Wabash" by Governor, Mitch Daniels, and is the State of Indiana's highest honor.

During his career as a broadcast professional and university professor, Wible completed 3,000 remote broadcasts including football, professional and amateur baseball, basketball, harness racing auto racing, golf, man-on-the-street and on-the-spot news including election coverage and taught 300 classes.