Crabbe, John C., 1914-2001

John C. (Crozier) Crabbe, son of Arthur and Louise A. (Wiley) Crabbe, was born on July 3, 1914 in Pomona, California. He attended Modesto (California) College from 1931 to 1934, and then Fresno (California) State College from 1934 to 1936. He finished his Bachelor of Arts degree in theater from the College of the Pacific in 1937 and a MA in 1940. During college, he participated in vaudeville and burlesque theater, mostly as an electrical technician. Crabbe did his postgraduate work at the University of Iowa in 1938, at New York University in 1940, at Stanford University in 1951, and at Ohio State University. On July 17, 1940, he married Bobbin Gay Peck with whom he had three children: John Crozier, William Charles, and Barbara Gay. During World War II, Crabbe served from 1943 to 1946 in the United States Naval Reserve as a lieutenant stationed in Baltimore.
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Crabbe's broadcasting career started on a Fresno, California station reading comics from 1934 to 1935. He then began his career in educational broadcasting while he attended the College of the Pacific, Stockton, California. From 1936 to 1937, he taught and produced radio programs for release on commercial stations. After graduation, Crabbe remained at Pacific as Director of Broadcasting from 1937 to 1958 and as KUOP-FM station manager, having helped put the Stockton, California educational radio station on the air in 1949. This station started as a campus-limited, carrier-current station as part of a laboratory activity. It was student operated except for Crabbe and one chief engineer, and did live productions of music, ballgames, and dramas. Before KUOP started, the College of the Pacific released student class-produced programs through local commercial stations. In addition, he helped organize the first broadcasting curriculum west of the Mississippi in the 1940s.
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During the 1960s and 1970s, Crabbe participated in long-range financing, consulting jobs, and was involved on various educational broadcasting committees and boards. In 1961, along with John Schwarzwalder, he served as a regional consultant on a survey on the need for television channels in education under Title VII of National Defense Education Act. At that time, the Federal Communication Commission's number one priority was to properly allocate television spectrum space. From 1962 to 1964, Crabbe served on the Department Committee of the National Association of Educational Broadcasters. Then, in 1964, he worked as a consultant in broadcasting for RTV International (East Africa) in New York. In 1969, Crabbe was also a member of the interim management group for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting Network Operation. That year, he received the Banner Award from the Theta Sigma Phi National Professional Society for Women in Journalism and Communications for outstanding contributions in the field of communications. Then, from 1969 to 1973, he was a consultant in public broadcasting.

He spent his last formal years in educational broadcasting in Colorado. There, from 1976 to 1981, he was the director of telecommunications and general manger of KTSC-TV, University of South Colorado, Pueblo, Colorado, and then its consultant after retirement from 1981 on. Also, he served as Director of the University of Southern Colorado Telecommunications Division in 1981. Other involvement in public broadcasting in that region included serving on the board of directors of the Rocky Mountain Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and on the board of governors of the Pacific Mountain Network. Crabbe also contributed articles to professional publications such as the Journal of the Association of Education by Radio- Television (JAERT).
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John C. Crabbe died in 2001.