Byron William Keep was born on January 9, 1917 in Portland, Oregon, where he attended Washington High School, serving as president of its senior class and playing on its football team. He attended Oregon State College for six years from 1936-1942, participating his first year on the OSC freshman football team. Though a Forestry major, Keep discovered a love of radio through his involvement with the college station, KOAC, where he was a general announcer and contributor to the popular program "Foresters in Action."
Upon graduating, Keep returned to Portland where, as Barney Keep, he began a long career in broadcasting that would make him a local celebrity. Briefly employed by KXL Radio, Keep moved to KGW in 1943 and to KEX in 1945. Once arrived at KEX, Keep spent nearly ten years hosting a variety of shows including his first, "The Bugler X," and later iterations with names like "Keep Smiling" and "Keep-ing Up with Sports." In 1954 the show that built his reputation made its premiere: "Keep Time," airing on the station's powerful 50,000 watt signal every morning from 6:00-10:00 AM. Blessed with a quick wit, the personable Keep - who referred to himself as "Sweet Loveable Ol' Barn," or SLOB for short - rapidly established himself as the leading voice of Portland's morning commute. By the late 1950s Keep was among the highest-rated disc jockeys on the West Coast and by the mid-1970s he was thought to be worth $5,000 in monthly advertising billings for KEX.
Keep maintained his popularity in part through a vigorous promotional agenda which, over the course of his career, included numerous appearances as Santa Claus, competing in a hot air balloon race and cigar ash flicking contest, spending a night at the top of Mount Hood and attempting to wrestle a tiger. Keep also involved himself deeply in civic affairs, frequently serving as master of ceremonies at local events and participating in area theatre productions, bowling leagues and handball tournaments.
In 1939, while still a college student, Keep married Corvallis native Eleanor Cleveland and together the couple raised two children. Keep regularly incorporated stories about his wife - whom he referred to on air as "the Biscuit Burner" - into his show. Other staples of "Keep Time" included daily read-outs of the Portland Public Schools lunch menu - always preceded by the ringing of the "Goodie Gong" bell - and the "Today's Chuckle" feature from page one of the morning
After thirty-five years at KEX, Keep's final show was broadcast on Valentine's Day 1979, before a full house assembled at the Portland Civic Theatre. The show included visits from former Oregon Governor Tom McCall and outgoing Portland Mayor Neil Goldschmidt, as well as phone calls from Governor Vic Atiyeh and U.S. Representative Bob Duncan. Keep passed away on July 22, 2000 in Gresham, Oregon, a victim of Alzheimer's Disease.
The Barney Keep Papers are comprised of audio and video formats, scrapbooks, loose photographs, paper records including correspondence, newspaper clippings and promotional publications, and three-dimensional objects including studio mementos, awards and commemorative items dating to Keep's retirement from KEX.
The collection's audio formats include reel-to-reel tapes, eight-track cartridges, standard audiocassettes and vinyl record albums, while its video content is held in 8mm film reels and a VHS videotape. In 2009-2010, the bulk of the collection's reel-to-reel audio was digitized by Scott Young and Bob Galluci at KBPS-AM in Portland. Selected audiocassettes and the collection videotape were digitized by the Special Collections & Archives Research Center in 2014. Much of this digitized content is available online through links provided within the body of this finding aid.
The five scrapbooks held in the Keep Papers comprise a major resource for individuals interested in Barney Keep's life and work. The scrapbooks include newspaper clippings, photographs, promotional publications and ephemera. One scrapbook is largely devoted to Keep's two years playing high school football for Portland's Washington High School Colonials in the mid-1930s. Two very rich scrapbooks detail Keep's radio career including his early shows and rise to fame, his numerous promotional efforts and the long-lived success of the "Keep Time" show. Two additional scrapbooks document Barney and Eleanor Keep's travels in Hawaii, western Europe, the Balkan Peninsula and elsewhere.
The remainder of the collection supports the audio-visual content held in Series I and the scrapbooks arranged into Series II. Smaller collections of loose photographs (a portion of them digitized and
The Keep Papers are arranged into five series: I. Audio, Video and Film Recordings; II. Scrapbooks; III. Photographs, Correspondence and Memorabilia; IV. Awards; V. Retirement Keepsakes.
Collection is open for research.
Barney Keep Papers (MSS Keep), Oregon State University Special Collections & Archives Research Center, Corvallis, Oregon.
The collection was donated to the Oregon State University Archives in 2005 by Karen and Nancy Keep.
The lengthy history of student radio at Oregon State is documented in the
The following section contains a detailed listing of the materials in the collection.
The audio formats held in Series I include reel-to-reel tapes, eight-track cartridges, standard audiocassettes and vinyl record albums. The series also includes 8mm film reels and a VHS videotape. The bulk of the audio and video content held in the series has been updated to a digital format and the resulting DVDs created by this process are physically held adjacent to the original formats. Likewise, most of the series' digitized content has been made available online, as indicated below.
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Bits include "Sog Breakfast Cereal" and "Shorty." Digitized and
Reel includes "Four Yard Ferguson" and "Baby Eleanor" bits, among others. Digitized and
Includes bits titled "License Bureau," "Beeper," "Dayside (Multiselection - 4 bits)," "Dayside - Library," "Dayside - Jazz," "Dayside - Vents of our Time," "Col. Ralph #1 - Airwatch," "Col. Ralph - #2 Buldock," "Col. Ralph - #3 No Place" and "4 yds F. Ferguson" (four bits). Digitized and
Includes bits titled "Shorty Pretenstein" (four bits), "Dayside Meter Maid," "Col. Ralph" (3 bits), "Dunbar Donnegan," "Russian Dancer," "4 Million Words," "Russian TV" and "Cereal Interview." Digitized and
Includes several "Keep Time Reporter" and "Poetry Patio" bits. Digitized and
Includes bits titled "What Kruschev [sic] Says About Ted R. Show," "Small Children," "Medium," "Casey Stengel," "Frank Costello," "Big Bad John," "Santa Claus," "Winnie Churchill," "Tam O' Shanter Golf Sneeze," "Yellow Pages," "Drugstores" and several "Nutly Hinckley" and "Keep Time Reporter" segments. Digitized and
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Cartridges include two recordings of "Four Yard Frank Ferguson," as well as "Dan McGrew." Also included is a cartridge titled "Groucho Marx. 'Oh How That Woman Could Cook.' (applause fade)."
Television feature marking Keep's final radio show at the Civic Theatre and his retirement from daily broadcasting. Hosted by Paul Linnman and Cheryl Hansen.
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Tape is annotated, "Ash Flick Sound Effect" and container is annotated, "Sound used as background for ash flicking."
Includes bits titled "Punjib," "Gossip," "Horny," "Spats," "New Puss," "Hippies," "Tramp," "Wife for Daddy," "Writer," "Secretary" and "Money Advisor." Digitized and
Includes bits titled "Politician," "Life Story," "Daddy," "Muddle Head," "Melvin Jet Jaw," "Fate Raymond," "Social Worker," "Town Failure," "Drunk" and "Arlan Bazoo."
Includes bits titled "TV Special," "Inflation," "IRS," "Nutsy," "Swanson Dog," "Joel Baniste," "Fifi," "Christmas Loan" and "Housekeeper." Digitized and
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Contains performances by George Burns and Art Linkletter.
Includes music by Don Ho, Eddie Lawrence, the Ramsey Lewis Trio, Lou Rawls, Nancy Sinatra and The Weavers. Also includes the soundtrack to "A Fistful of Dollars" and performances of "Rhapsody in Blue," "Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini" and "The 1812 Overture."
Cassette is labeled: "Virginia Lee and Burt Johnson, Radio Station W.O.P.I. 'Watch Our Population Increase.' Bristol, Tenn.-VA."
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Song titles include: "Yes, Yes Barney Keep," "Like-A Barney Keep," "Ya, Dis Ist Ein Barney Keep." Digitized and
Interview with a train conductor recorded while the train was in transit. Digitized and
"Home movie"-style films of Keep family vacations. Includes footage of travels in the United States (including to Eleanor Keep's hometown, Fairbury, Nebraska), Mexico and Europe.
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The scrapbooks held in Series II are the collection's primary resource for study of Keep's life and career. Of particular note are the "Barney Scrapbook" and "Barney's Book," both of which provide detailed insight into Keep's work in radio broadcasting and promotion, and the growth of his regional celebrity in the 1950s-1970s. Additional scrapbooks are devoted to the exploits of the Washington High School football teams of which Keep was a member in the mid-1930s, and his later travels with his wife Eleanor to Hawaii, Europe and elsewhere.
This scrapbook is devoted almost entirely to newspaper clippings documenting the 1934 and 1935 Washington High School football seasons. Keep, who then went by his given first name Byron, played quarterback and left guard for the WHS Colonials, winners of the Portland Interscholastic League championship in both years chronicled by the scrapbook. A single article also records Keep's participation on the WHS track team as a javelin thrower. Additional clippings reveal Keep to have been an active and successful high school student - he was president of the WHS senior class, received the Senior Activity Cup for outstanding work over his career, participated in the senior class play "Double Door" and served as sergeant-at-arms for the WHS Lettermen Club.
The "Barney Scrapbook" is comprised primarily of newspaper clippings, but also photographs (5), promotional items and keepsakes. The volume documents Keep's first job at KGW, his move to KEX in 1945, and his gradual rise to prominence in the Portland media market. Abundant throughout the scrapbook are clippings of the
"Barney's Book," bound with wooden covers decorated by a hammered copper likeness of Barney Keep, uses newspaper clippings, promotional materials, photographs (208), correspondence and ephemera to richly document Keep's career as a regional media star and cultural figure. Most abundant among the scrapbook's 100+ pages are newspaper clippings detailing Keep's emergence as a Portland-area celebrity, well-known for his "Keep Time" program which dominated the airwaves from 6:00-10:00 AM each weekday morning. The scrapbook reveals how Keep maintained his popularity for over three decades, in part through a vigorous promotional schedule. Various stunts including his participation in a hot air balloon race and an "ash flicking contest," the hanging and subsequent theft of a nude painting by Keep at a Portland bar, Christmas-time appearances as Santa Claus and a faux wrestling match with a tiger are all recorded in the volume. So too are several of Keep's personal exploits, including his participation in two civic theatre plays, his successes as an amateur bowler and his regular gig commentating on professional wrestling matches held in Portland.
The scrapbook is filled with Keep's celebrity endorsements of products and people, and is clear indication of his huge popularity in the Portland metro area: he was once voted "Mayor for a Day" by listeners participating in an Easter Seals contest and also served as Merrykhana King of Fun during the Portland Rose Festival. His regular engagement with community interests are reflected throughout the volume as is his long-lived relationship with OSU, which honored him at Barney Keep Day during a 1970 football game. Keep's major anniversaries at KEX and his retirement are also thoroughly documented through greeting cards, retrospective articles, the broadcast schedule for his final show and contact sheets of photographs taken at the event.
A folder of loose items from "Barney's Book" contains additional promotional and biographical materials, including Keep's grade school health report, program descriptions for "Hey, Mr. Motorist!" and "The Bugler 'X'," assorted flyers and blank copies of "Keep Show" stationary.
This scrapbook is devoted in near totality to Barney and Eleanor Keep's travels. Of particular note are materials documenting two trips to Hawaii that were sponsored by KEX in 1964 and 1965. The radio station made these trips available to listeners who would pay a lump sum fee to tour Oahu with Keep acting as an informal host. Keep would also broadcast during the Hawaii trips, sometimes from the side of a swimming pool. Other vacation trips recorded in the scrapbook, which was likely created by Eleanor Keep, include visits to Palm Springs and San Francisco, California, and a 1966 tour of France, Germany, Belgium and England. The scrapbook's material types include brochures, playbills, correspondence, photographs (104) and various mementos. The book also contains photographs and pedigree information for the Keep family dogs, Beau and Dinky.
This scrapbook serves as record of Barney and Eleanor Keep's trip to the Balkan Peninsula in September and October 1987. The Keeps traveled through what was then Yugoslavia and took a cruise of the Aegean, Ionian and Adriatic seas, visiting locations in Greece, Turkey, Italy and Yugoslavia along the way. The couple's travels are documented in the scrapbook through a combination of photographs (99), postcards, itineraries, brochures, daily cruise programs and assorted keepsakes.
Series III includes a wide array of materials including photographs, artistic renderings, correspondence, newspaper clippings and promotional publications. Also included are Keep's "Goodie Gong" bells as well as a selection of novelty trick props and reference books. A portion of the series' images have been digitized and are
A collection of black and white as well as color images documenting Keep from his college days to his retirement years. Included are photographs of Keep in studio, promotional images and candid shots of Keep golfing and posing with his wife, Eleanor. Several images from this folder have been digitized and are
Black and white promotional image of Keep posing next to a Jaguar convertible holding pints of Sunshine ice cream.
Includes two caricatures of Barney and Eleanor Keep drawn onto transparencies by Caricatures Hawaii as well as a pencil drawing of Barney Keep by Gene Senter.
Folder contains undated autographed black and white promotional prints of Gail Davis (digitized and
Correspondence primarily concerns station management, communications with advertisers and letters of appreciation from civic groups and individual fans.
Newspaper clippings include two articles written by Keep on his travels in Costa Rica, 1980.
Folder contains four poems written in honor of Barney Keep, three of them in connection with his retirement from KEX. Titles and authors are as follows: "Beaver's Lament #2," author unknown; "Barney Keep it Up," by David R. Ekstedt; "Barney dear Barney, my S.L.O.B.," by Bill and Marilyn Robb; and "Ode to a Broken Heart. Or, I've Given You the Best Years of My Life," by Betty Bateman.
During his show, Keep would ring one of these bells, which he called the "Goodie Gong," prior to reading the Portland Public Schools lunch menu for the day.
Props for novelty tricks titled "Stop-Light-Trix" and "Comedy Paper Panties Trick."
The numerous awards that Keep received over the course of his career are arranged into this series and include certificates, trophies, plaques and ribbons.
Certificates include a declaration of "Barney Keep Day" in Oregon issued by Governor Tom McCall in 1974 and again by Governor Vic Atiyeh in 1979.
Award honoring Keep's outstanding sales performance in developing group travel to Honolulu.
Mounted on the plaque is the switch once used to turn on the KEX 50,000 watt transmitter.
Plaque is inscribed: "'Our' S.L.O.B. Life's Pleasure - To wake each morning with a friend who brightens the day. Clarence Ramseth Family, Hillsboro, OR."
Keep's final broadcast from the Portland Civic Theatre on February 14, 1979, and the outpouring of affection that it generated, are documented in this series. In addition to the mementos held in Series V, audio and video records of the final airing of "Keep Time" are held in Series I.
Metal plate used in offset printing of the
Three articles mounted onto wood placards: "Barney Keep's finale sentimental air affair,"
Two articles mounted onto wood placards: "Crowd overflows when ol' Barn' rings last gong,"
Plaque contains a portrait of Keep in the broadcast studio and reads: "Barney Keep - in appreciation for 35 years of service to the Portland community, we salute an 'uncommonly common' man."
Album is annotated as follows. Front: "Barney Keep. Old disc jockeys never die, they just go off the record." Back: "From Rockey-Marsh, 1979."
Keep wore this beanie during his last broadcast on February 14, 1979.