Baseball Poem---

1933, Reagan's voice carried him to Des Moines and WOC's larger sister station, WHO. Broadcasting over a new 50,000-watt clear-channel station that carried throughout the Midwest, Reagan became a well-known sports announcer whose specialty was creating play-by-play accounts of Chicago Cubs baseball games that the station received by wire.

     Gene Autry poem by Jack Buck

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This is from a poem written by the famous radio announcer Jack Buck, the voice of the St. Louis Cardinals for over 50 years.  This was written for Gene Autry's 83rd Birthday Party in 1990. There are many similarities to Ronald Reagan:

 The Last Cowboy

As America grew
and headed west,
Gene Autry was thereand he was the best. 

He tapped telegraph keys
then starred on the screen,
the greatest Saturday star
young eyes had seen.

 He wore a white hat
and the kids always knew
he'd do the right thing
they wanted him to.

He could shoot at a target
and invariably hit it
while jumping a river,
and he sand as he did it.

 He crooned "South of the Border"
and sang on Christmas morn,
the most glamorous cowboy
ever born.

His ride through life
is matched by no other,
a business tycoon,
yet everyone's brother. 

He has enjoyed life to the fullest
and made our lives richer,
but he'd have traded it all
for a World Series pitcher.

We salute him today
and we'll love him tomorrow,
the last cowboy's life
was ours to borrow.

Little did he know
when he named his horse,
he was describing himself-
Champion, or course!