Dust from the Desert: Ted Baze

Ted Baze

1934-2021

My dad joined the Army three months after his 15th birthday. He had lied about his age to the recruiter and served 3 years before returning to his home in West Texas. All of his service was here in the states.

In 1955 he graduated from Lubbock High School. A classmate was Buddy Holly. Dad said they were acquaintences more than friends but Buddy (who later dropped the e from his name) signed his yearbook, calling dad a "swell guy."

My dad's great passion - after family - was television broadcasting. He worked every job from the bottom up in that business. The production booth photo could have been a professional wrestling or roller derby TV show.

When he became a manager he networked endlessly, attending conventions (meeting many celebrities), advocating for independent broadcasters and telling great stories before his colleagues.

With him through it all was my mother. And yes - any comparison to Elizabeth Taylor is appropriate.

My dad's middle age were spent raising his family and working toward his career goal: ownership of a television station.

The story is amazing and recounted in his book: Snapshots of My Life. Too much to summarize here, it involves a famous Wall Street figure - Ivan Boesky, competing stations, other financiers, lawyers, and the government bureaucracy of the FCC. These dealings with the government would strongly shape his later views when he became a Texas city councilman.

A paragraph from his book:

One morning at home while shaving I turned to Mom and said "I've got it... I've got a plan that the bank and the film companies could not possibly turn down." It consisted of having the program suppliers give me a moratorium on the payments to them with interest accruing, while I used my cash to pay off the bank what we owe in monthly installments. I flew to Los Angeles and met with three creditors to sell them on this idea and came back with their approval each providing that they were all treated the same which they were. I also promised them that I would never take a dollar profit from the station for myself until they were completely paid.

Amazingly, along with family and this complicated business, he found time to get his private pilot's license in 1985.