~ R. W. NORTON ART GALLERY ~ ~ INTRO ~ ~ SEARCH ~
Image
0686-MUS-06/2014
Tom Pace
Music
Images

Tom Pace was born in Pine Bluff, Arkansas in 1947 to Mary and W. Glen Pace. His father managed the Vester Theater in Pine Bluff and his mother was a stay at home mom who later owned a local restaurant she named The Post Office Lunchroom. Tom was an only child and went everywhere with his dad helping in the theater by the age of seven, making snow cones and hot dogs. They moved around with the Bijou Amusement Corporation to theaters in Vicksburg, Biloxi, New Orleans and Little Rock. He first got the bug for radio when he was about five years old and around nine, he performed on a commercial receiving a "Junior Corvette Broadcaster" certificate. He graduated from Central High School in Little Rock in 1965 and went to work at KTHB Television running the audio board. He later attended Little Rock Junior College then the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. Tom joined the Navy and attended yeoman's communications school in Norfolk and then served at Port Hueneme in Santa Barbara, California. After discharge he returned to Little Rock and went back to work at the television station. After he married in 1969, he went back to college full time, got his degree and in 1973 began working as a news reporter and photographer. He went to work at KWKH in 1981 doing both the graveyard and the Sunday shift. Frank Page took him under his wing and in 1983, he was hired as a sales person at KWKH. He continued to do remotes around Shreveport and he interviewed Garth Brooks, George Strait and Reba McEntire when he came to the Municipal Auditorium. He also met with the Judds and co-wrote the Ranch Hand Roundup, the weekly publication at KWKH with Mary Ann Van Osdell. In 2004 he moved over to KRMD Radio and hosted The Talk of the Town with Tom Pace. While there he was able to interview Liza Minnelli, Ed McMahon and Marvin Hamblisch. The music industry is very different from when he began his career because of the advent of the digital world. Tom says that the ArkLaTex used to be called the "Magic Circle" because so many members of the Country Music Hall of Fame came through Shreveport and the Louisiana Hayride. Shreveport could become another major record hub, but it missed the boat to become another "Nashville."