Oral history interview with Red Dunning

Collection

Identifier: SR 9345

Staff Only

Oral history interview with Red Dunning

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Scope and Contents

This oral history interview with Red Dunning was conducted by Kathleen D. Walsh in Portland, Oregon, on March 1, 1982, as part of the Oregon Historical Society Research Library's oral history program. Alice E. Dunning was also present and occasionally contributed to the interview. In this interview, Dunning discusses his career as music director at the KOIN radio station in Portland. He talks about the change from live radio shows to pre-recorded programming, about the people he worked with at KOIN, and about shows he had on KOIN-TV. He also discusses his interest in nature photography. He closes the interview by looking at photographs and ephemera and talking about them.

Dates

Creation: 1982 March 1

Creator

Dunning, Owen C., 1904-1982 (Interviewee, Person)
Walsh, Kathleen D. (Interviewer, Person)

Conditions Governing Access

Collection is open for research.

Conditions Governing Use

Copyright for this interview is held by the Oregon Historical Society. Use is allowed according to the following statement: Creative Commons - BY-NC-SA, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/

Biographical note

Owen Chase "Red" Dunning was born in Hoquiam, Washington, in 1904. He was an accomplished musician and played in numerous orchestras in the Portland, Oregon, area, including Herman Kenin's Multnomah Hotel Dance Orchestra and the Portland Symphony Orchestra. In 1927, he and Alice Eudora Mower were married; they later had two children. In 1929, he became assistant orchestra director to Misch Pelz for the radio station KOIN, and later orchestra director in 1944. He also had several television shows in the 1950s. After he retired in 1969, Dunning focused on nature photography. He died in 1982.