[ScanIndiana] Late & Great Dispatchers

Sun, 30 Jun 2002 19:45:49 -0500

Terry:  "AMEN..."  concerning Les Sanders...  He was kind of the dean of us
dispatchers back then...  Not only the public listened but dispatchers of
other departments did as well... And more than one attempted to copy his
"KSA931" with their own callsign...  I had the pleasure to meet him one time
and talked with him on the phone and point to point.  He was a 'real treat'
to listen to...  I still have some tape recordings of some of his shifts
filed away someplace.

As to Floyd... I also remember listening to him on the many midnight shifts
he worked...  He was "colorful" to say the least in his presentation...
You can imagine many stories relating to "things actually said over the
air"...  Most of them true I'm sure...
Sigh... A bit of our past I guess...  From "a Recently Retired and Not
Necessarily Great Dispatcher" for the ISP...
Dave Nugent,   Jasper District (Ret)
----- Original Message -----
From: "Terry & Nancy Hoover" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Saturday, June 29, 2002 11:12 PM
Subject: [ScanIndiana] Late & Great Dispatchers

> Hello All,
> I saw an item come through re: dispatchers and some entertainment value.
> Evansville was blessed with a golden piped dispatcher like Les Sanders
there
> was many a night when people were setting in backyards, around card tables
> playing card ( No They Were not gambling thats illegal ) LMAF,  but there
> were a lot of the old police radio's (tunable receivers) only 1 channel at
a
> time  and a few scanners out there.  Scanners were the new technology, the
> old G.E. PRO 4 channel tunable scanner was my first scanner.
>
> Well to make a long story short Les made monitoring famous in Evansville,
as
> long as EFD was quiet then we had to chose as who to listen to Les or EFD
> decisions. as a boy I listened to Les dispatch a large "Jail Break" my
> brother & I were just going to bed,  well that changed our plans we
> monitored all night long.
>
> Another kind of famous dispatcher was Floyd for Warrick County Sheriff,
EMS
> & fire, he almost always dispatched 3 shift and boy let me tell you, He
had
> a colorful way with dispatching I guess Warrick County was lucky that the
> FCC field agents slept at night but he had a medical emergency while
> dispatching on night and when he was found he had his hand on the local
ems
> unit's key pressed their dispatch tones kept going off over & over they
knew
> something was wrong and it was. Below you will find the Obituary Article I
> found in the Evansville Courier for Les Sanders and yes Les Sanders is the
> one who peaked my interest in scanning in 1970-71 or so Damn, There I go
> showing my age again.
> 73's
> Terry Hoover
>
> Leslie Sanders was well-known officer
>
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
> ----
>
> By JOE ATKINSON, Courier & Press staff writer
> (812) 464-7450 or [email protected]
>
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
> ----
>
>
>
> The Evansville Police Department lost one of its most famous members
Sunday
> when legendary dispatcher Leslie E. Sanders died at the age of 84.
>
> "It's just like a part of history has been lost," said Bob Pointer, a
> sergeant in the police records room. "He was like someone we grew up with;
> it's like we lost our best friend."
>
> Sanders, who spent the last 12 years of his police career as a dispatcher,
> retired from the force March 31, 1982. He served 31 years overall,
including
> eight on a patrol with former police chief Marvin Guest.
>
> Members of the police force who served with Sanders, including current
> Police Chief Dave Gulledge, said they remembered Sanders for his
distinctive
> on-air voice and personality.
>
> Sanders' most noted line, however, was his famous sign-off, "KSA
> niiiiiiiiiine three one," Gulledge said.
>
> "He was known all over the city for that; people with scanners would get
on
> and listen to Les," Gulledge said. "If he was famous for anything, he was
> famous for that."
>
> He also was respected among fellow officers, Pointer said, particularly
for
> his calm demeanor on the air.
>
> "What we respected about him was he never got in a panicky state," Pointer
> said. "We often joked that there could be bombs going off and earthquakes,
> and he would get in there calm as can be. He was just rock solid; he did
not
> get (shaken)."
>
> Before making the switch to dispatch, Sanders was among the first black
> officers to patrol all of Evansville.
>
> Before he and his partner, William Cooksey, addressed the issue to
> then-Capt. Ted Karges, black officers patrolled neighborhoods resided
mainly
> by blacks, and white officers patrolled neighborhoods resided mainly by
> whites.
>
> Sanders told The Evansville Courier when he retired that he never had any
> problems with the public when the department integrated.
>
> "We never had a bad reaction from the public - they were just happy to see
> someone in a blue uniform coming to help," Sanders said at the time. "The
> problem was in the department."
>
> Later in his career, Sanders helped break in Guest, who later became
police
> chief and currently serves as deputy chief.
>
> But the thing many of Sanders' fellow officers will remember most, Pointer
> said, was the way he cared about his patrolmen when he worked dispatch. He
> had the ability to remember where all of his officers were, and could tell
> if an officer needed backup by the tone of his voice.
>
> "He just really took care of us, and we really respected him for that,"
> Pointer said. "He was really conscientious about what guys were doing."
>
>
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