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Show RADIO GARDENER If''" i - y ' 1 i Don McNeill, M. C. of the Breakfast Break-fast club program. . fans. The prayer and impromptu assignments as-signments for D-Day will go down in radio as a classic of the year. When the program was started 12 years ago, no visitors were allowed. This rule was first broken in 1937, in response to a letter from a hopelessly hope-lessly tubercular marine, who wrote I that seeing a performance of the j club was chief among the things he wanted to do before his final hour. In 1938, the doors were thrown open to all comers. Since then half a million mil-lion people have seen the program pro-gram and watched the "gang" go through their paces. The program has attracted national na-tional attention In its effective war work. They are given credit for hav- ing started the waste paper salvage drive in the United States. They focused fo-cused national attention on the crucial cru-cial manpower shortage in war industries in-dustries and early in the war received re-ceived the government's thanks for this work. At one bond auction McNeill Mc-Neill sold $1,114,000 worth of war bonds at the swank Winnetka district. dis-trict. For this he received a treasury treas-ury citation. M.c. Don Mc.eill is an honorary honor-ary sergeant major at Fort Sheridan Sheri-dan and a reserve recruiting official in the marines. He was recently awarded the degree of Doctor of Frustration by the Boswcll institute. His greatest honor, however, he says, is the thousands of letters received re-ceived from his fans. The host of the Breakfast Club was born in Galena, 111., December 23, 1907. That should make him 38 years old, but he insists that he is only 28. Several years later the McNeill Mc-Neill family moved to Sheboygan, Wise., where Don attended bigh school. There is no record of any previous schooling. He gained fame in high school by winning a fly-swatting fly-swatting contest. In 1925, he found his way to Milwaukee and enrolled in the college of journalism at Marquette university, where he edited the student newspaper and tooted a snazzy saxophone. His personal per-sonal representative, Jimmy Bennett, Ben-nett, says that the success of both j ventures can be determined by the fact that he is no longer employed as a tootcr of saxophones or a newspaper news-paper editor. In 1928 he secured a Job on a Milwaukee Mil-waukee radio station, announcing programs, directing programs, rid-i rid-i ing gain in the control room, round-' round-' ing up guest speakers, editing the ; station's publicity releases and answering an-swering the telephone. Ho was paid $10 a week, which was later Increased In-creased lo $15 a week. When he recently re-cently signed a new five-year contract con-tract with the lllue Network, it was nt a figure slighly above what he was getting at Milwaukee. After receiving his I'h.B degree he decamped lo Louisville, where he became one of the Two Professors, Profes-sors, a comedy loam over WI1AS. In V).'i:i he went to Chicago, took over the nol-too-well known Pepper Pot program and developed Ihe present Hreakfasl. Club. l'lver since? Pearl Harbor, tho Breakfast club calendar has been crowded with exlra cunioular aetivilies. The oullre cast has ap' peared before hospllals and camps. Thuy have appeared at the Great Lakes training slatlon on several oeeaidoiiM. When 11 Day hrulie, Hon McNeill was on Ihe way lo the .studio, lie cleared Hie way for Ihe omission inf commercials, had patriotic music played and ollered up a prayer 'I'lii- tinier was lo slant! hy for news Mashes and the pi aver, which was wrillcn U minutes hefnle nlr time |