Louise Alley

Louise Frances Koury Alley (March 2, 1927 – October 9, 2015) was a radio personality with station KWKH in Shreveport, Louisiana, who also operated her own advertising agency. In a lengthy career, she was known as "Shreveport’s First Lady of Radio."^[1]

Background

A native of Rochester, New York, Alley was one of two children of George A. Koury, Sr., and the former Isabelle Margaret Joseph. She came to Shreveport with her family at the age of three, where she resided thereafter except for certain military assignments of her husband, Bennie Ray Alley (born September 1927), a retired major in the United States Air Force, whom she married in 1955 in Brownsville, Texas. They were assigned to Harlingen Air Force Base in Harlingen, Texas, and Walker Air Force Base in Roswell, New Mexico,^[2] both since closed.

Alley was short, only 5'1" in stature. In her later years she was known as "Miss Louise".^[1]

Career

Alley graduated ifrom the Roman Catholic St. Vincent's Academy, a former institution for girls in Shreveport. She then worked in various capacities, including air traffic controller for Delta Airlines at the former downtown airport before the establishment in 1952 of Shreveport Regional Airport. She once even participated in the investigation of a crash which occurred in East Texas.^[2]

In 1965, Alley returned to Shreveport and took a position as a KWKH copy writer. After first filling in on a half-hour program without notes or preparation, she soon became the host of a four-hour weekday program "Louise Alley's Open House", usually from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.^[3] She frequently interviewed politicians, visiting celebrities, and citizens in the news. Later she hosted "My Home Town" that began on KWKH and was subsequently carried on KBCL, the former KFLO, KEEL, KOKA, and KYLA in Homer in Claiborne Parish in North Louisiana.^[1]

At KWKH, one of her colleagues was veteran broadcaster Frank Page. She also worked with Nat Stuckey before he plowed into the field of Country music. In 1978, she established Louise Alley Advertising. She left both radio and advertising in 2012, when her health began to deteriorate. Alley concluded each broadcast with the refrain: "Gooday, John ... wherever you are," a reference to an Irish priest and long-term family friend.^[2]

Widely known in the community because of the nature of her work, Alley was a frequent judge of beauty pageants.^[2] Her smile was said to be so sincere that she could sell nearly anything, from lingerie to Jersey Gold Milk, for instance. She was particularly loyal to and enthusiastic about her advertisers, one of whom, Bobby L. Greene, the owner of a plumbing and heating company and the brother of Shreveport Fire Chief Dallas W. Greene, Jr. (1923-2016),^[4] credited her for much of his business success.^[1] Greene and Alley were born in the same year; he died a month before her passing.^[5]

Family

In addition to her husband, she is survived by two children, Terry Suzanne Camille Alley Weeks and husband, Dr. Jeffrey Scott Weeks,^[6] and Raymond Stewart Alley and wife, the former Ellen Paylor, and four grandchildren. Raymond Alley (born December 1958),^[7] a Shreveport real estate agent is also a chief petty officer in the United States Navy Reserve. In 2006, at the age of forty-seven, he was activated during Operation Iraqi Freedom. He worke as the chief of logistics for a construction regiment, mostly in the Al Anbar province.^[8]

Alley's brother, George Koury, Jr., and his wife, Thama, reside in Bend, Oregon.^[2] She was predeceased by a sister-in-law, Sue Ann Alley Frick (1936-2013), a self-taught specialist in the history of Russia and horse and cattle breeder, originally from Jacksonville, Texas, who resided outside Nashville in Franklin, Tennessee.^[9]

Radio tribute

On October 12, 2015, Alley was remembered in a 45-minute live radio program hosted by Tom Pace on The Promise 90.7 FM. Son Raymond Alley reminisced about his mother. Other guests during the tribute were Debbie K. Dillard (born 1956) of Southern Hospitality magazine, Ernest Riley "Ernie" Roberson (born March 1950), the former Caddo Parish registrar of voters, and Carl Simmons, who had been Alley's last studio engineer.^[10]

References