October 22, 1932 – Ronald Reagan announces his first Iowa football game – Homecoming vs. Minnesota.

Ronald Wilson Reagan, 40th president of the United States (1981-1989), became a highly influential voice of modern conservatism. Prior to his presidency, he was a Hollywood actor and union leader before serving as the 33rd governor of California (1967-1975). Reagan was a Midwesterner at heart, born in central Illinois (Tampico) on Feb. 6, 1911, Reagan graduated from Eureka College in 1932, when jobs were tight because of the Depression. Luck was with Reagan when he landed a broadcasting job at Davenport’s radio station WOC, which needed an announcer to broadcast University of Iowa football games. Reagan’s first assignment – for $5 and bus fare – was the Hawkeye’s Homecoming game in Iowa City against Minnesota (1932).

In the spring of 1933, partly because he had covered the Drake Relays so skillfully, Reagan was chosen to become chief sports announcer for WOC’s sister station, WHO in Des Moines. “Dutch” (a childhood nickname because of his “Dutch boy” haircut) gained national media exposure covering Iowa Football and recreating Chicago Cubs baseball games from the WHO studio in Des Moines via telegraph.

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