(Krutz) Having AETN walk into my building
and meeting them changed my life.
My dad said, "You know, if you're successful in life,
you've got to give back."
The great music of my life has been my volunteer effort.
[phones ringing]
[speech overlapping]
If what they say is true,
that necessity is the mother of invention,
then it must be said that the mother
of the Arkansas Educational Television Network
was Jane Krutz.
For more than 40 years,
Miss Jane, as she's called by all those who know her,
has been the face or, more appropriately,
the voice of AETN,
both of which are seen and heard
right here at the phone bank of Studio A
during every pledge drive.
But Miss Jane is more than a crusader
for public television.
She is a woman who has built her life
around giving to others.
In addition to raising a family of three
and a successful business career,
Miss Jane has volunteered for more than 40 organizations,
was awarded the community service governor's award
for volunteerism,
and named PBS' number one volunteer of the nation.
As a woman of distinction here in Arkansas,
Senator David Pryor sits down with Miss Jane
to talk to her about her lifetime of service
and discovers a woman
whose passion for life is matched only
by her determination to help others,
a woman who has made a difference in this state,
not because of any political office
or financial contribution
but through a force of will
that has touched the lives of countless Arkansans.
[stirring music]
♪
Hello, I'm David Pryor,
and like many of you in this audience today,
I have been watching this lady,
Jane Krutz, for probably three or so decades
raise money for one of her favorite passions, AETN.
And today we just sort of want to talk to Jane Krutz,
and we want to see what makes her tick.
Why does she do this?
Why does she give all of this time
not only to this great cause but to many, many causes
throughout the state of Arkansas
to benefit not only the children but adults as well
and all of us
as a culture and as a state?
Now, Jane,
one of the interesting things I've heard about Jane Krutz
is that you have another first.
You were a first in volunteerism, a first woman
to manage a corporate high-rise building,
an office building, et cetera.
You have many, many firsts attached to your great career.
There's another first that happened to you
when you were a high school student,
and when you were a high school student
is when you met Ted.
That's right.
Now, tell us about that story.
Well, I was 16 years old
and went out to the Camp Robinson
to see a cousin of mine
that was going to be shipped out
and met Ted Krutz, and I thought,
"That's the prettiest man I've ever seen in my life."
And he really was, and at 87, he is still pretty to me, David.
He just still looks good to me.
He was 23 at the time when I met him,
and we started dating,
and then he got orders to go overseas.
We thought we would marry when I got out--
really, at first, when I went to college.
Then when I got out of high school,
we were going to get married.
But he got orders to go overseas,
and we just thought we'd die.
I just thought, "Well, he's going to go over to France,
"and some little cute French girl is going to get him,
and I'm not about to let him get away from me."
So I talked to Mother and Daddy about it,
and they weren't happy with me wanting to marry that early,
but they knew that I was determined to marry him
before he left the States.
Going overseas, right?
So he had a--he was scheduled with a two-week leave in March
and then was going overseas,
and I said, "Mama, we're going to get married
during that March-- during his time in March."
But you were in high school.
But I was a high school senior.
At that time,
no one had ever graduated from Little Rock High School
and been married.
If they'd found out they were married
on graduation day,
they did not get their diploma.
Now, John Larson had a heavy hand,
and that was his rule.
Well, Mother went to Mr. Larson
and told him that I wanted to have--
Now, he was the superintendent or principal.
No, he was the principal.
And he said, "No, Ms. Gray."
He said, "If I let Jane marry, everybody--
"I can't say no to anybody.
No."
Well, Mother knew that I was going to go off and marry Ted
and quit school
if I couldn't get married,
and she went to Mr. Hall, who, at that time,
was the superintendent of the schools
that Hall High is now named after.
So he said, "Well, you know, Ms. Gray, this is wartime,
"and our boys are leaving high school,
"going right to the war,
and maybe we need to bend a little bit for them."
So he asked for my records, and she got them for him,
and I'd always had good grades
and did a lot of volunteer work in the high school.
I--you know, I started real young
doing volunteer work.
And he said, "Well, yes, we'll let her get married
and then come back and finish school."
So I had a huge church wedding at the First Nazarene Church
at Ninth and Battery.
And, of course, it was packed out by this time
because word had gotten out that I was getting married
and going to get to finish high school,
and I did, of course.
We married, took a two-week honeymoon.
I came back and finished school
and got to get my diploma.
And as luck would have it,
Ted didn't have to go overseas then.
They pulled him out to form a new cadre.
He was a drill sergeant and a good one,
so he formed a new cadre.
We moved to Alexandria, Louisiana,
where he was stationed at Camp Claiborne.
And we were there for two years,
and he continued to be pulled out to form new--
to be a drill sergeant for new companies
for the next two years.
But every time he did,
we thought he was going overseas.
Honey, we didn't have a cross word
during that two years.
I bet that's the truth.
Because we never knew what day he might have to go.
But that's the story of me getting married.
But of course, that did open the door,
and then lots of girls got married
and finished school after that.
(Pryor) With the war over and a new baby, Ted, Jr.,
Jane and Ted returned to Little Rock, where,
over the next five years,
they would welcome two more children to the family.
While Miss Jane was enjoying her new role as wife and mother,
she was never a woman
who could sit still for too long.
Jane continued her volunteer work at her church,
but as her children entered school,
her volunteer efforts expanded.
When her oldest son, Ted, Jr., entered the first grade,
Jane served her first term as PTA president,
and in 1955, she marched in the fight against polio
with the March of Dimes.
That same year, a vaccine was discovered
by Dr. Jonas Salk,
and as her husband, Ted, says, "Jane was so happy,
you would think she helped stir the cure."
Jane assumed an even bigger challenge
when she was appointed director of Little Rock's first drive
against cerebral palsy.
With this project, Jane met Willie Oates,
a woman of distinction in her own right,
who mentored Krutz.
The meeting lay the groundwork
for what would become a lifelong friendship.
With her children all in school, Jane started working part-time
to help support the family finances
and soon took her first full-time job
at KARK TV in Little Rock.
After a few years of sitting behind a desk,
Miss Jane was ready for a change and a new challenge.
She found that challenge
as the manager of the 1515 Building
in Little Rock,
where she proved she had what it took
to be a woman in a man's world.
Well, this was when I first took over 1515 Building.
It was owned by Bloomfield Builders in Memphis.
They owned building--they owned the Trade Mart in New Orleans,
the Peachtree buildings in Atlanta.
They owned buildings in Oklahoma, Texas,
all across the South.
They had no female building managers,
and they didn't want one when they hired me.
I just drove them crazy
till they finally gave me a chance at it.
And I filled my building to 100% occupancy
in less than three months with a waiting list,
and not another building they owned had 100% occupancy,
and they did not have another female building manager.
So they called all the managers to Memphis for a big meeting.
They came in from all across the United States,
sat us down in a big room,
and I was the only woman in the room.
And they said, "Jane, we want you to stand up here
"and tell these men how a woman was able to do
what they can't do."
Well, I didn't much like the way that they said "woman."
And I stood up,
and I put on my most dignified voice,
and I said, "Gentlemen, I know
"that a woman must work harder than a man
"and do a better job than a man to be noticed.
"Fortunately, that is not hard,
and I will be glad to tell you how to fill a building."
And that was when I built my speech,
"Ten Steps to the Top of the Ladder,"
that today, 40 years later,
I am still giving to business groups.
Well, Jane,
you started off your volunteerism,
as you said just a moment ago,
even in high school, you were a volunteer.
Now, was this because of your church?
Was this because of your parents?
Where was your inspiration
to become a volunteer?
Well, it had to come from my parents.
My parents were volunteers in the church
more than anywhere else.
They were both musicians,
and they gave their talent in that way.
Mother played the piano.
Daddy led the choir.
And that was back in the days
when they didn't pay music directors, you know.
That was just their volunteer service.
They volunteered for many revival meetings with no pay,
to be the musicians for them.
They also did some volunteer work
for The Salvation Army, and I just was--
Mother just always said, "Now, honey, if you're--
"you know, if you're successful in life,
"you've got to give back.
"And if you have clothes to wear and food to eat
"and a house to live in,
"you have to give people
that maybe don't have these good things."
So it was just a way of life that--
of course, as I tell people,
Jesus was actually the first director of volunteerism
when He said that if we did help the needy
that He would give us credit for doing it to Him.
So it was just sort of built in to my growing up
that you did things for other people,
and then I always had a lot of drive.
I mean, you know, that's a fault of character.
I had to win at everything.
You know, if I sold Girl Scout cookies,
I had to sell more than anybody.
If I sold poppies for The American Legion,
I had to sell more than anybody.
And anything I ever did,
I sort of went into it with that,
and that's how, I think, I, you know, get money for AETN.
We just got to get it,
and we don't go affair till it's there.
(Pryor) How did it come about in Arkansas that we started,
I guess you would call them, the telethons
and where you would get on TV?
And tell us about the--
(Krutz) Well, now, the first few years, we did not do that.
I've forgotten how many years it was,
although I could look it up,
because we know when we started
and we know when we started that.
But it came to the point to where, for the evening--
now, the state-- I want people to know--
the state pays for educational television.
They pay for the building.
They pay for the staff.
They pay the lighting.
They pay the educational programs
that go into the schools.
And, boy, that is a story in itself.
But they pay for that.
They do not pay for the programs that we were offered
as entertainment programs,
like the entertainment night programs
and like the children's Sesame Street.
We have to buy those, and, honey,
they are not cheap.
But we didn't have the money to do it.
The state couldn't pay for that.
We finally decided,
along with other states over the nation,
that we would go on the air.
Now, the first year we did it, we did a one-time telethon
where we were on the air 72 straight hours.
I've always heard that you were on there the whole time.
I was.
72 straight hours.
I was on there 72 straight hours,
me and Fred Schmutz, honey.
It sounds like a filibuster in the Senate.
It was almost, honey.
By the time it was over, the whites of my eyes were gray.
Yeah.
But then after that,
we went to the format that we have now
where we're on a few hours every night
for a couple of weeks.
Well, Jane, back in the-- not too long ago, actually,
public broadcasting was in trouble.
They were trying to zero out the funding
for public broadcasting in our country.
One of the great valuable assets of our whole nation
they were trying to basically destroy.
I never could figure this out,
and you testified in Washington against this.
That was in '95.
1995. That's right.
And they sent me as a layman.
Everyone else on the panel that testified
either was the president of one of the PBS stations
or president of NPR
or had a job with them.
They would've lost a job if they had zeroed it out.
I was the only layman that went
who actually had nothing to lose except good programming.
And I went as the little old grandmother from Arkansas
who was a volunteer--
and that was actually how I was introduced--
and testified before them.
But when I got off that plane in Washington, D.C.,
with our director at that time, Susan Howorth,
who was head of AETN,
I was frightened to begin with
when I began meeting the president of APBS
and the president of PBS and all of these people,
and they were so counting on me carrying the ball for them
as the only layman,
because they felt like my words would mean more
when I didn't have a job to lose.
And they were just saying, "Oh, you're going to do it.
You're exactly what we need."
And I thought, "Oh, Lord, help us, I pray.
"If I fall on my face,
I'll never even go back on the air in Arkansas."
You know, I really had that feeling
that I would be embarrassed over not doing
what they thought I was going to do.
I had made a three-minute speech in Atlanta
when I was chosen
as the outstanding PBS volunteer of the nation,
and that three-minute speech was what they based the fact
that I could go there and speak to Congress on.
So when I walked into that state capitol
and into the room
with all these congressmen sitting up at the podium,
across the front--
one of them was Jay Dickey, our Arkansas congressman,
and I was intimidated by Jay, like everybody was.
I mean, he--I love him, but he intimidates anybody,
and there he sat.
And I sat down at that table, and LeVar Burton was testifying,
and the program director of radio, public radio,
and the director of the Louisiana station.
All of these big dogs were testifying.
And when it came my time, my mouth was so dry
that I thought I was going to choke to death.
But once I got the first word out, I was okay,
and I talked for ten minutes,
and they tell me I am the only person
that ever got a standing ovation from a committee
to speak before the Congress.
And so I felt like, then, that they accepted that
and that my words had meant something to them.
And it was a great success that we had that day,
but I was more frightened than I have ever been in my life.
I'm here to tell you that the money
that this committee appropriated for public TV
for this year of 1995
is one of the best bargains that you get
for the federal dollar.
And I'd like to tell you what the local stations do
with this financial support
and how they serve the people.
(Pryor) Public television was saved that year
by people like Jane Krutz,
whose voice joined a chorus of people
protesting federal budget cuts.
Beyond her service to public television,
Jane Krutz has served as president
of eight organizations,
including the Friends of AETN, The Salvation Army,
the Greater Little Rock Chamber of Commerce,
the Arkansas Youth Council,
Nazarene Women's Ministries, the PTA,
and the Building Owners and Managers Association,
for which she was the first female president.
She has served on the board, been a member of, or fund-raised
for over 35 organizations
and has been recognized locally and nationally
for her hard work.
Her husband, Ted, once gave her
a box of business cards that said,
"Jane Krutz: General Manager of the Universe."
Jane just laughed and started passing them out.
Where did this drive come from?
It came from her family,
where she learned as a child the value of being loved
and sharing that feeling whenever the opportunity arose.
(Krutz) Well, you know, I was an only child.
They were married seven years
and thought they could have no children
when I was born.
And as far as they were concerned, honey,
I was just about perfect.
Now, I mean to tell you, Frances Jane was perfect
as far as they were concerned,
except for one thing.
I had very straight, ugly hair.
My hair was as straight as the floor,
and it stood up all over my head.
And I grew up remembering Mama spitting on my head,
trying to make my hair lay down.
And she kept caps on me till I started school,
because my hair was really--
it was that white towhead blond that was just ugly.
Well, I had a first cousin
that was three months older than I was
who was a brunette Shirley Temple.
She had black ringlets all over her head,
and every time that my cousin, Doris,
and Aunt Effie would come to visit,
Aunt Effie would say,
"Isn't it a shame about Jane's hair?
"Isn't it a shame
she couldn't have pretty hair like Doris?"
Well, Mother got tired of that.
One day, they were coming to visit,
and she was going to curl my hair.
Now, back, honey, 80 years ago, you know--
I was about four then--
they didn't have electric curling irons.
All they had was a metal rod that you put in the fire
and you got red-hot and curled with that.
Well, Mother had me sitting up on the counter in Conway,
and she had that hot iron in the fire
and was just fixing to put it to my head
when Daddy walked into the room.
He grabbed me up, and he said,
"Fannie, have you lost your mind?"
Said, "Don't you know you'll burn that little scalp?"
Well, she began to cry.
She said, "Effie's a-comin'.
"She's going to make fun of Jane's hair,
and I can't stand it anymore, and I am going to curl it."
He said, "You are not.
I like it just the way it is."
He said, "In fact, I ordered her
with straight hair."
Mama said, "You what?"
He said, "Yes, and I knew she was going to look like you,
"and I wanted something about her to be like me.
"So I ordered her with straight hair
"and a loud voice
"so that she would be something like me.
I like her just the way she is."
Well, Mother started crying and said,
"Honey, I like you like you are too.
"It doesn't matter that your hair is straight.
Mother loves you."
And that's the way they raised me.
I knew that their love was unconditional.
It didn't matter that my hair was straight.
It didn't matter that I was so clumsy
I would never learn to ride a bicycle
or learn to swim.
It did not matter that I was the loudest mouthy kid
on the block.
They loved me regardless.
Therefore, I can understand a God
Who loves me regardless of who I am,
what I look like, what I do.
He loves me anyway.
Jane, where is your well of inspiration?
Where is your--
where is the root system
where you get all of this inspiration,
do the things that you do and have done?
Where does it come from?
Who does it come from?
It comes from-- my dad was
a used car salesman,
and you know what they say about used car salesmen.
But my daddy was selling
the third and fourth generation of families their automobiles
at 80 years of age,
because they had been told what Vic Gray says it is, it is.
When I first went to the building,
the 1515 Building,
he said, "Honey, let your word be your bond with your tenants.
"Don't you ever tell them anything you'll do for them
"and you not do it.
"Don't let your name have to be a the bottom of a contract.
"If you look them in the eye and say,
"'I'll build a door in that wall when you need it,'
"you be sure a door goes in that wall
when they need it."
And I think that was one reason
I was successful as a building manager
for 40 years is, my tenants knew
that they could trust what I told them,
and I learned that from my daddy.
Jane, thank you for letting me come into your home,
and thank you for coming into our homes
for these last four decades
to talk to us about the necessity
and the need of public broadcasting
so that we may communicate the life stories that we know
and must share with one another
to make our communities better, to make our state better,
to make our country better.
Thanks so much for being a part
of bringing these programs and these messages
to us in our homes.
And once again, thank you for letting us come in
and share your home here in Little Rock,
and we don't know
how we will ever express our gratitude to you
except to say thank you very, very much.
Well, thank you, Senator, for being a part of it
and for being in my home.
You make me want to go out and do something good.
I can tell you that,
and I think, when people hear your message,
they're going to want to do the same thing.
Well, their life will be worth so much more.
Thank you.
Thank you, David.
Thank you.