04/10/2025
Check out this interesting story about the beginnings of one of our favorite programs!
How Your Story Hour began...
In the 1940's a small group of people was concerned about character development of youth in their Southwestern Michigan community. But what could they do? Someone proposed the perfect idea: a Saturday afternoon story hour! This would get children off the streets and teach them positive character traits. Soon a gang of neighborhood kids met weekly above the local fire department to hear Bible and true-to-life stories.
The story hour was a huge success! Those in charge began praying for a way to organize story hours across the country, when someone heard a radio evangelist confess a need for children’s radio programming. The story hour’s director contacted WHFB, a local radio station, whose manager was enthusiastic about the idea. "If you folks can adapt what you have for radio," he said, "I'll give you a half-hour of free broadcast time!"
As Stanley Hill—the original Uncle Dan—wrote, “We went to work. We practiced on the first script for the better part of three months, and then went on the air live for the first time on March 27, 1949. From then on, it was a challenge of writing and producing a program every week. After the first two or three programs, it was a real headache to find people who were willing to play the parts in the stories. We couldn't pay them, and being rank amateurs, I can tell you it was only by the grace of God that we stayed on the air... Nevertheless, we doggedly persisted. We prayed, we worked, and we prayed some more. It was not many weeks until a second station took the program, then a third, and a fourth...”
After a couple years, the producers decided to pre-record programs. Your Story Hour’s first recording studio was constructed in the script-writer’s basement by hanging blankets and mattresses around the room! As the ministry grew (by 1974, Your Story Hour was aired on 500 stations!), so did its needs. But God continued to provide the personnel, buildings, and finances at just the right time. By God’s blessing, Your Story Hour has expanded to thousands of stations.
In 1985, we launched Tu Historia Preferida, the Spanish version of our broadcast. And in 1992, Chas Tvoego Rasskaza went on the air in Russia. We pray that God continues to open doors for our programs to be aired on new stations around the world!
