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                               John Van Voorhees, 1918-2007:
                     Local TV pioneer seemed to do it all behind the camera



By CASEY MCNERTHNEY
seattlepi.com
Friday April 13, 2007


Don't get John Van Voorhees wrong, friends said. He was a straight-laced guy who followed directions.

The thing is, the television pioneer rarely needed them.

He used engineering intuition to build an FM radio before World War II. When color TV was the talk of his West Seattle neighborhood in the late 1950s, he didn't go out and buy one -- he built one.

Van Voorhees was an engineering expert at KOMO/4 for decades and kept his love of electronics until his death April 2. He was 88.

KOMO began television broadcasts in December 1953, and Van Voorhees was a cameraman at Seafair hydroplane races in the mid-1950s, relaying what was then the biggest sports event in Seattle.

"I think John, like early people in TV, was inquisitive and creative," said Richard Yeamans, 81, who worked with Van Voorhees on the early Seafair broadcasts.

Van Voorhees erected sets, worked the sound, set up lights and operated the camera.

And after serving in World War II, he started conversation with an attractive elevator operator working in his building on Fifth Avenue.

"We just seemed to click," said Audrey Van Voorhees, who became his wife of 59 years.

He told her of his war experiences, when he was transmitting Morse code from an Army base in Nome, Alaska. He told his two children -- Yvette Chambers and Robert Van Voorhees of Seattle -- about his postwar experience working in the Seattle police reserves and as a Washington State Patrol trooper.

But radio and broadcasting were his passion, his family said.

A University of Washington electrical engineering student, Van Voorhees was inspired by professor Ted Bell, who was also a manager of KRSC-AM in Seattle. The training he received helped him get a job as a disc jockey at KJR-AM -- the oldest Seattle radio station still operating -- which led to employment at KOMO.

"He would bring us down to watch tapings," said Chambers, who recalled being in the audience for "The Captain Puget Show." "And when the World's Fair was here, he was right there."

Van Voorhees became KOMO's master control operator. After retiring in 1984, the longtime boating enthusiast and former member of the Coast Guard Auxiliary spent time with the West Seattle Amateur Radio Club. He also spent years as a member of the Masons and the Shriners.

"He always kept learning," Yeamans said. "John wasn't one to sit down and vacillate."

Friends expect to share more stories at a service for Van Voorhees at 12:30 p.m. Saturday at St. Barnabas Anglican Church in Shoreline.

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P-I reporter Casey McNerthney can be reached at 206-448-8220 or caseymcnerthney@seattlepi.com.