By Roger McKinney

rmckinney@joplinglobe.com

Anyone who watches anything on cable television has Tom Whitehead to thank.

Clay T. “Tom” Whitehead graduated from Columbus (Kan.) High School in 1956. It was then called Cherokee County Community High School. He died of prostate cancer in July at age 69. He was living in McLean, Va., at the time of his death.

Whitehead, during the administration of President Richard Nixon, became the country’s first telecommunications policy adviser, according to his obituary in The Washington Post and other national papers.

As director of the White House Office of Telecommunications Policy from 1970-74, Whitehead set the stage for what was known as Open Skies, the policy that led to the creation of the domestic satellite system that brought cable television and lower-cost long-distance phone service into American homes.

His efforts allowed the cable television industry to get its own programming channels to a national audience using satellites. Before then, cable companies were required to lease land lines from monopoly provider AT&T.;

He was sometimes a critic of broadcast television networks, whose news programs he said in one noted speech reflected a liberal bias, calling them purveyors of “elitist gossip” and “ideological plugola.” He later apologized for those comments before a Senate committee.

His sister, Betsy Conerly, said by phone from her home in Alpharetta, Ga., that rather than being a political partisan, her brother was a proponent of free markets and competition.

“To us, he was just Tommy,” Conerly said. She said he kept business and family life separate.

“They never got the Kansas out of him, thank goodness,” Conerly said.

After his time in the Nixon administration, Whitehead became president of Hughes Communications, a satellite manufacturing subsidiary of Hughes Aircraft Co. While there, he developed the Galaxy program of commercial communications satellites. He went on to establish SES Astra, a satellite television service in Europe in the 1980s. Its programming reaches more than 65 million homes and is estimated to be worth more than $1 billion.

‘He was kind of a geek’

Conerly, 61, said their parents, Clay B. and Helen Whitehead, moved with her, her brother and her sisters, Susan Whitehead and Nancy Whitehead, to Columbus in 1951. She said before that, they had lived in Fredonia and for a brief time in Parsons. She said their mother died in 1965 and their father died in 1986. Both are buried in Columbus.

She said her brother was interested in amateur radio. He had attached his radio antenna to a telephone pole outside their house, which she said she enjoyed climbing as a child.

“I remember his bedroom was covered with postcards from all over the world” from people he had contacted on his short-wave radio kit.

She said he also built a telescope which he set up in the yard at night.

“He was kind of a geek,” Conerly said. “He didn’t have much of a social life until later. He was interested in communication all of his life.”

The 1956 yearbook in Whitehead’s senior year noted that he was in the science club his junior and senior years; math club senior year; physical science club senior year; debate junior year; and drama senior year. He was not voted most likely to succeed.

Conerly said she didn’t recall her brother being an avid kite-flyer when he was a child. But when he was an adult, he successfully challenged a ban on flying kites in Washington, D.C., and celebrated by flying a kite for reporters.

Brian Lamb, chief executive of C-SPAN, was Whitehead’s assistant in the Office of Telecommunications Policy. Conerly said her brother and Lamb remained close friends until his death.

Proud to be a Kansan

She said her brother returned to Columbus in 2006 for his 50th high-school reunion and had been to Columbus to visit several times throughout the years.

Earl Eddington, of Columbus, was in Whitehead’s high-school class, but Eddington said they had different interests.

“I was an athlete,” Eddington said. “He was into books and electronics. He’s a person you don’t forget.”

He said they had a nice visit at the 50th class reunion.

“He’s just a humble person,” Eddington said.

Eddington’s wife, Carolyn, was younger and was friends with Conerly, but said she recalled the ham radio and world map he had in his room when she visited.

Alice Williams, 94, was friends with Whitehead’s parents and remained a family friend, even being invited to participate in family gatherings and visiting the homes of the children. She said Whitehead visited her in her house when he returned two years ago.

“When he would sit and visit, he was just like a next-door neighbor,” Williams said. “He didn’t talk way over your head. He was a kind, good-hearted guy.”

After graduating from Columbus High School, he went to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he earned a bachelor’s degree and a doctorate.

Conerly called her brother “subdued.”

“He was a quiet, gentle, loving man,” she said. “He liked to build things. He liked to make them work.”

She said her brother was always proud to be a Kansan. She said she hopes reading about her brother’s life may inspire young people in Columbus or other small towns to realize that they can accomplish things no matter their background or where they grew up.

Other survivors include his wife, Margaret Whitehead, of McLean, Va.; and two children, Abigail Craine, of Lemoore, Calif., and Clay C. Whitehead, of San Francisco.



Symbolic flowers

Betsy Conerly said the sprays at her brother’s funeral all were sunflowers, the state flower of Kansas.