Jeanne Sackman Huskie, who died Tuesday at age 78, helped introduce Denver’s first TV station and co- founded St. John Chrysostom Episcopal Church in Golden.
After graduating with a fine-arts degree from the University of Colorado, she became an assistant promotion director at radio station KFEL.
On July 18, 1952, she joined a handful of women on the new staff of KFEL TV2 when it began broadcasting.
The station’s debut marked the end of Denver’s reluctant status as the “largest dark city” in the U.S., as Colorado broadcast historian Tom Mulvey put it in his essay “Television’s 50 Years in Colorado.”
Until then, Colorado was among 14 states lacking any TV, thanks to a 1948 Federal Communications Commission freeze on TV-station applications. KFEL went on the air 18 days after the FCC lifted the freeze, becoming the first new TV station to start after the Korean War.
Helpful articles, including the Rocky Mountain News’ “How to Operate Controls of Your New Television Set,” and TV fashion advice (“black velvet tapered slacks and a picador jacket made of white silk fringe”) guided bewildered TV novices.
A Denver Post report quoted an optometry professor reassuring viewers that TV helped cure crossed eyes.
Huskie’s work at KFEL included working on “Five Pin Theater” and other live shows, and she was the only female staffer who worked with an NBC crew on “March of Medicine,” a network show.
In 1954, she left the station to direct publicity for the Emily Griffith Opportunity School and to work as a freelance portrait artist.
She married another KFEL staffer, Warren Huskie, who eventually left the station to produce military training films.
The Huskies were among 12 families that bucked Episcopal hierarchy in 1961 to found a mission church for the growing Applewood suburb. Despite resistance from the local bishop, the Huskies and other families plowed on with the approval of their sponsor, Calvary Episcopal Church of Golden.
Finally, the bishop relented. He designated the new church as the mission of St. John Chrysostom, a name obscure to most of the new mission’s founders. Hasty research satisfied the Huskies and the other families that the choice was appropriate. Chrysostom, a fourth-century priest, was renowned for defying authority.
Jeanne Huskie remained active with St. John Chrysostom through its infancy in a local high school cafeteria and after a proper church was built. She led Bible study classes and prayer groups.
Survivors include son Will Huskie of Golden; sister Dorothy Cumming of Prescott, Ariz.; and two grandchildren.
A memorial service and reception will be held at 11 a.m. Saturday at St. John Chrysostom Episcopal Church, 13151 W. 28th Ave., in Golden.
Staff writer Claire Martin can be reached at 303-820-1477 or cmartin@denverpost.com.
