Shelby Storck(1916-1969)

Shelby Storck was born in Kansas City and graduated from the University of Kansas City in 1937. He was a newscaster for WDAF radio from 1939 until he joined the Navy in 1942. A Navy pilot, he rose to the rank of lieutenant commander before being discharged in 1945. Two of his years of service had been in the European theater of the war. He rejoined WDAF in 1946 but soon moved on to being a member of the staff of T. R. Finn & Associates as its publicity director. He was assistant director of education and organization for the Consumers Cooperative association from 1947 to 1949 and assistant manager of the North Kansas City Development company in 1949 and 1950. He continued in radio and television work through the 1950s, working between St. Louis and Kansas City, making documentary films which he often narrated as well as produced. In 1954 he became general manager of KETC in St. Louis, an educational television station. Storck's first wife died of bulbar polio in 1950. He later established a Barbara Storck Memorial award for poetry at K. C. U. in her memory. He remarried in 1956 to Jacqueline Storck. Storck and his family moved from Kansas City to St. Louis in 1960. In 1966 he formed Shelby Storck & Associates, Inc., a company in the business of producing advertising motion pictures and TV spots. Storck gained recognition within the industry when he produced a mesmerizing 30-minute political advertisement for Mike Gravel, titled "Man from Alaska," in 1968. Shelby Storck died of a heart attack in his sleep at home in St. Louis on April 5, 1969. He was 52 years old. Storck's name is still widely known throughout the country, with the Storck Awards for excellence in political advertising having been established in New York in 1980.