Happy Holidays from the RAS!

Happy Holidays! It is that time of year again where we come together and celebrate as a family. One tradition that has held up over the years here at Ron’s Amazing Stories is the annual playing of the radio classic, It’s a Wonderful Life. While every bit as Christmas as its it big brother the film masterpiece, it is a bit shorter, but still stars that lovable character George Bailey portrayed by Jimmy Stewart. So Sit back relax and enjoy! After all it is a wonderful life!

Click Here To Play!

Merry Christmas!

-Ron

Our OTR Story

It’s a Wonderful Life is a 1946 American Christmas fantasy drama film produced and directed by Frank Capra, based on the short story “The Greatest Gift”, which Philip Van Doren Stern wrote in 1939 and published privately in 1945. The film is now among the most popular in American cinema and because of numerous television showings in the 1980s has become traditional viewing during the Christmas season. The film stars James Stewart as George Bailey, a man who has given up his dreams in order to help others, and whose imminent suicide on Christmas Eve brings about the intervention of his guardian angel, Clarence Odbody. Clarence shows George all the lives he has touched and how different life in his community of Bedford Falls would be had he never been born.

RAS #269 – A Rebel Among Us

On Ron’s Amazing Stories we will travel with the Brothers Grimm from the German countryside of the 1800s to the bloody battlefields of Gettysburg, with JDR Hawkins author of the Civil War Novel, A Rebel Among Us!

A Rebel Among Us – by J.D.R. Hawkins

David Summers never expected any of this…not in a million years. He thought for sure he was a goner.After leaving Alabama and enlisting with the cavalry, his delusion of chivalry was suddenly quashed when he saw for himself the horrors of battle. Now, after being shot and ending up at a strange farmhouse, he’s found himself being nursed back to health by four beautiful girls, and has learned that his Confederate brethren have deserted him in Pennsylvania after fighting at Gettysburg. It’s more than he can fathom.

About author J.D.R. Hawkins – J.D.R. Hawkins is an award-winning author who has written for newspapers, magazines, newsletters, e-zines, and blogs. She is one of a few female Civil War authors, uniquely describing the front lines from a Confederate perspective.

Show Links for JDR Hawkins: Twitter – Website – Amazon Author Page

RAS Spotlight – J.D.R. Hawkins

On this edition Ron’s Amazing Stories – The Blog we point the RAS spotlight squarely on Civil War novelist J.D.R. Hawkins. She is an amazing writer who takes us into the War to Make Men Free using real facts and places with fictional characters. She is an award-winning author who has written for newspapers, magazines, newsletters, e-zines, and blogs. She is one of only a few female Civil War authors, and uniquely describes the front lines from a Confederate perspective.

Her award winning books the Renegade Series includes A Beautiful Glittering Lie, A Beckoning Hellfire, and A Rebel Among Us, which has just been published. These books tell the story of a family from north Alabama who experience immeasurable pain when their lives are dramatically changed by the war.

Ms. Hawkins is a member of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, the International Women’s Writing Guild, Pikes Peak Writers, and Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers. She is also an artist and singer/songwriter. She is currently working on a nonfiction book about the War Between the States, as well as another sequel for the Renegade Series.

If you want to learn more about J.D.R. Hawkins head to this link to her website.

This Week’s Podcast:

On the podcast this week J.D.R. Hawkins comes to the show. She reads from her new book A Rebel Among Us and then sticks around to talk about the book and answers questions about the Civil War. You can listen to this podcast this Thursday at Ron’s Amazing Stories, download it from iTunes, stream it on TuneIn Radio or listen on your radio Friday night at 8pm Eastern time. Check your local listing or find the station closest to you at this link.

The Calendar:

December 01 – The Horror Express #13
December 08 – Gigantopithecus – (RAS #268)
December 15 – Special Guest – Julie Hawkins – (RAS #269)
December 22 – Christmas Break 2016
December 29 – Year in Review podcast – (RAS #270)
January 05 – (RAS #271)

RAS #268 – Gigantopithecus

Gigantopithecus On this episode of Ron’s Amazing Stories titled, Gigantopithecus, a UFO crashes in a family’s backyard. The story is expertly narrated by John Dehner. Also, we tell the true story of a camping trip gone very wrong, and we have another five minute mystery. So, press that play button!

Gigantopithecus:

What is it? It is a very large fossil Asian ape of the late Miocene to early Pleistocene epochs. That is a fancy way of saying that it is probably extinct. We say that because many believe that this ancient fellow just might be the modern day bigfoot.

Our OTR Story – Heavens To Betsy

This week’s story comes from Suspense, and it could have made today. It tells the tale of an everyday suburban family who discovers a crashed UFO in their backyard. It is titled, HEAVENS TO BETSY and originally aired: October 11, 1955.

Spotlight – John Dehner

There were stars during the golden age of radio and one of the biggest and brightest was John Dehner. He was also one of the few that broke into the first age of television. On this edition of Ron’s Amazing Stories – The Blog, we look at the life and times of one of the best, John Dehner.

Dehner was born in Staten Island, New York. His father was a painter, so during his younger years he lived in some pretty incredible places like: Oslo, Copenhagen, London, and Paris. Dehner initially went into art after studying at the Grand Central School of Art in New York City, New York. One of his many jobs was as an animator at Walt Disney Studios.

If you were ask Dehner about how he got his start in show business he would probably begin by talking of his extensive radio career. His early radio jobs included being a news editor and a disc jockey. As a radio actor he appeared as a lead or supporting player in such series as, The Whistler, Gunsmoke, Suspense and many others. He starred as Paladin in the radio version of Have Gun – Will Travel and in Frontier Gentleman, another western series.

John Dehner He made his film debut in the 1940s, and has appeared in dozens of films. A tall and distinguished looking man with a rich voice and somewhat flamboyant demeanor, Dehner often was cast as an outlaw leader, crooked banker or saloon owner in westerns and adventure films, although he was occasionally cast against type in comedies, and played a crusading newspaper reporter in the TV series The Roaring 20’s. Dehner had over 250 television and film credits to his name. His earliest being in 1941 to the motion picture classic The Right Stuff in 1983. He finished his work with the award winning mini-series, War and Remembrance in 1989.

Whether he was working as an artist, actor or professional pianist John Dehner was one of a kind. He died of emphysema in 1992 at the age of 76 in Santa Barbara, California.

This Week’s Podcast:

On the podcast this week a UFO crashes in a family’s backyard, we tell the true story of a camping trip gone very wrong and we also have another five minute mystery. You can listen to this podcast this Thursday at Ron’s Amazing Stories, download it from iTunes, stream it on TuneIn Radio or listen on your radio Friday night at 8pm Eastern time. Check your local listing or find the station closest to you at this link.

The Calendar:

December 01 – The Horror Express #13
December 08 – Gigantopithecus – (RAS #268)
December 15 – Special Guest – Julie Hawkins – (RAS #269)
December 22 – (RAS #270)
December 29 – Christmas Break 2016
January 05 – (RAS #271)