This isn't the first time we've had a chance to look back at Channel 4 history

OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla. (KFOR) – There was no blueprint for building a television station and getting it on the air in 1949.

Several of the engineers who did it were submariners and veterans of World War II.

We had a chance to speak with station engineer Willard Hines in 1994.

"We didn't know any better," he told us then, "but we went ahead and did it."

On the other side of the camera, Danny Williams was there at the beginning too.

He was everywhere on stage, on camera, and in character as 3-D Danny, Xavier T. Willard, and Spavinaw Spoofkin on the Gizmo Puppet show.

"In drama, it's called com del art," he said.

When we spoke with John Ferguson back in 2006, he still had most of his Count Gregor costume and plenty of stories which he can still tell as of this post.

"Good evening," he told us in character. "I am Count Gregore and this is Shock Theater."

We sat down with longtime farm reporter Russell Pierson when he turned 100.

He recalled wanting to be a track coach coming off the farm in SW Oklahoma.

His dad pointed him in another direction.

"I had several ambitions," he recalled in 2011. "but only one at a time."

My own evolution as reporter and photographer is tempered by those who came before.

I went from headstrong to a little more reserved in my delivery.

WKY, KTVY, KFOR, its people overlap.

I had the distinct pleasure to work with Weatherman Jim Williams and Sportscaster Bob Barry Sr.

Williams told us in 1994, "We used to do what we needed to do because there was no history to fall back on and tell us this is the proper way to do it."

I had the honor to meet many more of the thousands of people who overlap both the making of television history, and the writing of its first draft.

Russell Pierson said, "You like to kind of reminisce a little bit."