Harold A. Lafount

At 72 years old, Harold A. Lafount physical status not available right now. We will update Harold A. Lafount's height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, and measurements.

Lafount first worked as an assistant in his father's hardware store in Logan, Utah, known as the Lafount Hardware Company, and then worked as its manager. He was in the hardware business for twelve years starting in 1903.

Beginning in 1909, while still living in Logan, Lafount held the position of general manager at the newly founded Pacific Land & Water Company of Salt Lake City, which acquired and developed land for agricultural and mining purposes. The company also had offices in Logan; on one trip between the two cities, he escaped with only bruises when the gasoline tank of his automobile exploded, hurling him some forty feet. Lafount worked at Pacific Land & Water for ten years. He was then a receiver for the Sevier River Land and Water Company from 1923 to 1927. By the mid-1920s, he was a manufacturer of earphones for crystal radio receivers. He knew prominent people socially, including LDS Church President Heber J. Grant and U.S. Senator from Utah Reed Smoot.

During the 1910s, the Lafount family had moved from Logan to Salt Lake City, where they lived in a large brick house located at Fifteenth South and Ninth East. From 1919 to 1924, Lafount was bishop of the ward (ecclesiastical and administrative head of his congregation) in the same area where he lived. His wife worked for the church, was a leader in social charities, and gave well-received dramatic readings. Daughter Lenore later described Harold as "a man of temper and drive" who was prone to angry outbursts.

Subsequent radio industry career; second marriage

Lafount stayed on the FRC until its replacement by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in 1934, but was not appointed to that body. The FRC role had enabled Lafount to know not just many government figures but also the people running the growing broadcasting industry. Upon leaving the FRC, he became head of the broadcasting interests of the Bulova Watch Company. Arde Bulova, chairman of the company, either owned or partly owned several radio stations.

On September 8, 1938, Lafount's wife Alma died in Washington, D. C. at the age of 56. He then married Gladys MacDonald on September 6, 1939, but she died in New York on June 14, 1943, at the age of 40. During these years, Lafount split his time among residences in New York, Washington, and Salt Lake City.

By 1941, Lafount was president of the National Independent Broadcasters, which represented some 200 radio stations (out of 800 total in the nation), focusing on those that were not affiliated with any network. During World War II, Lafount served as chairman of the radio committee within the New York City War Fund and subsequently was a member of the radio committee within the National War Fund.

In 1942, Lafount became president of the newly founded, New York-based Atlantic Coast Network, a regional network of radio stations, most of which Arde Bulova had an interest in. These included the well-known stations WNEW in New York, WPEN in Philadelphia, WELI in New Haven, WNBC in Hartford, WFCI in Providence, and WCOP in Boston with WFBR in Baltimore and WWDC in Washington soon joining. He maintained this position through at least the late 1940s. He served as vice-president of the Wodaam Corporation, which ran WOV, and the Greater New York Broadcasting Corporation, which ran WNEW; both were part of the larger Bulova interests. He was also vice president of WNBC, a different station with those call letters in New Britain, Connecticut, and the Fifth-Forty-Sixth Corporation.

Lafount was also president of the Broadcasting Service Organization in Boston, which ran WORL. As such, he was a principal in a long-running regulatory and legal case. In 1937, Lafount and two others, Sandford H. Cohen and George Cohen, had acquired 70 percent of WORL, a radio station in Boston, with Lafount becoming president. Accordingly, effective control of the station passed to Bulova. But Lafount and the others allegedly concealed the transaction from the FCC. During 1943 and 1944, the United States House Select Committee to Investigate the Federal Communications Commission, commonly referred to as the Lea Committee, held hearings on various aspects of broadcasting regulation. Lafount's matter was the subject of several days' investigation by that committee in Spring 1944. By late 1945, the FCC was threatening to not renew the station's license. The three co-owners said they had not consciously violated any regulations, because they thought FCC notification was only necessary if a single person gained more than half-control of a station. The commission claimed that deception and false reports had continued throughout the 1937 to 1943 period.

In April 1947, the FCC denied the license renewal, saying that Lafount and the other owners had shown "gross carelessness and willful disregard [of facts]" in giving false information about the ownership structure and financial status of the station. The agency sought other applicants for the 950 AM band frequency, while Lafount appealed their decision in federal court. In December 1948, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit overturned the FCC on a 2–to-1 decision, saying that the FCC had acted "arbitrarily, capriciously, and unreasonably" in refusing the renewal. The U.S. Justice Department appealed, however, and in May 1949, the United States Supreme Court handed down a brief, unsigned, unanimous decision that overturned the appeals court and stated that the FCC acted within its power when it refused the license renewal for Lafount and the other owners. The station, which had stayed on the air via temporary licenses, went off the air on May 30, 1949. (The station returned in October 1950, under new ownership.)

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