Last Modified: 11:42 p.m. 10/15/2002
By Phil Anderson
The Capital-Journal

Audio narration for "Czars: 400 Years of Imperial Grandeur" features the familiar voice of Bill Kurtis, the one-time Topeka newsman who went on to bigger things with CBS and now A&E.

Kurtis' narration was done on a tight deadline. Kansas International Museum officials said Kurtis had been in Saudi Arabia before returning to southeast Kansas during the weekend.

On Monday, he began recording audio files for narration for about 80 "Czars" exhibits, officials said. The recording session originated from a radio station in Independence, and audio files were transferred by Internet onto a special Web site designed by Smith Audio-Visual, of Topeka.

However, the files didn't begin arriving via the Internet until around 9 p.m. Monday, officials said.

"We thought we'd have it Monday afternoon," said Uwe Sattler, technical manager for Sennheiser Electronic Corp., which designed the guidePORT audio system for the museum. "We had the files for the first three galleries by 11 o'clock, but there are 11 galleries in the museum."

The last text file was completed at about 4:40 a.m. Tuesday, Sattler said. Technicians met at the museum at 5 a.m. to finalize the audio clips, which guests heard starting at about 9:30 a.m., when the museum welcomed its first guests.

Sattler credited Smith Audio-Visual's James Hebert for working into the wee hours of the morning on Tuesday, seeing to it that the audio files were ready for Tuesday's opening.

© Copyright 2002 Morris Digital Works and The Topeka Capital-Journal.