The 1942 Nashua High School yearbook, "Tusitala," lists the activities Francis "Frank" Boyle was involved in, along with his ambition to join the U.S. Air Force, which he did when he turned 18 two years after graduating at age 16.

When longtime Greater Nashuans get together and the conversation turns to the local broadcast industry – which it almost always does – certain names are sure to come up, and most of them will inevitably trigger a favorite tale or two from the annals of yesteryear.

Lecius. A second Lecius. Teas. Parent. Hippauf. Rock. Lampron. King. Piper. Nichols. Newcomb. Ross. Nikitas. Lagios. A second Lagios.

Wait. What about Boyle?

If “Boyle” doesn’t immediately come to mind, that’s because the name Francis “Frank” Boyle Jr., a former longtime Nashuan and 1942 Nashua High graduate, was far more prominent behind the scenes of the broadcast industry.

But earlier this month, the name Frank Boyle was suddenly in the national spotlight, standing shoulder to shoulder with such broadcast industry luminaries as Hall of Fame sports broadcaster Bob Costas; Marion Ross, the beloved “Marion Cunningham” of “Happy Days” fame; and “Good Morning America” co-anchor Robin Roberts, who is also president of her production company, “Rock’N Robin

An August 1944 edition of the Nashua Telegraph announced that former Nashua resident Francis "Frank" Boyle was awarded the Air Medal and Oak Leaf Cluster for meritorius service in the air. Boyle's most recent accomplishment -- being named a recipient of the Library of American Broadcasting Foundation's Giants of Broadcasting & Electronic Arts Award -- was bestowed earlier this month.

Productions.”

The occasion was the awarding of the Library of American Broadcasting Foundation’s 2021 Giants of Broadcasting & Electronic Arts Awards, a virtual event that took place two weeks ago and broadcast out of the foundation’s New York City headquarters.

The man who still today recalls his formative years in Nashua as “some of the most wonderful years of my life … it was a marvelous place to grow up,” was one of the nine members of the Giants of Broadcasting’s Class of 2021, an event created “to honor the remarkable creators, innovators, leaders, performers and journalists who have brought the electronics arts to the prominence that they occupy today,” according to the foundation.

Contacted by phone at his southwestern Connecticut home last week, Boyle sounds younger than his 96 years, most notably when it comes to recalling details of events that happened generations ago.

Try as he might, however, Boyle’s interviewer was only marginally successful in coaxing the affable nonagenarian to talk more about the highlights of a career – or more accurately, careers – that sufficiently impressed members of the foundation’s nominating committee to put his name on this year’s list of Giants.

A recent photo of Francis "Frank" Boyle, who grew up in Nashua and went on to a career that has earned him numerous accolades, including most recently the Library of American Broadcasting Foundation's Giants of Broadcasting & Electronic Arts Award. (Courtesy photo)

Indeed, Boyle clearly delighted in recalling his early Nashua years, even though he lived here for just 16 or 17 years.

That was plenty of time, however, to fall in love with a thriving little city he saw for the first time at age 8.

That’s when his mother, Alice, who was born in Nashua in 1901, moved him and his two sisters back to Nashua from Woodstock, Vermont, where she worked serving food to big shots and guests of the area’s resorts.

“My father was in the lumber business in Montpelier … I was 8 when he deserted us,” Boyle recalls.

He enrolled in the elementary school connected to St. Patrick’s Church, went on to Nashua High, and upon graduation worked “at the textile plant for a couple years” until he was old enough to join the Air Force.

Dean Shalhoup

“I wanted to be a fighter pilot and save the world,” he said with a laugh.

Boyle’s son, James Boyle, said in an email that his father flew upwards of 35 missions over France and Germany “in the ball turret of a B-17,” the so-called “Flying Fortress” fighter plane that carried the chilling nickname “The Flying Coffin.”

Returning to Nashua after the war, Boyle said jobs were available, but not the type of jobs that lead to productive careers. So he enrolled in college – a process that turned out to be the stuff of legend.

When Boyle was at NHS, the principal – they called them “headmasters” at the time – was Walter S. Naismith, who Boyle described as “a sort of Lou Grant figure” known to be tough on troublemakers but who “we worshipped, because we knew he was right.”

Somewhere along the way, Naismith suggested that Boyle consider enrolling at the University of Michigan, where Naismith had earned his masters degrees.

Boyle thanked his mentor for the advice and went to the reference books to learn more about the Midwestern school.

Going down the index list, Boyle stopped at “Michigan,” not realizing that was the entry for Michigan State University, not the University of Michigan.

Boyle was accepted. To this day, James Boyle, who followed his father, and late mother too, to Michigan State, shudders thinking about how close he came to being a lifelong “Wolverine” rather than a forever “Spartan.”

It would also be at Michigan State that Boyle met his future wife. Her birth name, Burgess, was next to “Boyle” alphabetically, putting the two side-by-side in their journalism class.

They hit it off and eventually married, prompting James Boyle to note how his sisters and him “got very lucky, twice” thanks to alphabetical forces.

Otherwise, “we wouldn’t have had such tremendous MSU alumni parents, who told us East Lansing stories and perhaps fables.

“Gosh, we could have been Wolverine kids,” he added with a laugh.

Frank Boyle started out studying chemical engineering at MSU. “I tried it, it was a total flop,” he said with a laugh. So he tried the advertising field, found he was quite adept at selling and managing sales forces, which led him to form a media brokerage firm that, among other markets, involved stations in southern New

Hampshire.

Whenever someone asks Boyle his secret to his success in almost always beating his competitors, he has a ready answer.

“What I tell them is, I outlive them,” he said with a laugh.

Dean Shalhoup’s column appears weekly in The Sunday Telegraph. He may be reached at 594-1256 or dshalhoup@nashuatelegraph.com.