Alma Kitchell Yoder; Radio Singer, Early Talk Show Host

Alma Kitchell Yoder, 103, a pioneering radio singer who became one of the early talk show hosts. Her voice was transmitted by the Amateur Radio Corps of America from an experimental station off New York harbor in 1917--well before most Americans knew radio existed. In 1938, she became emcee of “Let’s Talk It Over,” a radio program with prominent women, such as Eleanor Roosevelt, as guests. Later she moved into television in its infancy, singing in the first televised opera in 1939. She capped her career by presiding over the first television cooking show, “In the Kelvinator Kitchen,” in 1947 and 1948. On Wednesday in Sarasota, Fla.