In 1966, Morton, alongside celebrity movie star and stage actress Eartha Kitt, was the winner of a Puyallup River rubber-boat race of KVI personalities. Radio personalities were expected to participate in promotions and make personal appearances. Morton's relaxed style – he was known to occasionally mutter and talk to himself on the air in an endearing way – and his delight in making people laugh made him an audience favorite. Besides playing records, personalities spent a lot of air-time talking about traffic, news, and weather as well as cracking jokes and providing listeners with friendly companionship. KVI was a successful MOR station, which stood for middle of the road. His job title was "radio personality" as well as disc jockey. In 1964 Morton became the station's evening man and soon won over listeners with his witty banter. (The marriage later ended in divorce.) KVI was a broadcasting powerhouse owned by Golden West Broadcasting, a successful national chain owned by singing cowboy movie star Gene Autry. After Nita had prompted Morton to approach Seattle radio station KVI about a job, they had offered him one.
In 1963, now 28, Morton and his wife, the former Nita Rowland, and their children Chari and David moved to the Seattle area and started house hunting. Morton was thrilled when French phoned him at the station and told him he had a chance to make it in Seattle radio someday. A mutual friend had asked French to give the kid a listen. I just went into it naturally" (Remington). Morton had been behind the mic at KMO for about a month when he got a phone call from announcer Jim French, a big name in Seattle radio.
He later said, "Dad never pushed me into radio. In 1958 he returned to Washington and enrolled at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, where he also hosted a jazz show at KMO, a local station owned by his father. In 1955, he was drafted and served for two years at Fort Bliss, Texas. Each of them worked a separate shift, allowing them to sleep in rotation at the local motel where they were staying (Evans, "Early Beginnings. The only job he was known to have had before his radio career began was as a young man, loading frozen peas onto a refrigerated car at a Walla Walla cannery. He went on to the University of Washington and was a member of the Psi Upsilon fraternity. Returning to Seattle with his family, Jack went to Garfield High School, where he played on the golf team. From 1941 to 1947, young Jack lived in California when the elder Morton worked for CBS there. His mother, Clara Huggins Morton, was the granddaughter of a British Hudson's Bay Company fur trader who in 1849 arrived in what would later become Washington state.
His father Archie was a Puget Sound broadcasting executive. John Archibald Morton was born in Seattle on February 13, 1935. During his decades-long career, radio broadcasting saw a lot of changes, and Morton navigated them with grace, charm, and wit. When he made personal appearances and when he engaged in wacky public stunts, listeners were happy to come see him in person. Disc jockeys were celebrities and Morton was one of the biggest. Beginning in the early 1960s, Seattle-area radio listeners enjoyed the company of the amiable Jack Morton at home, in their cars, and at the beach on transistor radios.
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