John Meston

John Lyman Meston (July 30, 1914March 24, 1979) was an American scriptwriter best known for co-creating with producer Norman Macdonnell the long-running Western series Gunsmoke. He developed storylines and wrote radio scripts and teleplays for 379 episodes for the series, which was first broadcast on CBS Radio in 1952, and then adapted to the "small screen", as well, airing on television from 1955 to 1975. In addition to his work on Gunsmoke, Meston also served as a writer and editorial supervisor for other radio programs such as Escape, Suspense, Lux Radio Theater, and Fort Laramie; and in the 1970s, he wrote several episodes for two other television series, Little House on the Prairie and Hec Ramsey. Early life John Meston was born in Colorado in 1914, the youngest of three children of Irene (née Whitehurst) and George D. Meston, who was an investment and loan specialist in Pueblo. Federal census records suggest that young John grew up in a financially comfortable household, one that was at least prosperous enough by 1920 to afford a live-in "servant". Ten years later, he was still residing in Pueblo with his parents and two older sisters, although in a larger home in a more affluent neighborhood on West 18th Street. During this time, as a teenager, Meston developed his skills as a horseman working in the summer with Colorado cowboys and competing periodically in regional rodeos as a bronc rider. After graduation from high school, Meston received an extensive higher education at Dartmouth, Harvard, and in France at the Sorbonne. In the May 1958 issue of the entertainment magazine TV Radio Mirror, reporter Gordon Budge touches on Meston's substantial academic background and on some of his other experiences prior to joining CBS Radio after World War II: Career Following his university studies and his work as a teacher, editor, reporter, and "range rider", 27-year-old Meston returned to Pueblo and enlisted in the United States Army on July 7, 1942. His military deployment during World War II included Alaska, where he served in the army's special ski-troop units in the Aleutians and also as a censor, a position that required him to review military and civilian correspondence and delete information that might prove helpful to enemy forces if those documents were intercepted. After the war, Meston was hired by KNX Radio in Los Angeles to be an assistant in the station's editing department, and by October 1945, he was promoted to head of that department.