FIRESTONE – NORAD's nearly 60 year old tradition of tracking St. Nick as he makes his rounds on Christmas Eve started with a misprint in a newspaper.
Col. Harry Shoup was the commander in charge of CONAD, NORAD's predecessor in 1955. He was sitting in his office when the red telephone on his desk rang.
"Only a four star general or the Pentagon would call on that phone," Shoup's daughter Pamela Farrell said. "It was a very important phone."
Shoup answered the phone to a tiny voice on the other end. "Is this Santa?" the voice asked. Shoup thought it was a joke.
"He thought at that point, someone's messing with me," Shoup's son Rick said.
But finally the gruff colonel decided to play along. He said "Ho, ho, ho. May I speak to your mother?"
The child on the other end handed the phone over and Shoup asked the woman how her child got the top secret number. She told him it was in an ad in the newspaper.
Sears had placed an ad in a Colorado Springs newspaper offering children the chance to call Santa Claus. The number was misprinted.
Shoup decided to play along with the mistake and ordered two airmen to answer the red phone and talk to kids as Santa until Sears and the phone company sorted out the problem.
A couple of weeks later on Christmas Eve, one of the airmen put a fake sleigh on the radar at CONAD and the tradition was born.
"He loved it," Farrell said.
"He loved the story. He loved how it progressed. He loved Christmas."
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