Hi-Yo Bond!

His cry rings loud upon the air; He rides through storm and strife.

He foils foul villains everywhere To sell the staff of life.

The identity of the hero of this hell-for-leather ballad stumped the Information Please experts a few Tuesdays back, but hundreds of thousands of radio fans, young and old, could instantly have whooped out his name -- The Lone Ranger! Hi-Yo, Silver!

On behalf of 36 radio sponsors, 29 of them bakers of bread, cake and biscuits, the Lone Ranger rides his imaginary mount, Silver, over a vast radio range of 129 stations, including one in Honolulu and one in Sydney, Australia. In real life he is Earl Crasser of Detroit. The popular belief is that Silver was named for Gordon Baking Co.'s Silvercup Bread, the Lone Ranger's leading sponsor from his start over five years ago.

Last week Gordon Baking Co. announced without explanation that, come March 24, Silvercup would no longer ride with the Lone Ranger. But no sooner had the Gordon company dismounted than General Baking Co. (Bond Bread) arranged to hitch on beginning March 27 over 14 MBS stations, four others.

Not only are the Lone Ranger and "Hi-Yo, Silver" the inspiration for the nation's No. 1 cinema serial and a comic strip in 81 daily newspapers at home and abroad, they are licensed as trade names to 53 manufacturers of everything from banks to bubble gum. So his horse will hardly be renamed. The Ranger will have to find some other way of making children pester their mothers to switch from Silvercup to Bond bread.

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