Jay Bunyard's eyes light up when I ask him to talk about the history of KDQN-AM 1390 in De Queen. Bunyard now owns 17 radio stations across the state and syndicates statewide programs, but this is where he cut his teeth in radio.
He tells me that KDQN went on the air in 1956. Bunyard, who had worked at the station for six years, bought it in 1983 from Haskell Jones, a legendary Arkansas broadcaster. It was Jones who gave a high school student named Mike Huckabee his start in radio at KXAR-AM in Hope.
"My note was $200 a month, and Haskell didn't require a down payment," Bunyard says as we sit in the building at De Queen that now serves as headquarters for Bunyard Broadcasting. "In 1994, I was at a Rotary Club meeting where the local school superintendent spoke. He talked about the number of Hispanic students in our schools. The light bulb went off in my head, and we became the first station in the state to go to an all-Spanish format."
The Spanish-language format is still a hit on the AM dial in an area of the state where poultry plants have attracted thousands of Hispanic workers.
On his many English-language stations, most of which are on the FM dial, Bunyard still gives listeners old-school community radio. A focus on area news and sports is becoming increasingly rare in an era of corporate ownership and satellite signals.
"There are dozens of outlets where you can get music," Bunyard says. "But I see it as being like a brick building with no mortar between the bricks. The mortar in local radio is telling people what's going on. Our stations broadcast the games of 14 high school football teams. We read obituaries on the air, have 12 local newscasts each day and give you livestock and grain prices. We do weather twice an hour. There's the swap shop so people can call in to buy and sell things."
His stations tend to have live morning shows. Bunyard quotes Bob Knight, a friend who owns radio stations in Mountain Home and has hosted a morning show there for more than 40 years. "Bob has always said that you just need to dominate the mornings and then the rest of the day will take care of itself."
On one of Bunyard's FM stations in De Queen, a three-person crew hosts a show from 6 a.m. until 9 a.m. five mornings a week.
"We're embracing technology," Bunyard says. "All of our stations stream on the Internet. Still, it's what we do locally that will make us successful. As long as we focus on local news and sports, we'll be fine."
Like Bunyard, Bobby Caldwell at Wynne owns radio stations across the state. And like Bunyard, he focuses on the community.
KWYN-AM 1400 at Wynne went on the air in September 1956 at 250 watts. The station was established by Bud and Hannah Raley, who came from Paragould. Bud Raley coined "City With a Smile" as the Wynne slogan. When he was killed in an automobile accident in 1966, Hannah continued to operate the station.
KWYN's morning show is known as "Yawn Patrol" and is among the longest-running radio programs in the country that has kept the same name. In May 1969, KWYN-FM 92.7 went on the air. It later would change frequencies to 92.5 FM and expand to 50,000 watts, covering east Arkansas along with parts of west Tennessee and north Mississippi.
Up the road in Jonesboro, KBTM-FM 101.9 became the first FM radio station in Arkansas. It went on the air in 1947, 17 years after KBTM-AM 1230 signed on.
KBTM-FM would grow into a 100,000-watt station covering parts of five states. That signal was later killed so what was then known as Clear Channel Communications could put a station on the air at the same frequency in Memphis.
"Various circumstances have led to the establishing of radio stations," Ray Poindexter wrote in his book "Arkansas Airways." "An effort by a young man to earn a Boy Scout merit badge in radio was the impetus that brought about Paragould's first station. In 1924, Jay Palmer Beard was searching hobby magazines, looking for a circuit diagram of a radio receiving set when he found a drawing of a low-powered radio transmitter.
"His father, W.J. Beard, had established Beard's Temple of Music in Paragould in 1903. In 1924, he was considering adding radio to the line of musical merchandise. Jay built the small transmitter and tested it in the back room of their home. Some friends came in from a few blocks away and said, 'We hear you clear as a bell.' His parents were thrilled by his accomplishment."
A family friend named Allan Grace had built a shortwave station at nearby Jonesboro. He was hired to construct a more powerful transmitter. An application for a licensed station was filed with the Federal Radio Commission in 1928. A construction permit was granted in November 1929, a month after the stock market had crashed.
KBTM stood for Beard's Temple of Music. The call letters were assigned in December 1929, and the station went on the air at Paragould in March 1930. It later moved to Jonesboro.
Additional radio stations were established across the state during the rest of the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. When KVRC-AM went on the air at Arkadelphia in 1947, my mother was the business manager. She had just graduated from what's now Ouachita Baptist University. My father was a year older, but he had served for two years during World War II and had another year of college remaining.
I was thrilled to find my mother's name years ago in Poindexter's book as he listed the original KVRC staff. I would keep the family tradition alive when I went to work at KVRC as a high school student.
Senior Editor Rex Nelson's column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. He's also the author of the Southern Fried blog at rexnelsonsouthernfried.com.