KPOC

Sunday afternoon, Tim Scott, who for nearly 50 years, worked at or owned KPOC-AM-FM in Pocahontas, Arkansas, announced to the listening audience that he was retiring, and this would be his last broadcast.  What most did not know, except for a select few, was that KPOC was leaving the air with him.

After 75 years, KPOC, at least temporarily, and possibly permanently, was silent.  The transmitters were turned off, and when early risers on Monday morning tuned their radios to 1420 AM or 104.1 FM, they did not hear anything.  No familiar voices, no early farm reports, no news or obituaries, no sports updates, no more Cardinal baseball games or Razorback football or basketball games.  After one week, no more Redskin football games.

I moved to Pocahontas in the fall of 1999, just a few months after Marilyn and I got married.  She of course, was teaching school at Maynard, while I, in a leap of faith, walked away from 17 years with Trans World Airlines (TWA).  It's funny the things love will make you do.   I did some subbing, but I needed more, having left my management job at TWA behind.

A week or two later, Warren Smith, who went to church where M and I did, came up to me wanting to share a thought.  Warren, who at the time was probably in his mid-60's and owned his own heating and air-conditioning business, had been talking to Tim Scott, owner of the local radio station a few days earlier.  In casual conversation, Scott mentioned he needed an announcer for the late afternoon and evening shift.  Basically from 4 p.m. until sign-off, which in December and January, could be as early as 4.45 p.m., as KPOC-AM was, at that time, licensed as a dawn to dusk station.

I called Tim the next day, we talked, I told him about my experience at KWCK in Searcy nearly 20 years earlier.  He hired me and before the week was out, I was playing music and doing some news.

I still wasn't making enough, and in February of 2000, I was hired by the Pocahontas Star Herald as a reporter/photographer, a job I had and loved for 15 years.  Reluctantly I left KPOC.  I was sorry to go, because I really liked the job.  But reality dictated I needed to do something else.

In those days at KPOC, Eddie Jones, who was the Randolph County Treasurer, was the early morning man on KPOC-FM  He would be there at 5.30, looking dapper like he was going to be meeting the governor, and would play gospel music until seven, then would turn things over to Lloyd Lewallen, who manned the dials until about 10, before he went to his real job, City of Pocahontas Electrician.

It was somewhere in 2004, maybe 2005, when Eddie decided to give up his radio gig and focus solely on his Treasurer job.  Tim approached me and asked if I would take over the early morning shift and work 5.30 to 8.  I talked it over with Anita Murphy, my editor at the Star Herald, and she was fine with it.  My newspaper job had made me fairly well known in the town of 6,500, and she saw me working at the radio for 12.5 hours a week as advertising for the paper.  I agreed.  

For the next 10 years or so, I wore two hats.  First, there was an early morning shift at KPOC, my "fun job."  Then I would go home, change clothes and be at the paper by 8.30 to start my "real job," which most of the time was also fun.

But this blog is about my time at KPOC.  In rural America, especially the rural South, it is hard to describe the importance of local media, whether radio or newspaper.  Pocahontas is a little over 100 miles from Memphis, so we really weren't in their demographics.  Pocahontas is about 40 miles northwest of Jonesboro, which 15-20 years ago, had about 60,000 residents.  Its population in 2025 is nearing 85,000.

The point is, local news came from local sources, not from Memphis or Jonesboro.  

My alarm went off at 4.30 a.m., and within a month, I was waking up before the alarm went off.  I would clean up, maybe shave, maybe not, and be out the door by five.  Most mornings I'd either stop at McDonald's for a sausage biscuit and coffee, or at Riverside Express for the same.  At Riverside, there were always three or four guys in camo standing around drinking coffee in those early morning hours.  It was usually the same ones, and I got to know them.  They would also remind me if I was running late.

I was usually at the station, which sat on U.S. Hwy. 67, just north of town by 5.20.  Bill Endicott was usually already there.  Bill did most of the recording of news, spots, obits and announcements.  For many years he was truly the "voice" of KPOC.  I would take my seat at the controls in the main studio that housed KPOC-FM.  I checked the log for anything new and have my coffee right beside me.  I should add between my stints at the radio station, they became automated, everything was now on computer, and both stations stayed on all night, though KPOC-AM was barely reaching town with 118 watts.

With headphones firmly in place, at 5.30 I would flick the switch and welcome all the early risers, farmers having their breakfast, hunters already out in the field or slough waiting on sunrise, teachers getting ready for another day in the classroom.  Most days, I would give the forecast a few times, and play some rock and roll.  We were officially an "Adult Contemporary" station, but with well over 2,000 songs on the hard drive, it was not hard to go through and pick out songs more to my liking.

Which reminds me of a story.  When I first started at KPOC, in late 1999, I was working one Sunday afternoon, the Cardinal game was over, and I was playing some of my favorite tunes.  The phone rang and I answered cheerfully, "Good afternoon, KPOC."  An elderly lady, at least she sounded elderly to me was on the other end.  She said, "You're not from around here, are you?"  I told her my family was from the area, but I had in fact grown up elsewhere.  "I just have one more question," she said.  "Do you have any Rod Stewart?"  Taken aback by her response, I did recover quickly, "Yes ma'am," I remember saying, "yes we do."   True story.  I could just picture her dancing away in her parlor to "Maggie Mae."

We would have the first agricultural report at 5.50, followed by news from the Arkansas Radio Network at 5.55.  At 6, was ABC News.  More music followed, more weather, and at 6.30, we did a full local 30-minute newscast.  It might include a report of the latest city council meeting in Reyno, or the school board meeting in Maynard.  It might also feature the goings on with the Randolph County Chamber of Commerce, or which churches were holding gospel meetings that particular week.  It was news the locals wanted to here, and it was provided every morning at 6.30, and then again at 9.00.

Lloyd was usually there by 7, and I relinquished control of the board to him.  That gave me time to record spots and get the sports report ready, which I did live at 7.50.  One thing Lloyd and I did every morning was guess birthdays, usually around 7.35.  They were part of "Today in History," which would include the ages of well-known individuals, dead and alive, that had birthdays that day.  There might be as many as 10-15 on the list, and the important thing was not to get shut out.  Because if you didn't get any right, people would let you know.  More than once while out doing work for the paper, or eating lunch, someone would come up to me and sarcastically say, "good job this morning on the birthdays."  Of course I would thank them.

I was not involved in this, because it came on after I left for the Star Herald at 8, was the "Funeral and Death Announcements" brought to you by McNabb Funeral Home.  For years, we had a rotation of four McNabb "spots," and my voice was on all of them.  In fact, I remember once, about three years after we moved to Alabama, we were back in Pocahontas for something and had KPOC on the car radio, and there I was, still doing McNabb commercials.

The obits following the 9 o'clock news, may have been the most listened to time of the day.  Bill, or Lloyd, or Tim, sometimes me, would read all the obits from the area funeral homes.  If someone died and had a connection to Randolph County, even if they lived in Baltimore, we read it.  It was a public service only a small-town radio station could provide.

An Arbitron survey once showed, that between 5.30 a.m. and 9 a.m. on any given weekday morning, 73 percent of the radios turned on in Randolph County, whether at home, in a car or business, 73 percent of them were tuned to KPOC.  That is just a phenomenal number, and let me add, that was not a number any of us working at KPOC took for granted.  Even though we were a 5,000-watt FM, with maybe a radius of 30 miles in each direction, there was an unspoken obligation to get things right.

It is not an exaggeration to say many of our listeners grew up with KPOC or had been listening since it first went on the air.

Two days later, I still cannot imagine there not being a KPOC.  Hopefully, someday, Tim, will find a buyer and sell the station and it will return to the air.  I don't know.  I've already had two ask me if I was going to return to Pocahontas and buy it.  The answer is a definite no.

But I do know this.  It was an honor and a privilege to be a part of the KPOC family for nearly 15 years, just as it was to be a journalist for the Star-Herald.  

At the end of John's Gospel, in John 21.25, the apostle wrote, "Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written."

That's the way I feel about KPOC.  They did so much for that community over the last 75 years, there are far more stories than I have written, but I do know this.  KPOC made a difference in the community, and it will be missed.

Thanks for spending some time in this little corner of cyber space.  Have a great week.  Be kind to each other