Tag Archives: kennett

KBOA voice of SE Missouri during/after ice storm

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In the early days of the big ice storm that knocked out power to so many in southern Missouri, I kept hearing from friends in Kennett, Missouri (where Barb and I grew up) what a great job the local radio station (KBOA-AM) was doing. It was the only source for information and just a few announcers were keeping the station on the air with a generator and broadcasting non-stop with nothing but a phone and a microphone.

Steve Tyler, News Director Charles Isbell and Operations Manager Monte Lyons are all veteran radio guys (“with more than 100 years of experience between us”) who remember a time before computers and automation and syndicated talk shows. I figured they had some good stories to tell about the recent disaster. It runs about 20 minutes and –since they were on a speaker phone– you might have to listen closely.

AUDIO: Interview 20 min MP3

A tip of the hat to William Pollack, President of Pollack Broadcasting, the owner of the station(s), for deferring to his local staff and letting them make the call on how best to serve the community.

With cable and phone lines down, the Internet wasn’t much help for all those people sitting in the cold and dark, wondering when the power would come back on. But radio was there. Literally the voice of a community. Or communities.

I can’t foresee the future of small market radio but have to believe it will involve this kind of service and involvement. But that’s going to take people. People who know their neighbors and local business because they live there.

Will finding and hiring and training these men and women be easy. Doubt it. Will such staffing cut into profit margins. Probably. But if broadcasters don’t find a way to be truly local and relevant… their stations are almost certain to be cold and dark.

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For those that missed these earlier posts, Matthew Howard and Charles Jolliff share some photos of the ice damage… and friend and fellow-blogger Dr. Everett Mobley shares the journal he kept for the two weeks his family was without power. This is a terrific account.

The photography of Matthew Howard

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Matt Howard is a talented photographer in Kennett, MO (my home town). Matt’s day job is personal trainer so I guess he’s technically an amateur but certainly in the best sense of that word. I stumbled onto Matt’s flickr page recently and was immediately taken with his haunting (for me) images of the flat, empty fields I remember growing up. I got him on the phone for a brief (15 min) chat this afternoon during which he explained his passion for photography started with a book rather than a camera.

AUDIO: Interview with Matt Howard 15 min MP3

 

R.I.P. Whitey

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Richard Whitehorn died last week. Following a long slug-fest with cancer. Richard was just a year ahead of me in school and we weren’t close growing up. But I have lots of memories of him.

I don’t know if Richard was a bully or I was just intimidated by him. But he projected a kind of tough guy image. He and his BFF Tommy Crunk were like Butch and Sundance, tooling around town in Whitey’s ’57 Chevy. When the Honda motorcycle craze hit, Crunk and Whitey were among the first to own them. Yes, they were dashing.

One hot summer night during high school, my friends and I pooled our money and gave it to Whitey to buy us the beer we were not quite old enough to purchase ourselves. We also gave him a detailed list of what each of us wanted. He returned with a case of Champagne Velvet. Nasty stuff that was much cheaper. (“You guys had just enough money.”) A really bad guy would have just taken our money. Whitey gave us beer and a little lesson in free enterprise.

As an adult, Richard (I don’t know if anyone still called him Whitey by then) became a crop duster. Hard to imagine a more fitting occupation. Our friend Pam attended Richard’s funeral this past  weekend in Kennett.

“It was sad as hell. They had visitation starting at 11:00 and a graveside service at 2:00.  The funeral was over, the preacher had just said “amen” and closed the Bible when I heard someone say “here they come” and I wondered, who’s coming? I looked in the direction I heard some noise and here came 3 Pawnee crop dusters in formation, streaming smoke like they were Blue Angels, tree top high right over the funeral tent. Once past the left and right planes peeled off and the middle plane pulled up. I think everyone lost it at that point.”

To which Richard would have growled, “What are you pussies crying about?”

More photos of ice storm damage

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Photo above –taken by Matthew Howard– shows why many homes in southeast Missouri are still without power. Matthew managed to get some photos on his Facebook page and give me permission to share a few here. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a utility pole snapped in two. Or this much ice damage to trees. And this close-up sort of tells the story.