MUSCLE SHOALS – The Quad Cities Daily this week is taking a deeper dive into the group of radio stations whose history goes back all the way to the birth of Commercial Broadcasting in the 1930’s. The anchor stations are WLAYFM 100.1 and WVNA, The Big Dog 105.5, whose history extends generations back in the culture of the Muscle Shoals Area. And the new stations of the Singing River Media Group, My 101.5 and The Bull 94.9 are contributing to our future. Even though, as it is with the times, the stations are best known by their popular names, rather than by their FCC Call signs of yesteryear, they still provide an important function to the many communities in Northwest Alabama, Southern Tennessee and East Mississippi for whom they serve.
And Service to the communities is the actual reason they exist. It’s more than playing music, or carrying the Rick and Bubba Show. It is more about providing the Communities they serve with information of local importance and interest.
We sat down the other day with some members of the staff at Singing River Media to talk about the things that matter to them when it comes to community service.
Dave Morrow, who has been affiliated with the owners of the stations, Mike and Kevin Self, for many years, began the conversation by contrasting the way radio was done in the ‘60’s when he worked there in the late evenings as a teenager D.J. “Radio was really personal,” Dave told us, “We were so tied into the Community. Here’s a quick example…” So he told this story, “One of the things that we used to do was play records and that’s been a ways gone now. But back then you would spin platters, as we call it. Yeah. And I was working the midnight shift one night and I put on a song called MacArthur Park. I think it runs 7 minutes and 35 seconds, one of the longest songs ever to play. And I played it and fell asleep while it was playing. And the turntable reached the end of the song – I didn’t know it, I was asleep! – So this guy was getting ready to take a bath and go to bed and was listening to WLAY. And he heard the skipping on the inside of the record and knew immediately that I’d gone to sleep! So he got out of his bath tub, toweled off, threw some clothes on, got in his car, and drove all the way over to the station and sat on the horn right behind the window till I woke up. He kept blowing his car horn until he could hear music again! And so that’s one of the goofy things that happened in those days. Local listeners actually took an ownership in the Radio Station. And where we’re sitting today… That event happened less than ten feet from right where we’re sitting now. ’m telling that story to describe the connection between the station and our listeners. And, guess what, that connection is still strong today!” He finished up by saying as long as they have a connection with the Community like that one from all those years ago, they stay vital and meaningful.
Sheila Irons, one of the Sales Team members, said that the connection with the community is critically important. “One of our big events is called, ‘Stuff The Bus’. Sheila continued, “We do it every Christmas season. It is meaningful and important to many, many Shoals families. We focus on the Colbert County and Lauderdale County school systems. We conduct “Stuff The Bus” in concert with the teachers, the counselors of the school systems. They make lists of what children are in need, who is in need and what things, what particular items they’d like to have.”
Ron Hale, Jr., another member of the Sales Team, added, “And then we reach out to the community to ask folks to drop off presents to the buses at each location, one at the Huff Road, Walmart in Florence and over here on Avalon Avenue, and it’s been extremely successful! We’ve had a lot of support. We we get a lot of presents. And as a matter of fact, those teachers and counselors come in and get all the presents early on in the campaign, and then they’ll go back and find out what else they can muster up for the families. It’s just unbelievable how generous our Shoals folks are!”
Dave Morrow emphasized, “But “Stuff The Bus” is just one of the Community Outreach programs that we conduct. Don’t forget, we sponsor ‘The Spirit of Freedom’ 4th of July fireworks event. It’s huge! And we’ve been doing it for years. We’re really happy, now that we’re coming out of COVID-19 and can ramp it up again for this year!” We are always looking for something in our Community to help out with. We get calls all the time from organizations who would like to partner with us. So we stay busy. It’s the reason we’re on the air.”
