What I appreciated most about KABF was having the creative freedom to air whatever I wanted. Every commercial station I've worked for has had a tight format in which I was told specifically what music to play and pretty much what to say. KABF spoiled me with a level of freedom I would never find again.

I was extremely passionate about the music I was playing and was grateful that my show developed regular listeners who seemed to get just as much out of the songs as I did. I also met a lot of people through the program, making some really good friends. Many would join me on the air, bringing a lot more life to the show than the nights I was up there by myself.

The station was operated by the community activist group ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now), whose goal is to help low to moderate-income families get affordable housing, better wages and to get businesses and corporations to invest in inner cities. It has hundreds of chapters throughout the county and runs two radio stations, KABF in Little Rock and KNON in Dallas. Through these stations, it strives to provide a broadcast voice for its causes and to offer programming to the people it serves.

KABF's broadcast schedule then was an eclectic mix of programs. In the early mornings it aired black gospel, mid-mornings jazz, mid-days usually had some kind of news or public affairs, early afternoons were soul and reggae, mid-afternoons had the incredibly popular blues programs, early evenings were country or bluegrass, with various forms of rock and alternative airing most nights until the early morning. It also offered Native American, Spanish and other diverse shows on weekends.

The only salaried employees at KABF were a handful of staff members who worked in the office and hosted some of the shows. The rest of the people responsible for these programs were a broad mix of volunteers like me. We had everyone from lawyers and newspaper reporters to waitresses, plumbers and janitors.

I was 17 when I finally got the nerve to contact the station and try to get my own show. KABF had been on the air four years by then and I had been listening for the last two. I particularly liked a show called Radios In Motion, which was hosted by a guy named Chris Berry. My then girlfriend Louisa Rook told me about his show, which played the same kind of music we were in to. The only problem was that it aired Wednesday mornings from 1 to 3 am. I usually would set my alarm clock and wake up at 1, start a tape recording, go back to sleep and then listen to it later. I also called the station and talked with Chris a few times. But he eventually got tired of doing the overnight show while maintaining a regular job and called it quits.

I had been taking a high school radio class a few months by that point and wanted to pick up where Chris left off. I called Program Director Doug Clifford, who told me he might have an open slot soon and to call back in about a month. I did and he invited me up to the station to meet with him.

When I got to 1501 Arch Street in downtown Little Rock, I was surprised to find not a modern radio studio, but an old, rather dilapidated house. On the bottom floor were offices for ACORN and other community groups, with the station upstairs. KABF was made up of a control room, production room and two large office rooms.

I talked with Doug a bit and I guess convinced him that I was serious and responsible enough to host a program, so he offered to let me try out doing one for a few weeks. Fortunately that trial period worked into me doing the show for many years and eventually being moved into better time slots.

Since Chris Berry had played the same kind of music I was interested in, I called him at home asking if he would mind if I used the same name that he had used for my show. The name Radios In Motion actually came from a song by XTC that opened the show each week. Chris had no problem with it and was very encouraging. I even had a lot of fun with him when I invited him to join Louisa and I for one show the following summer.

I had what developed into an ever-evolving mix of co-hosts who would join me in the studio most weeks. I always enjoyed having others with me because it was easier to talk and have discussions on the air when I had other people to interact with. Louisa joined me most weeks during the first year. I would soon meet others who would also start joining me regularly.

Early on I was playing alternative music from groups like Camper Van Beethoven, the Smiths, R.E.M. and the Replacements. Most were bands that were not getting airplay on other Little Rock radio stations.

KABF, like most non-commercial stations, got most of its funding from donations by listeners. Several times a year the station would hold pledge drives, or what many called beg-a-thons, in which we would ask for listeners to call in and make donations. My first pledge drive came a month or two after starting, in which I pulled in about $200 dollars. I wasn't especially pleased, but when I dropped by the station a day or two later, everyone was congratulating me for doing pretty well. Apparently that was quite good for that time slot. Perhaps sensing that there was an audience for my show, by the spring of 1989 the station moved it to Sunday mornings, 1 am to 4 am, when that slot came open.

It may not sound like a great time slot, but it actually worked well because it was heard by people coming in from their Saturday nights. For a while I really had a good core group of regular listeners, with many calling in each week. I enjoyed talking with them so much that I started a listener call in segment. Each week at 2 am I would take random calls on the air and talk about whatever was going on. Sometimes this was incredibly entertaining, while other times painfully dull, uncomfortable or strange.

What really surprised me was that I seemed to develop a very loyal group of listeners in the nearby town of Cabot. At least half my callers each week were students from Cabot High School. Three of these people even got together and made a $100 donation to KABF during a pledge drive so that they could get one of the pledge drive premiums, which was to join the show of your choice for one hour.

Thad Gilbert, Jimmy Russell and Jody Tygert stayed for the entire program and because it went so well I invited them to come up to my show any time they wanted. Most weeks they were there or would at least call in. Thad went on to become one of my closest friends and would continue to join me off and on until the end of the show in 1995. In fact, he brought a woman he would later marry up to KABF on their first date.

I tried to be as creative as I could with the show. One week, when I was going to air a concert in the final hour from the Indigo Girls live in Athens, Georgia, I decided we would spend the two hours before the concert driving to Athens. So we had the sound of the interior of a car in the background every time we would talk and also played a lot of songs about being on the road. We even had a couple of segments I had taped with co-workers from KLRA, pretending to be convenience store workers or cops. It worked out pretty well, especially because Thad, Jimmy and Jody played along so well. Then at the third hour we arrived in Athens and went to the concert. It was one of my few attempts at theater of the mind radio, using sound effects like an old radio drama.

I also met another listener, Sean Corrigan, when he came to a fundraising concert KABF put on in a downtown parking garage in August 1990. Because of his incredible wit I also invited him up to the show anytime he wanted. He too would eventually become a regular co-host. When I started college in the fall of 1990 at Arkansas State University in Jonesboro, I was only able to do the show once or twice a month. For the next couple of years Louisa would do the show when I couldn't.

There were a few changes at this point. First off, because I started working as a news anchor and reporter for Little Rock news station KARN, I adopted an alias to try and avoid any potential conflicts. On KABF I started calling myself "Fudd." I got the nickname when I was in Washington because I wore a wristwatch that featured Elmer Fudd. Also, I got a better time slot, Friday nights, 10 pm to 1 am.

Indeed it was a great time slot because it was on a Friday at a time when people were heading home from whatever they had done that night. Initially Thad and I hosted the show, but soon Sean began joining us every week. It was around this time that Sean became known as Shecky. One week when I was stumbling to say who was in the studio with me, Sean as a joke called himself Shecky. To me that sounded kind of goofy, like Fudd, so it stuck, although I think he got kind of tired of it after a while. Sometimes we would be hanging out at Vino's in Little Rock, when someone would come in, see Sean and call out, "Hey Shecky." That's when the name started getting on his nerves. But for some reason it seemed to work with his personality.

I played lots of Laurie Anderson, Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs. I also interviewed poets or spoken word artists like Allen Ginsberg, Ken Nordine, Meryn Cadell and Maggie Estep. I even started attending and taping local poetry readings to give me more stuff to play on the air. But doing two shows every week, along with my regular job at KARN and going to school quickly became too much. By the time the fall semester began I had to drop the second show.

But the key thing was that there was a 24-hour source for alternative music in Little Rock. I, like lots of others, started listening to it a lot and fewer people were going to KABF for that kind of music. But I guess that's evolution. I was sad to leave the station which had been very good to me. I miss it sometimes because of the incredible freedom to air whatever I wanted.

KABF moved to another house a few years after I left, but I'm pleased that many of the people I knew like Flap, John Cain and others continue hosting shows there. Typically community radio stations like KABF don't last more than a few years. But it's lasted more than two decades and hopefully will continue filling a void in Little Rock radio. If you're interested in seeing photos of people I knew through the station, I've now got a page with KABF Extras.