Hibblen Radio - KLRA / England, Arkansas

KLRA - England, AR
August 1989 - August 1990

KLRA-FM 96.5 may have been another small town country music station, but for me it was a big step up. Unlike my previous job, I was actually paid every penny I earned. It was also a relatively professionally run station that gave me plenty of room to grow and learn. Also, it was nice working on the FM band at a station with considerably more listeners.

KLRA's call letters stood for Little Rock, Arkansas, even though it was actually located in England, Arkansas, a small town of about 3,000 people, 20 miles southeast of Little Rock. The station was born out of the death of the original KLRA-AM 1010 in Little Rock, which had been a well-known, long time country music station. When it changed its call letters in the late 80's, along with a format change to talk, KELC-AM in England, which had just gotten approval to start an FM counterpart, very wisely snatched up the call letters to capitalize on the notoriety. Sadly, within a few years the old 1010 would completely disappear from the radio dial in Little Rock. It was bought by the company that owned WINS-AM 1010 in New York, just so it could be put off the air to avoid causing interference.

The station also hired KLRA's original long-time morning man "Brother Hal" Webber, who had retired, but agreed to do the morning show if he could tape it from home. He would record about a half-hour of stories and old-style southern humor for each morning, which live co-host Vic Hart would mix together with music, weather and news. Surprisingly it worked pretty well. Brother Hal would talk to Vic on the tape or throw it to him, and it really sounded like the two of them were in the studio together. Because I happened to live less than a mile from Brother Hal, once a week I would stop by and pick up a stack of reels for that week's programs. The audio file below is of one of the raw tapes, without the live components that would be added by Vic.

MP3 AUDIO: KLRA's BROTHER HAL SHOW, November 7, 1989. On this show he talks about a hurricane that had recently hit South Carolina and a powerful earthquake that had hit California. He expresses some clear southern opinions here. MP3 runs 22:17 (8.92 mb).

The station called itself "The All New KLRA," and did its best to pitch itself as a Little Rock station. But that was difficult because the 3,000-watt signal just barely reached Little Rock. It did show up in the Little Rock ratings, but always near the bottom. Still, just showing up was an accomplishment.

I was hired at KLRA in August 1989 by Program Director Keith Dodd. He was a veteran radio programmer who had worked at several large stations over the years. He also had a great voice and did incredible production, especially considering the poor equipment we had to work with in the production room. His afternoon air shift was equally professional.

The station was housed in a small metal building located along a highway in England. The low-lying flatland was almost like a swamp. In fact, several months out of the year, especially at night, the station would literally become covered with thousands of frogs. They would gather on the outsides of windows so I couldn't see out. And when I'd walk out to the transmitter building to take readings every couple of hours, they would cover the entire path. It was almost surreal, like an Alfred Hitchcock movie or something. With each step I'd take, swarms of frogs would jump away from me. I guess people who lived in the area didn't give it a second thought, but for me it was kind of strange.

Initially I worked several nights a week running an overnight program called "The Midnight Special," which was geared toward truckers, but there were a number of things that didn't make sense about this. First off, because of KLRA's low power, it had a rather small coverage area. Normally, overnight trucker shows are done on powerful AM stations that can be heard throughout entire regions of the country so that truckers can listen for long stretches without changing the channel. Also, England wasn't located especially close to any interstates. I-40 was on the other end of Lonoke County. At best we could only be heard by truckers for about a half-hour, and that's if they tuned in the instant the station came into range.

Another problem was the content of the show. KLRA General Manager Gene Williams hosted it, but wasn't live. He wanted to do this show in the same half-recorded fashion as the morning show. But he didn't record any new content for each night's show. He just had these generic recorded intros that I would run night after night. We also included short interviews with truckers, taped by our midday DJ Brenda Clark at truck stops. But she would only tape about a dozen interviews every few weeks, so I'd be running the same interviews over and over.

Coverage Map of KLRA's Signal - Click To Enlarge

MP3 AUDIO: KLRA aircheck of THE MIDNIGHT SPECIAL, 3:15- 4:15 am, August 25, 1989 in England, Arkansas. Note the generic intros by Gene Williams. I was the only live element, putting recorded intros, trucker reports and music together. MP3 runs 11:49 (4.73 mb).

I think if anyone listened to the show with any regularity, they'd realize it was canned. I was the only live part. About once or twice an hour I'd hit a cart in which Gene would intro me saying that I had taken a request from a trucker. I would then make up the name of a driver and say he was making a long haul to some destination and then play his supposed request. I always had to make that stuff up because I never had any requests on the show. Well, if I did, it was usually someone working at England's 24-hour convenience store. But never once did a trucker call, despite the request number frequently being given. The whole concept of the show was so that Gene could be on the air, but not have to go through the hassle of actually pulling an air shift. I think it was more to feed his ego, and since he was General Manager, the Program Director couldn't question it.

Gene seemed like quite of an egomaniac, who could be a rather trying person to work for. I eventually worked my way up to having two regular airshifts as a DJ on weekends and periodically would get calls from him on his car phone, which at that time was something mostly rich or important people had. Gene would always have some woman with him that he was trying to impress and would demand that I play whatever song she wanted to hear as the next song. And he would be a real asshole in how he did this, proving to the woman that he was clearly the boss and in command. After I'd play whatever the song was, I'd also have to say that was for whatever her name was and every time he would call it would be a different woman. The entire staff grew to dread his calls.

At the CD and record library - Click To Enlarge

The owner of the station, a dentist whose wife it seemed was mainly in charge, eventually fired Gene or forced him to resign. I don't know what the circumstances were, although there were rumors of all kinds of impropriety. Even though I was no longer running "The Midnight Special," I was glad that stupid show was coming to an end. One other directive that thankfully went out the window then was calling it "The All New KLRA," which had gotten kind of annoying because we had been calling it all new for several years.

PD Keith Dodd would become General Manager, while retaining his programming duties. He was a very conscientious programmer who worked with me, making suggestions for how I could improve. He also held periodic staff meetings to make sure we were all delivering a consistent image to our listeners.

Before the start of the 1990 horse racing season at Oaklawn Race Track in Hot Springs, the station got an AP newswire so that we could get quick results to read on the air. That was a key source of revenue, by getting sponsors for the reports. It also enabled us to starting reading short newscasts on the air, which furthered by interest in news.

I made several good friends at KLRA. Ruthie May, who was nighttime DJ when I started, gave me lots of encouragement. Andra Allbright, who later did middays while also keeping paperwork flowing around the building, was a good friend who sometimes came up and visited during my shifts. I also met my college roommate Tim Edens there. A decade later he would serve as a groomsman in my wedding in February 2000 and helped with the technical work of getting this web site up. Toward the summer of 1990 I was offered the evening slot, working 7 pm to midnight, Monday through Friday, which I did for several months before quitting in August to start college at Arkansas State University in Jonesboro.

I regretted leaving the station, but it turned out to be a good time to go. KLRA would become automated and the entire air staff was let go. Eventually it got a power increase, was sold to another company and is now a full-fledged Little Rock station, with studios there. It's called Hot 96.5, The Party Station, and bears no resemblance in any respect to the station where I once worked, which may be a good thing! In December 2004 during a visit to Arkansas I drove out to England and was surprised to see that the crappy little metal building that had once housed the station is still there. I couldn't tell what it was used for, but it didn't seem abandoned. The broadcast tower also remains behind it, though I'm not sure what it's used for.