We got to work and instituted structure to the station. The format became an Adult Contemporary mix of popular hits of the day. When I hear songs like Blondie's “The Tide is High”, Harry Chapin's “Sequel” and “Love On The Rocks” by Neil Diamond, they take me right back there. 

I took over the Morning Show and added some local features of interest. Our Newsman came in the night before to record the morning news. At 9:05 I ran “The Hospital Report”. The Head Nurse at Homerville Hospital called in to announce who was in the hospital and what was wrong with them. She would say “Billy Joe Bob fell off his tractor and broke his leg. He’s in room 3A and he sure would like it if you brought him some race car magazines.” Forget HIPPA. It did not exist yet. 

We also did obituaries on air too. It really was a public service since there was no local newspaper in town. The Mortician would rush into the station with hot off the presses copy of a death. We had a pre-recorded commercial for Homerville Funeral Home and it would go like this: “Mary Smith died today, more after this.” We would then play the spot for the mortuary and then read the obituary after the commercial, ending with “This obituary has been brought to you by Homerville Funeral Home. 

Jimbo’s Log Kitchen was a multi-purpose place. It was my introduction to Brunswick Stew and some of the greatest Southern bar-b-que around. I’ve been a huge fan of the stew ever since. I like to keep a can of Mrs. McFearnow’s in the cupboard. It was also the place where we cashed our paychecks.

Our big promotion was the “Championship Arm Wrestling Contest”. Excuse me, wrastlin’ contest. Mike was able to secure a professional arm-wrestling table complete with handles and elbow pads. The Grand Prize was a crisp one hundred dollar bill. We held “Wrestle Off” preliminaries in various towns in the area. Crowds of people came to cheer on the biggest Country Boys we’d ever seen from Needmore, Willacoochee, Argyle, Manor and Alapaha to name a few. It was great fun and generated a lot of interest.

One day, The Sheriff walked into the station with a 45 record of his niece singing. I took him into the commercial production studio adjacent to the on-air control room and dropped a needle on the song. It sounded like a wounded animal coming out of the studio monitors. Our Sheriff had his back to the Control Room window, I was facing the CR. Steve, our irrepressible Evening Man, pressed his face up against the glass and dragged it along the length of the window in an effort to crack me up. After the song finished, the top law enforcement officer in the county asked hopefully “well..what do you think?” I replied “it’s great! We will get it right on the air!” I took the record and walked it over to Steve and said, “play it now.” The Sheriff hurried out to his patrol car so he wouldn’t miss hearing it. 

My brother Tom came down from his perch in Columbia, South Carolina for Thanksgiving that year. I saw a pair of headlights coming down the road and I knew it was him. I trotted out to the two laner to wave him in and he drove right by me! The interior light was on and he had a map draped across the steering wheel. I watched his taillights disappear into the dark as I did jumping jacks on the double yellow line. “Stop, come back!” About a half an hour later, he came pulling up and got out of the car snickering “Homerville, heh heh, Homerville.” “Homerville?” “You live here?"