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As a unique radio station celebrates its 85 years
Reflecting on just how special KMA radio is by CHUCK OFFENBURGER 
KMA radio’s 85th birthday celebration next week is an event that is bound to bring a smile to almost everyone who has spent any time in the four-corners where Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska and Kansas come together. I can’t think of any other business, organization or institution that has touched as many lives in this region.
I’m just a freelance contributor, writing these KMA Advantage Club Newsletters and also doing Friday morning chats on the air with Chuck Morris and Don Hansen. So I was thrilled that the current management and staff thought of asking me to be a part of the celebration next Thursday, August 12, in my hometown of Shenandoah. I’ve received my assignments for the party, and I’m going to be joining newsies Mike Peterson and Kristin Gray and account exec Kelly Johnson as pancake servers in the morning and midday. Then I’ll jump in with Tim Wayne in hosting the afternoon show. 
I believe that Earl May, founder of both KMA radio and the seed & nursery business that still carries his name, and his friendly competitor Henry Field, founder of KFNF radio and his own nursery, gave all of us in KMAland a unique and enduring heritage.
From all I’ve read and heard about them, May and Field were both daring entrepreneurs, forward thinkers and fantastic promoters. They both started-up their nurseries, survived some lean early years and saw them grow into multi-million dollar companies. Both men must’ve been at ease with new technology and new ideas, the way they embraced radio in its infancy and started their own stations. Their business headquarters were not only offices, they were like early shopping centers – both selling clothing, tires, food, paint and all the other products they’d advertise on their radio stations. They brought in dozens of professional musicians to become staff performers on the stations, hosting their own musical variety shows and also singing the commercials. May and Field tried to out-do each other with the surreal auditoriums they built as their broadcast centers – the Mayfair Theater resembling a Moorish garden, the KFNF Auditorium done in Spanish design. I remember my parents taking me, as a little boy in the early 1950s, to watch “live radio” happen. Were those really stars that twinkled in the Mayfair’s ceiling, or were those stars in my eyes? KMA and KFNF would collaborate on “Harvest Jubilees” and draw tens of thousands of listeners to Shenandoah for free pancakes, entertainment and, of course, shopping. Both men became widely known and respected. In 1926, radio listeners across America voted Earl May as “the world’s most popular radio broadcaster.” In 1932, Henry Field upset powerful incumbent U.S. Senator Smith W. Brookhart in the Republican primary, then lost in the Franklin Delano Roosevelt landslide in the general election. Both men had the ears of our nation’s leaders from time to time. So what was their impact on all the rest of us in what today we call KMAland? -- I think the stories and examples of May and Field have inspired more business entrepreneurs than you’d expect in a rural, small-town setting. -- Ever since those Harvest Jubilees and other big promotions, we have always been people who appreciate big deals, good slogans and public fun. -- Those professional entertainers the radio stations employed here? If you read Robert Birkby’s 1985 book, “KMA Radio, The First Sixty Years,” you’ll realize what characters and eccentrics a lot of those people were. I think people they helped Shenandoah people develop an unusual tolerance for people who are a little “different.” All that is a healthy heritage to have, especially if you want to be successful in today’s world. Back in January, Ed May Jr., the third generation of the family to head the broadcasting company, asked me to do some critical listening and thinking about KMA, and then come talk to him and the station’s staff about it. It’s odd, I told him, that you’d ask an old print journalist to do that. “We get radio consultants’ opinions about us all the time,” he said. “We want to hear what you think about us. You know what we’re all about. You know our area and our history. Tell us how we’re doing and what we can improve.” So after about a month of careful listening, and conversations with others in the audience, here are the main points I made with Ed and the KMA crew: -- I don’t know of any radio station in Iowa that has a staff as strong as KMA’s, in its number of people, levels of their education, broadcast experience and variety of talent. -- The feeling you get, listening to KMA, is that it is genuine, unhurried and thorough. That is so rare in today’s media world. And, if you listen closely, you’ll hear that several times a day, there’ll be a message of just a few seconds, with a familiar voice saying, “Thanks for listening to KMA.” Can you think of another radio station that has thanked you for listening lately? -- With its broad line-up of shows, newscasts, sports, weather, ag coverage, and community service, KMA has a stronger connection with the public than any other radio station I hear. -- KMA has done an outstanding job of using new technology to remake itself as not just a radio station but a “media company,” one that offers audio, video, Internet, print and on-demand delivery. I see it becoming the strongest media company for people living in that whole big area from Omaha to St. Joseph and from Lincoln to Atlantic. -- I can’t think of another radio station that, 85 years after its founding, is still headed by a member of the family that launched it. I looked Ed in the eye and said, “That’s you. You need to be on the air more. The listeners liked listening to your grandfather, they liked listening to your dad, and they want to hear more from you, too.” Great station, great company, wonderful people. We all owe KMA a lot. So let’s celebrate! |
| Want to be in touch with Chuck Offenburger? He’ll be glad to hear from you, and e-mail is the best way, chuck@offenburger.com. |
| Friday Aug. 6th, 2010 |
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You said it!
Comments, reactions & ideas from you readers. State baseball showed some of the good and some of the bad of schools’ budget woes It was a good time to be a KMAlander attending the high school state baseball tournament in Des Moines a week ago. The Nishnabotna Blue Devils, from Farragut and Hamburg, were the talk of the tourney in the days leading up to the first-round games. Everybody loved the story of how the team reached state in the very first year of the new sharing agreement. Neither Farragut nor Hamburg ever had a baseball team reach the state tournament before. Nishnabotna fans added to the fun, when they showed up at Principal Park in Des Moines wearing blue and white T-shirts that across the back said: “Two good towns make one great team.” It was a salute to one of the good things that can happen when small schools, stressed by shrinking enrollment and tough budgets, decide to go together.
Even more fun was the great run by the Glenwood Rams to the Class 3A state championship. It was the school’s first appearance in the state tournament, after years of having very little success in baseball. The turn-around that coach Brett Elam has led there is a tremendous story. Kuemper Catholic of Carroll finished runner-up to explosive Solon in Class 2A, making the whole Hawkeye Ten Conference look good. The best story of the tournament was the one about right-handed pitcher Ethan Westphal, a small wiry junior, and his Martensdale-St. Marys teammates finishing off their magical undefeated season, 43-0, with the Class 1A championship. A year ago, Westphal pitched Lenox to a runner-up finish in Class 1A. Earlier this year, Lenox’s budget strain forced his dad, Steve Westphal, the athletic director and a Hall of Fame baseball coach, to take early retirement. So, Ethan, after starring in basketball for Lenox, transferred to Martensdale-St. Marys this spring and played baseball for the Blue Devils. Oh, did he ever! I’ve never seen a better statistical line for a season by a high school pitcher. He was 16-0 in 94 innings pitched, while striking out 187 and giving up only 3 earned runs. He throws with great speed from both side-arm and over-arm deliveries, and his curve balls are just nasty. Meanwhile, his dad Steve served as a volunteer assistant coach for Martensdale-St. Marys this season. The fact that Lenox had to push him into retirement shows one of the tough things that is happening as a result of the budget crunch in small schools – unfortunately there’ll be some real carnage. – Chuck Offenburger Think Carla Offenburger is happy radiation is over? You kind readers know that my wife Carla Offenburger was undergoing radiation therapy through late June and most of July, as part of her treatment for cancer on one side of her lower jaw. She was in a celebrating mood when we headed to Ames on Wednesday, July 28, for the last of her 27 radiation sessions. So she insisted we leave home early and so she could pick up two dozen of the famous glazed donuts at Bunkers Dunkers Bakery in Jefferson, to treat the radiation staff at the William Bliss Cancer Center.
Then last weekend, she made me a crumbly-topped fresh peach pie in thanks for me being her wheelman for all those early morning trips to Ames. I told her the pie was so good that I'd drive over there 27 more times if she’d bake another one. Actually, we’re both glad we don’t have to do that. And we’re both hopeful for a good prognosis for her. We’ll find that out in about a month when she returns for a follow-up exam. Comments from you readers Georgia Clark, Stanton, after seeing in the July 23 KMA Advantage Club Newsletter the snazzy T-shirts the Sons & Daughters of Imogene are showing off this year: “Hey, Chuck. I probably won’t be the only one to write you about Stanton’s latest T-shirts. We just finished a big weekend celebration, ‘Home Again in 2010,’ the every-five-year homecoming reunion. I wanted to tell you about the light blue T-shirts we had. On the left front was a small yellow Swedish flag and motto. On the back, the shirts said: ‘I’m from a Swedish coffee drinking, watertower gazing, seven jumps dancing, white house dwelling, lutefisk smelling, Santa Lucia voting, Skona Maj singing, school supporting, tournament winning, trail walking, faith-filled, small southwest Iowa town, and of course I’m coming HOME AGAIN IN 2010!’ ” |
