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Small Town Radio Station WPAQ on Air for over 75 Years In Mt Airy NC. or Better known as Mayberry.
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- Опубликовано: 16 дек 2023
- On Groundhog Day, 1948, people living around Mount Airy, North Carolina tuned their radios to 740 on the AM dial. After months of anticipation and excitement, they heard the first radio station their area could call its own.
WPAQ was the brainchild of Ralph Epperson, a college graduate in his twenties who had been fascinated by radio since his teens. With help from his father Harry, a farmer from nearby Ararat, Virginia, Epperson built the brick-and-timber headquarters which, nearly seventy years later, remains the home of WPAQ.
Fortunately for his friends and neighbors, Ralph Epperson believed in individualism and he had a mission in mind: to serve his community. In his application to the Federal Communications Commission, the young man pledged to reflect the cultural and musical values of the people in his station’s listening area. He said he would present local talent, and he made good on that promise from the start. Unlike many other station owners, however, Epperson largely stuck to his mission over the next six decades. Live music by local musicians is still presented each Saturday on WPAQ’s Merry-Go-Round program. Epperson himself hosted another program, the Blue Ridge Spotlight, on Saturday afternoons, on which he presented early recordings from the WPAQ archives and other recordings of area musicians and WPAQ’s weekly play lists are peppered with recordings of local musicians. Preachers still hold forth on weekday mornings and nearly all day Sunday. Announcers read the obituaries at least three times a day, and the Pet Patrol helps listeners get back together with wandering critters from blue tick hounds to hogs and heifers. The music lurches from old time and bluegrass to easy listening after the evening news. Ralph Epperson explained his philosophy to reporter Michelle Johnson of WFDD this way as she prepared a story about WPAQ for National Public Radio: “If people are doing the same thing in 25 places up and down the radio dial, why should I be number 26?”
Merry-Go-Round programs, which began in the station’s studios, became so crowded that the live show moved to the Pick Theater downtown before withering under the onslaught of rock and roll and commercial country music and retreating to WPAQ’s studios a few years later. When the old time and bluegrass music revival began in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Merry-Go-Round began an upswing which helped lead WPAQ to air more old time music on weekends and return entirely to a bluegrass and old time weekday format in the early 1980s. Ralph Epperson recalls that the crowded 75th birthday party for Tommy Jarrell in 1976 caused him to take stock of the musical culture around him and make an effort to feature it again on his station. In 1998 the Merry-Go-Round returned to the Downtown Cinema Theater, now known as the Historic Earle Theater, operated by the Surry Arts Council.
WPAQ presents a combination of bluegrass, old time and gospel music, plus religious programs not too removed from the original 1948 offerings. Station management shows no sign of changing the lineup. That makes WPAQ a treasure, according to Wayne Martin, head of the Folklife Section of the North Carolina Arts Council. Martin says the station legitimizes local culture and reaffirms its value. People in many other communities, he says, may never hear their own music broadcast, instead receiving the constant message that they should abandon their local forms of expression and emulate whatever is being promoted by mass media. Martin believes WPAQ’s listeners are luckier: the station’s broadcasts make a positive statement about their indigenous culture and music every day.
Taken from liner notes of Rounder CD 0404, WPAQ: The Voice of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Written by Paul Brown, Former Broadcaster and Journalist for National Public Radio, Washington, D.C. and Former News Director and Operations Manager, WPAQ.
#theappalachianchannel #simplelife #andygriffith #bluegrass #radio
Love stories about businesses that have operated so long. A local radio station is a vital part of a community.
But the FCC will only license organizations, not individuals.
This is my favorite radio station! Been listening in Kentucky since they went on the internet in 2007. There's not another station like it. Just a wonderful piece of history.
Great video. The owner and his dad put there heart and soul into this station and made it work for all these years. Great success story.
I love real small-market radio. What a great story. Thank you for sharing.
A fantastic episode, loved the history of this radio station and the people who started it up and the ones that keep it going, today.
Just found this video. Fantastic.
I met and worked for Ralph and Earlene Epperson back in 1982 and again in 84 when they owned an AM station in Portsmouth, VA, WPMH.
Ralph was such a nice man and I'm glad to say I knew him.
WPAQ has so much history; truly a local treasure!
Mr John, real nice video. Thank you for all you do!
I love all these stories about our people in our Great state of NC. Thanks for posting. We really enjoyed it! MERRY CHRISTMAS!
This is a lovely bit of history. Very nice story. Thank you for sharing this
That board looks like an audio Arts R60. I remember installing one of those at wrtn and wvox in New Rochelle New york.
I really enjoyed this. Love going to Mt Airy. He said he started in Ararat, VA. My grandma's side (Hall) were from there, and there are quite a few of them still there.
Very nice great video! These are always fun 👍👍👍
This is real love, not only for the radio station, but it is also love for its listeners.
I enjoyed see the radio station thank you.
The greatest place in the world ❤
So interesting. Nice!
Fire that amplifier up son. love from Brunswick County.
Thats a cool story! Not a lot of small town radio stations left
I got goosebumps listening to the stories and passion. That was very interesting to see that equipment, I'd love to know more about how it all works. Awesome content John, thank you for sharing!
GREAT STORY, too bad all the Mom And Pop local stations are gone. I miss our local record playing stations as these new corporate owned stations sound so bad "heavy base" and that computer music file sound. The 80's seem to have been the last of the good local stations now just a memory. So sad they are gone!
Thanks for visiting with me here on RUclips and watching my video.. John Ward
I wish more radio stations played vinyl records!!! CDs wear out!!! Vinyl Records Last forever and ever because grooves do not wear out!!! NO EXCEPTIONS!!!
Great program John! One of my favorites!
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My country old wcon still has the weather you can use it on the cellphone I call it the weather man
Loved the video! Love our local stations! Gonna have to drop by and see y'all when I'm in that area and you can do the same if you're ever in Valdese!
Thanks for watching The Appalachian Channel and your comment. I'm Trying to reach 100k Subscribers so make sure to subscribe to the channel. John Ward
I work at WPAQ and before seeing this video I had just watched a video about your station in Valdese! There's nothing in the world like local independent radio!
Isn't that an AMPEX-recorder??? @ 35' ???
Is it legal for a radio station to digitize their records and just play the files?
28:16 - That mic is fairly new. It's an Electro-Voice RE-20 Black attached to an Electro-Voice 309A shock mount. I use the same mic and shockmount in the Gramps Radio studio. 29:28 - I worked a very similar control board back in the mid 80's.