KECO radio marks decade of excellence - County Star-News

Thursday, January 7, 2016
County Star-News
A5
KECO radio marks decade of excellence
“Now that your radio is set on
96.5FM KECO in Elk City, are
you ready to talk? Then grab a
cup of coffee and join the conversation, because it’s time for
The Early Morning Show. Now,
here are your hosts, Nathan and
Landry Brewer.”
That’s how TEMS hit the air
on Jan. 06, 2006. Since then, the
show has taken a look at local
news, politics, sports, entertainment, and personal issues with
the help of lots of regular and
irregular guests.
Ten years later, a few of the
particulars have changed, but
the format is the same: spend
7-8am each weekday informing
and entertaining listeners by
talking.
BEGINNINGS
When the Brothers Brewer—
who happen to be twins—prepared for the first show, they had
no idea what to expect.
“I’d hosted Tradio for several years, so I’d done live radio,”
said Nathan Brewer. “But having to create content and drive a
talk show for a whole hour was
frightening.”
Landry Brewer, who taught,
and still teaches, at SWOSU-Sayre, was also new to this
kind of programming. So the
two planned virtually down to
the minute what each segment
would include.
“We began on a high note
by giving away George Strait
concert tickets on that very first
show,” Landry said. “We had a
detailed rundown that morning.
We knew exactly what we were
going to talk about—and in what
order—segment by segment.”
When the show was over, relief turned to fear.
“I had a massive tension
headache after the first show,”
said Nathan Brewer. “But I felt
pretty good about it, at least until I realized we had to do it all
over again the next day. And this
time, instead of months to prepare, we only had 23 hours.”
MEDIA ALLIANCE
When Nathan and Landry
were planning the show in the
fall of 2005, they knew they
needed to fill 60 minutes of airtime each day with something.
At least part of the information
needed to be local so it would
appeal specifically to people
in Western Oklahoma and the
Eastern Texas Panhandle. Nathan had an idea.
“I knew there were weekly newspapers in some of the
smaller towns in the area,”
Nathan said. “I thought ‘Who
knows better in a small town
what’s going on than the newspaper editor?’ Maybe some of
the local print folks would want
to promote their papers and their
towns on our radio show.”
Although newspapers and radio stations have traditionally
been viewed as adversaries, Nathan and Landry thought the two
could work together. So Nathan
set out contacting newspaper editors.
Zonelle Rainbolt of the Cordell Beacon, Toby Brooks of the
Wheeler County Star-News, and
Casey Paxton of the Mangum
Star-News signed on quickly,
and all appeared on The Early
Morning Show in the first few
weeks it aired.
GUESTS
The show’s current lineup includes Rainbolt from Cordell on
Monday, former State Senator
Tom Ivester on Tuesday, Paxton
from Mangum on Wednesday,
and Jeff Blackmon, who succeeded Toby Brooks in Wheeler County a few years ago, on
Thursday.
Recent wrinkles to the show
include Larry Johnson of Paragon Communications doing
a sports segment at 7:40am on
Monday and Friday. And fellow
Paragon colleague Keeli Denney joins the show Wed-Fri.
Several others have done regular stints on TEMS in the past:
former State Representative
Ryan McMullen from Washita
County, former City Manager
of Elk City Gary Dumas, local
attorney Brian Henderson, former Clinton City Manager Steve
Hewitt, Paragon Communications employee Lyndsay Bogges, and local surgeon Dr. Lindsay Pena.
The show’s irregular guests
have also been very entertaining.
“Although he hasn’t been on
in a while, people still talk about
Chopper Dave,” Landry said.
“He’s a buddy of ours from high
school who moved away. He’s
pretty sharp and pretty funny,
so we loved having him on to
talk about whatever was in the
news.”
And then there’s Pearl Suggs
from Flapjack in Washita County, whose cast of characters—
like husband Eli who drove the
school bus and son Tiny who
studied farming at A&M in Stillwater for many, many years—
delighted listeners.
WHY IT WORKS
“When we began the show
ten years ago, we thought it
would be a traditional radio talk
show—lots of politics,” Nathan
said. “But we found out that the
average listener likes just a little
politics. People want to have fun
when they’re getting ready for
work or school in the morning.”
So Nathan and Landry shifted TEMS to more of a variety
show.
“Some people like sports,
some like local news, some like
politics, some like entertainment
news,” Landry said. “And almost everybody likes to laugh.
So we try to spread it around and
cover as many kinds of topics as
Courtesy Photo
we can. We also try to keep it
Nathan and Landry Brewer, host The Early Morning Show on
family friendly.”
KECO in Elk City.
Sometimes the topics are very
serious, but Nathan and Landry conversations since we were
Nathan and Landry appreciaren’t afraid to make fun of kids,” Landry said. “But now ate the listeners who’ve tuned in
themselves. And each other.
we talk to each other on the air during the last decade, as well as
“Listeners seem to like it and let others listen.”
the sponsors who have used the
when we go at each other pretty
The Early Morning Show is program to promote their busigood,” the brothers said. “We’ve unlike any radio program you’ll nesses. And they want to thank
tried to take our off-air relation- hear in this part of the country. KECO owner Blake Brewer for
ship and duplicate it when the It’s hosted by twins who break taking a chance and letting them
microphones are on.”
out in song, tell stories about have their own show so they can
What they say to each other their childhood, and heap broth- just talk for an hour each day.
on the air is a lot like what they erly abuse on each other, all
So what will they talk about
say to each other the rest of the while discussing news, sports, on the show tomorrow morning?
time.
politics and pop culture.
“You’ll have to tune in to find
“We’ve been having these
THANK YOU
out,” they said.
TxDOT gets funding for Wheeler County project
CHILDRESS – Funding for
three projects was recently approved by the Texas Transportation Commission to be
constructed in the Texas Department of Transportation’s (TxDOT) Childress District.
The location and planned
work for each project is:
Wheeler County
A $9.8 million construction project on US 83 from the
north Wheeler County line to
the Hemphill County line, will
consist of widening the current
roadway with an overlay, and
passing lanes added in one mile
intervals, making this section
of US 83 a Super 2. R.K. Hall,
LLC is the contractor for this
project.
Childress County
A $4.9 million project on US
62/83 beginning at the Prairie
Dog Town Fork of the Red River, north to the US 62/83 split.
The project will consist of a
complete rehabilitation of the
existing roadway. R.K. Hall,
LLC is the contractor for this
project.
King County
A $5.9 million project on US
82 beginning 1.2 miles east of
US 83 to 0.5 miles west of SH
222. The project will consist of
a complete rehabilitation of the
existing roadway. Duininck, Inc.
is the contractor for this project.
Construction on these projects
will begin approximately the
summer of 2016.
811 N Main St,
Shamrock, TX
(806) 256-3458
P.O. Box 466
McLean, Texas 79057