By
NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — On the 50th Anniversary of what is now Country 102.9, former News Director Fred Gough reflected on the funniest moment he had on the air.
"We were at the Kansas State Fair and we were broadcasting live and I'm on the midway, trying to interview people," Gough said. "Went up to this, what I thought looked like a really nice, old lady. She did not want to talk to me. She started hitting me over the headwith her umbrella. This is all live on the air. The gal that was in the booth with me, she's on the floor laughing. I mean, she's on the ground, just dying laughing because this lady is hitting me over the head continuously, threatening to call the police. I thought, ma'am, I'm just trying to interview you. I'm not trying to mug you or do anything. That's always a memory that sticks with me because it was live. That's what I miss, is live radio."
Terry Drouhard was Program Director at KHUT when the branding changed to Country 102.9 in 1989.
"We wanted people, when they heard us, to know it was country," Drouhard said. "I know that sounds obvious, but instead of K-Hut 103, we wanted to be Country 102.9. That was a branding thing. Second thing was, is when I got there, there were three to five thousand songs in rotation. I cut that back to approximately eight hundred. That was to foster the main hits at the time, currents and recurrents that were familiar."
Drouhard got his programming philosophy from Jack Sampson, of KOMA fame and many other great radio stations across the Midwest.
"Listeners to a radio station want...they not only want familiarity, they want companionship with that. They want information that helps them, that could be weather, news, sports scores. They want to be entertained. That's stayed the same throughout."
The philosophy that Country 102.9 started using in 1989 spread across the country through the Garth Brooks days when country exploded in the 1990s and it's still being used today.
"We kind of emulate each other," Gough said. "It's amazing to me, since I've been retired, I've traveled and listened to other radio stations and their format's almost exactly like KHUT. Other than the call letters being different or the announcers being different, it's basically the very same music, the same rotation sometimes. It amazes me that these formats, no matter where you are in the country, they're kind of the same."
The key to authenticity on the air is character, according to Drouhard.
"The strength of the announcer is being themselves, without trying to be somebody they are not," Drouhard said. "People pick up on that. Over time, they can really hear it."
Drouhard talked about the ability to exude confidence without sounding prideful. Gough said one of the important things is not to take yourself too seriously and be willing to live with your mistakes sometimes.
"It shows you're human," Gough said. "If you're perfect, people aren't going to relate to you as much. People want to meet somebody that is like them."
It is that face-to-face, person-to-person connection that has made KHUT last 50 years, and the goal is to keep it that way for another 50 years.