Red Dirt Country is in Fort Scott as of July 1 at 98.3 FM on your radio.
The Red Dirt genre of country music started in Oklahoma and Texas.
“Red Dirt Country is a different brand of country,” Tim McKenney, owner of Fort Scott Broadcasting said. “Most tell a story…songs that tell stories about the cowboy’s way of life.”
Fort Scott Broadcasting, owned by both Tim and Deb McKenney, is the umbrella company for KMDO-AM 1600 and KOMB-FM 103.9 and now K252KY-FM 98.3.
KMDO started in 1954 and KOMB in1981 and continue to play classic and contemporary music. They were purchased by Tim and Deb in 1996 from Tim’s father.
Red Dirt Country, K252KY-FM started this year.
“On July 1 we opened K252KY,” McKenney said. “It started broadcasting a few months ago. We wanted to run it a while to make sure it was going smoothly.”
“We wanted to compete with those (radio stations) that do country, in a different way,” he said.
“It’s been crazy, for signing on quietly,” McKenney said.
The broadcasting company plays music 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
There are several announcers who work for the company: Larry Gazaway, Brandon Tadtman, Dalton Womeldorff, Pam Hutchison, Charlene Bolinger, Brayden Enstrom, Dena Wade “and a few more of us do some on-air, but not regularly,” McKenney said.
“We still have announcers, it is not automated by satellite,” McKenney said.
In August, Larry Gazaway returns to the radio station as “the morning man on 103.9 and he will be our sports broadcaster,” McKenney said. Gazaway did a stint as Fort Scott’s Director of Convention and Visitor Bureau recently and returns to broadcasting on August 5.
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