KFEQ Hotline host Barry Birr interviews then-City Manager Bruce Woody/Photo by Brent Martin By BRENT MARTINSt. Joseph PostKFEQ Radio adapted over the past 100 years, always striving to inform its audience and entertain as well.This is the final segment of our five-part seriesNo longer a music station, KFEQ now offers agricultural, news, talk, and sports programming.Former News Director Barry Birr continues to host the KFEQ Hotline even in retirement, a program he started in 1992, after KFEQ became a Rush Limbaugh affiliate."That's a national program," Birr tells KFEQ/St. Joseph Post in an interview. "What if we had a local program that addressed issues in the news and took calls?"Never did the Hotline format prove its worth more than during the 2007 ice storm, a storm so severe it knocked other broadcasters off the air for days."For quite a while we were the only broadcast facility that was operating," Birr says. Soon after the storm created widesprea
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By BRENT MARTINSt. Joseph PostKFEQ celebrates 100 years on the air this week.To celebrate, we will run a series of stories on the rich history of the station each day this week.But, what does it mean for a radio station to celebrate its 100th birthday?"It is a remarkable achievement. In fact, I believe this is the first centennial that I'm aware of in radio stations that I know about, certainly here in the rural Midwest," retired Kansas State media professor Steve Smethers of Manhattan says, who adds a misperception is that broadcasting started in the East and moved westward."And KFEQ was likely one of those radio stations that was put on as an experiment," Smethers says. "It was probably put on with the idea that, gee, isn't it fun to play with radio without any kind of an idea of what it was going to be used for."Smethers, who also taught at Northwest Missouri State University in Maryville and knows KFEQ well, says that in 1923 there was no for
Lori and Pat Loney, Red Cross volunteers from Derby, Kansas, arrived in Florida on Saturday morning following a 20+ hour drive. To make a donation in support of the effort text "IAN" to 90999 or click HERE or the image above to donate online.The Robert E. And Patricia Schmidt Foundation recently donated $25,000 to the American Red Cross to help support recovery efforts following Hurricane Ian.The Red Cross has dispatched multiple vehicles, which will most likely be deployed for weeks, and the foundation's gift will help support the volunteers manning the vehicles and help restock supplies."Our hearts go out to those effected by this devastating storm," said Schmidt Foundation Chairman Gary Shorman, "and we offer our sincere thanks to the Red Cross for offering much-needed assistance during this recovery."The mission of the Red Cross is an admirable one, and we'd urge our communities to do what they can to help by donating."To make a donati