By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
A featured program on KFEQ in Oak was the report from the St. Joseph Grain Exchange. It was the Grain Exchange, along with the St. Joseph Livestock Exchange, and the St. Joseph Boosters that persuaded John Scroggin to move KFEQ from Oak to St. Joseph. The Grain Exchange put up $4,000 to offset the expenses of the move.
KFEQ would soon become “Your Midwest Market Station.”
This is the third in our five-part series on the history of KFEQ.
“Every farmer, and you learn this if you’re in the farming and ranching business, every farmer listens to the radio station with the market news on it. And that’s KFEQ. I mean, that’s KFEQ in this country,” Greg Clement tells KFEQ/St. Joseph Post.
Greg Clement began broadcasting on KFEQ from the St. Joseph Stockyards in 1989, taking over for his brother, Del.
But Clement learned as a child the importance of KFEQ.
“Mom always had us sit down, 12 o’clock noon, for dinner, especially during the summer time when we were home,” Clement recalls. “At noon, there was no talking at the table, because KFEQ markets were on.”
Legendary broadcasters: Ed Loutch, Nelson Thomas, Don Spalding, Harold “Smitty” Schmitz, Walt Drannan, Jim Sprake, Bob Azelton, Bryce Anderson, Gene Millard, Gene Williams, Gary Wergen were among those providing markets and agricultural news.
Walt Drannan, the longtime voice of the St. Joseph Grain Exchange, states in his short history of KFEQ, that Loutch propped his microphone on the steam radiator on the 14th floor of the Corby Building in downtown St. Joseph to give the first broadcast from the exchange in 1927, beginning the longest continuous commodity market broadcast in history.
National Association of Farm Broadcasting Executive Director Tom Brand understood that history when he became KFEQ Agriculture Director.
“Coming to KFEQ, they had quite the lineup of folks who had been here in the past; industry giants and people that were still in the industry,” Brand tells KFEQ/St. Joseph Post in an interview.
Brand says KFEQ stands among the best in farm broadcasting.
“When you think about what KFEQ looks like compared to some other, quote-unquote, big stations that are out there, it does a great job of covering a lot of acres as well as a lot of head of livestock,” according to Brand.
Former Ag Director Mike Railsback remembers how important KFEQ was to Midland Empire agriculture.
“A heritage station with a lot of history and a station that you were proud to say you worked at,” Railsback tells us. “It’s a station that is unique these days, because it’s been around so long.”
KFEQ founder John Scroggin began with a 200-watt transmitter in the back of that bank building in Oak. Scroggin soon increased the power to 500 watts.
In 1936, KFEQ applied for and received a federal license for a 2,500-watt non-directional daytime-only license. KFEQ caught a break in 1942, when it got permission from the Federal Communication Commission to buy the steel needed to build a four-tower transmission arrangement during World War II steel restrictions, which allowed it to increase its power to 5,000 watts.
It was that 5,000-watt signal at 680 AM that gave KFEQ such an impact, according to former Agriculture Director and General Manager, Gene Millard.
“We knew that we had a boomer of a signal, reaching into the region and most of the other stations that were around were very low power, maybe a thousand watts or 250, and didn’t have much coverage area where we could cover a hundred mile radius with ease,” Millard tells KFEQ/St. Joseph Post during an interview. “In fact, the signal goes probably 200 miles.”
That signal, though, got clipped when the FCC removed an exemption that allowed KFEQ to switch to its huge day pattern at 5am, rather than wait until sunrise, despite a concerted lobbying effort by St. Joseph to keep the exemption. KFEQ sued. The courts sided with the FCC.
Millard says the Figure 8 nighttime pattern simply cut off too many farmers.
“Because we didn’t get across the river. You couldn’t get us in Troy,” Millard says. “I mean, it was ridiculous. And you can see the towers and you couldn’t hear it. So, it was really a frustration, extreme frustration.”
The FCC removed the waiver granted KFEQ after KNBR, 680 AM on the dial in San Francisco, complained that the KFEQ signal caused interference with its signal. KFEQ questioned whether its signal caused any real interference with a station based in California.
KFEQ joined with KCMO of Kansas City and KHMO of Hannibal to file a federal lawsuit, attempting to block the FCC from removing the exemption all three enjoyed. KFEQ gathered an impressive list of backers in its effort to maintain an early daytime pattern. State Agriculture Directors from Missouri, Kansas, and Nebraska protested the decision by the FCC, contending it would hurt the agricultural economies in those states. The loudest voices of protest came from the St. Joseph Stockyards and the St. Joseph Livestock Marketing Foundation, both arguing it would severely hurt their business, the St. Joseph economy, and farmers throughout the Midland Empire.
A federal appeals court in New York rejected the appeal and upheld the FCC decision. The United States Supreme Court declined to take up the case. The FCC order from July of 1967 went into effect in 1969, ending an exemption KFEQ had enjoyed since 1947.
KFEQ expressed its frustration a year later when it filed for its renewal with the FCC. That 1970 renewal application actually expresses a bit more than frustration, pointing out that after the FCC forced KFEQ to maintain its nighttime pattern until sunrise, rather than allowing it to go to full power at 5am or even 6am, the Swift Packing Plant announced it would close, leaving 1,000 workers unemployed. Armour announced it would build a newer, smaller plant, employing 400 instead of 1,000.
“Part of this is due to decreasing livestock availability in St. Joseph,” KFEQ wrote in its renewal application, adding it was sure the FCC didn’t intend to destroy or damage a local economy with its pre-sunrise ruling, but in St. Joseph that was the result.
Millard, though, plays down a direct impact, instead seeing the loss of the early daytime signal as a tipping point in a changing meatpacking industry.
“Because it wasn’t long after that that Seitz closed, too. Dugdale closed. Those were totally different reasons, there,” according to Millard. “The Seitz plant was not that old. It was not old like the Swift plant or Armour plant.”
No doubt, the FCC move had an impact on the St. Joseph economy, but Millard says it came at a time of change in the industry.
“If anything, it kind of coincided with and was a tipping point,” Millard says.
From live music to country records, that tomorrow, as we continue this series on the history of KFEQ.