Wishbone, the couch dog in the front office, has one blue and one brown eye. He's supposedly a mix of catahoula hound and beagle. This dawn-to-sunset AM radio station is on Highway 65 in Arkansas, halfway between McGehee and Dermott, which is about eight miles off of Highway 65, but the eccentric owners of the radio station live there, so the station advertises itself as being halfway between there and McGehee. The station went on the air in 1955, and conducted an interview with Elvis Presley in 1956, the day after he appeared during the intermission at a Dermott High School talent show. (Elvis was not asked to come back the next day as planned to perform for the entire student body, maybe something to do with the way he moved his body at the talent show.) Except for accumulating many, many 45s and albums, and some but not all new equipment, and a lot of dust and hoarding-type detritus, the station hasn't changed much since it went on the air. The coke machine is still in use. The woman who inherited the station from her parents is an MD and works part-time in the Dermott emergency room. There are two sixty-something male DJs at the station, and one younger guy learning the trade.
This is the booth where Elvis was interviewed, using this very microphone. The view is looking into the control room where the station owner is standing. Tapes of music that could be called easy listening and oldies were playing while we were there on a Sunday between one and two pm, so no DJ is at the microphone in the control room. He only talked into the mic once, at 1:30 to give the station ID. We heard him on the radio giving the national and local news at 2 pm just after we left. Local news includes obituaries read out loud. Earlier in the day, there was a Bible-thumping preacher giving a sermon from the station.
