WNAX (AM)

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WNAX-AM

Broadcast area	Yankton South Dakota
First air date	1922
Frequency	570 KHz
Format	Talk
Owner	Saga Communications

WNAX is an AM radio station in Yankton, South Dakota.

[edit] History

WNAX signed on the air in 1922. The call-letters represented "North American radio eXperiment."

The radio station launched the careers of many stars, both local and national. Starting in the late 1920's, Lawrence Welk spent a decade performing daily without pay on WNAX. In 1939, Wynn Hubler Speece started her radio program and became known regionally as "the Neighbor Lady." Speece was still continuing to do her Marconi Award winning broadcast more than sixty years later when WNAX celebrated its eightieth anniversary in 2002. Other well-known regional radio personalities from WNAX have included Norm Hilson, Whitney Larson, "Happy" Jack O'Malley, and George B. German.

In 1983, a fire destroyed the main WNAX building. All of the station's historic live recordings as well as thousands of records were also destroyed. The staff of WNAX went to the station's transmitter site and continued broadcasting. Eventually, the station recovered when a new building was constructed on Highway 50 in Yankton.

Although WNAX's glory days were before the time of television, the radio station continues to broadcast during the twenty-first century in spite of competition from both television and the internet.

[edit] External links

• WNAX website
• WNAX: From 1922 to Today
• Article on the eightieth anniversary of WNAX by Minnesota Public Radio.