WNAX (AM)

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WNAX (570 AM) is a radio station broadcasting a News/Talk format. It is licensed to Yankton, South Dakota. Due to the flat landscape of the Upper Midwest and its location near the end of the AM band, the station's 5,000-watt signal covers large portions of South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri and North Dakota. Besides Sioux City (its "home" market) and Sioux Falls, it can be heard clearly in Omaha, Lincoln and Des Moines. Under the right conditions, it can be heard as far south as Kansas City and as far north as Fargo.

The station is currently owned by Saga Communications.

[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 "Your 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, Bob Hill, Ed Nelson and George B. German.

In October 2005, Speece announced her retirement after almost 66 years of continuous broadcasting. She died on October 22, 2007, at 90 years old. [1]

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.

Today, WNAX continues many of the traditions started in 1922 with frequent news, sports, weather and farm market updates.

The station continues to be affiliated with CBS Radio, an association that began in the late 1920s.

WNAX is also the flagship for South Dakota State University sports. WNAX also carries Minnesota Twins baseball.

[edit] Honors and Awards

In May 2006, WNAX won one first place plaque in the commercial radio division of the South Dakota Associated Press Broadcasters Association news contest.^[1] The contest was for the 2005 calendar year.

[edit] Staff

• Steve Crawford -- mornings
• Jim Reimler -- mid day
• Matt Andes -- afternoons
• Jerry Oster -- news director
• Steve Imming -- Sports Director
• Michelle Rook -- Farm Director
• Tom Riter -- assistant to Ms. Rook

[edit] References

[edit] External links

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

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