| City of license | Cookeville, Tennessee |
|---|---|
| Branding | Magic 98.5 |
| Slogan | "The Upper Cumberland's Hit Music Channel" |
| Frequency | 98.5 FM (MHz) |
| Format | Top 40 |
| Former callsigns | WHUB-FM (1964 - 1997) |
| Owner | Cookeville Communications, LLC (CC Licenses, LLC) |
WGIC (98.5 FM, "Magic 98.5") is a Top 40 music formatted radio station broadcasting from Cookeville, Tennessee. The owner is Cookeville Communications, LLC and the station's license is held by CC Licenses, LLC.
We in Ohio completely respect our friends at WGIC in Tennessee. Perhaps you'd care to know the previous history of the WGIC call letters. Why? Because they are tied to a story that is well known in modern-day American history.
The call letters WGIC were once licensed to a daytime AM station on 1500 kHz in Xenia, Ohio. The call letters stood for "Greene Information Station", and had been attached to the station since the early to mid 1960's. On April 3rd, 1974, Xenia was devastated by an F-5 tornado that was part of a "super outbreak" of twisters that hit the midwest on that date. Fully half of the city of Xenia was rendered to rubble in a matter of seconds from that twister that hit at approximately 4:39 pm that day.
Dozens died. Hundreds were injured.
Though the tornado passed within several hundred feet of the WGIC tower site, studios and offices, the station was, basically, spared. After the tornado had passed, station personnel searched frantically for a generator to allow them to resume broadcasting to the city. Within hours, such a generator was located and the station went back on the air. WGIC, though a daytimer, utilized emergency provisions granted in their FCC broadcast license to, temporarily, broadcast 24 hours a day delivering vital news and information to the devastated city. If memory serves me correctly (since I worked at one time at WGIC and its then FM sister, WBZI (95.3)), the Ohio Legislature eventually made an official proclamation commending WGIC Radio for its service to the Xenia community under very trying times.
The existence of the call letters and their original city of license may be verified, I believe, through the database of call letters at the official website of the Federal Communications Commission.
In offering this information, we do not wish to, in any way, suggest any interference with the good works being done by the WGIC of today in Tennessee. We just thought we would offer this background information on your call letters to you...as the call letters mean a lot to the thousand of survivors of a horrible day who depended on WGIC-AM to help them recover from a devastating loss.
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