KAOK

KAOK (1400 AM) is a radio station broadcasting a News Talk Information format. Licensed to Lake Charles, Louisiana, USA, the station serves the Lake Charles area. The station is currently owned by Cumulus Media and features programming from ABC Radio and Premiere Radio Networks.^[2]

KAOK began as a member of the "OK Group" which included WAOK, WBOK, and others and was known as serving the African-American community. Thomas Austin Gresham (1921-2015), a 1946 graduate of Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge who was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, opened KLOU in Lake Charles and was manager and part owner of KAOK as well. In 1959, he came to Shreveport to manage KRMD and was the executor of the T. B. Lanford estate. Gresham was also a decorated first lieutenant with the 8th Air Force of the United States Army Air Corps in England during World War II. He flew twenty combat missions in B-17 bombers.^[3]

Ed J. Prendergast (born 1925) subsequently managed and then purchased the station. He moved to a format considered at the time to be more "mainstream."

During the 1970s, KAOK competed successfully as a Top 40 station. Its most notable promotion was known as the "Boogie Bash," a dance featuring DJ Dave the Mouse with an entrance fee of "a buck a head." Drawing thousands of attendees monthly, these dances became a staple of the local youth's night life. At its peak, the station featured personalities such as Dave "The Mouse" Petrik, Ken Rice, Steve Golden, Bill Conway, and Jay Michaels, who all eventually moved to major market positions. As the featured personalities left for major market positions, the station took a talk format with Prendergast as the morning host. Later, after years of floundering as a semi-talk station with Prendergast as chief on-air personality, KAOK was sold to a family involved with the state's insurance scandals of the 1980s and 1990s, and then eventually re-sold to Sidney Simien, known as Rockin' Sidney, a Zydeco musician who had a hit record entitled "Don't Mess with My Toot Toot."

A fire destroyed the building and all of the facilities, and eventually the frequency was sold to the current owners who operate a conservative talk format. From 9 to 11 a.m. weekdays, KAOK broadcasts The Moon Griffon Show.

References

External links

• Query the FCC's AM station database for KAOK
• Radio-Locator Information on KAOK
• Query Nielsen Audio's AM station database for KAOK