Allegheny Mountain Radio: unique by nature

What’s it like to serve the most rural area in the eastern U.S.?

“What’ve you been up to?”

“Nothing.”

“You know you’re on the radio, right? You’re going to have to do better than that.”

On many Wednesdays, Scott Smith hosts a youth radio show with members of Highland County Middle School’s radio club. He’s the General Manager for Allegheny Mountain Radio and station coordinator for WVLS in Monterrey, VA. Sometimes he ribs the kids a little bit, and when they warm up, they rib him right back. The kids conduct interviews, pick out music, and co-host live on-air. They also make dry erase drawings of Scott and his epic beard, typically running from the law.

“I’m a big proponent of making an impact on other people however you can. Helping people however you can,” says Scott. “It’s such a unique resource we have in this radio station. The more people we have taking advantage of it, the more we fulfill our purpose.”

Radio Club keeps growing: this year, 29 students participated.

Here’s a wild statistic: that’s close to 80% of the students enrolled in the county’s middle school.

Allegheny Mountain Radio (AMR) is made up of three stations: WVLS in Highland County, VA; WCHG in Bath County, VA; and WVMR in Pocahontas County, WV. Other than high school sports broadcasts, they all share the same program audio.

These stations are in the National Radio Astronomy Observatory’s Quiet Zone. It’s a very rural area — just 15,000 people in the three counties combined — and broadcast tech is tightly regulated so the scientists at Green Bank can do their work. AMR’s stations are pretty much the only game in town for FM radio options.

As a result, programming is eclectic, or “full service” as radio old-timers used to say. Classic rock, bluegrass & country, gospel, and overnight classical. High school sports live game-calling. NPR headlines, and a local daily news magazine hosted by Program Director Heather Niday.

Each station has a staff coordinator who handles everything from fundraising to volunteer coordination to taking out the trash.

Danny Cardwell is the station coordinator for WCHG and AMR’s social media coordinator. He plays a key role in organizing annual AMR music events in Bath County: Bluegrass Jamboree (April) and Gospel Jubilee (October).

At different times of the day, each station is the on-air originating studio. Heather’s husband and AMR part-time engineer Chuck Niday has a heckuva complex job.

A little history

Of the three, WVMR came first. Gibbs Kinderman, a Harvard grad who came to Pocahontas in the 1970s as a VISTA volunteer, was a driving force behind getting the station on the air in 1981. He managed AMR until 2001 and served as director of special programs for another 13 years, publishing books and audio documentaries about local history and culture.

In its first years, most locals didn’t much care about AMR and kind of ignored it. Then came devastating floods in 1985. AMR somehow stayed on the air, and the staff truly stepped up. Through weeks of little sleep, they provided critical emergency communications in the county’s time of desperate need.

The station earned people’s trust by serving people’s needs. A key lesson for all of us working in this field.

By 1995, neighboring Bath & Highland Counties saw the value in getting their own stations, too. Check out AMR’s series “Unique By Nature” for more about its history.

Radio in a small community

To a person, AMR’s staff shared various ways that they find it rewarding to serve a small community where they feel connection and belonging.

Several of them also mentioned the challenge of a declining population. A board member tells me that unless young people have a family business to step into, many of them are moving to cities. Those who move here from elsewhere are largely retirees. So the counties are losing employable people. This is not unique to these counties… It’s a problem for rural areas across the country. But how many of those radio club kids will be around in 10, 20 years?

Still, AMR’s purpose remains: to serve its people with information and entertainment, created of, by, and for the people that make up this community.

And maybe enlarging our idea of “community” is part of the answer… AMR’s community is place-based but that community is not just people who live here. It’s also people with ties to this place, with family roots in this place. Perhaps people who haven’t lived here for years or never did live here full time, but still consider it home.

AMR’s app can enable that expanded community to grow more easily than ever.

Looking ahead

There will be future posts that draw more on today’s chat with AMR folks. The staff, board, and I had a lively discussion about declining civic culture, politics & vitriol, and how divides are being amplified. Plus sticky questions about who is allowed to be “from here” and to tell the truth of their lived experience.

But that’s some heady material that calls for more reflection and information gathering from other stations I’m visiting.

And now, a brief appreciation for how little I’ve been sweating…

I like summer weather here way more than Charlottesville’s. High temps in the high 70s, lows in the 50s, and very comfortable dewpoints.

What’s next for this blog?

Tomorrow, I’m driving to Mountain Streams Radio in Keyser, WV. But first, here’s my steed parked at the base of the Sounding Knob Fire Tower.