Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Chamber announces Teacher, Citizen of Year

Almost 200 residents of Clark County attended the Chamber of Commerce Banquet Thursday, April 17, to show support to the candidates for teacher of the year, citizen of the year, Chamber member of the year and the candidate to receive the Chambers special recognition.

Members of the Gurdon High School Band provided entertainment during the dinner, and band director Alan Wimberly provided entertainment before presentation of awards.

Chamber President Steven Orsburn presented the awards.

Gurdon High School counselor Melissa Franklin received Teacher of the Year.

The lady behind the Raising the Curtain cookbook, Denise Ezell, received Citizen of the Year.

Johnnie Calley received Chamber Member of the Year. Although not in attendance, his son (Pat) represented him. Pat, who lives in

I love coming home, he said. This is the best place on earth.

The Chamber gave Special Recognition to Ed McKinnon, former funeral director for Pharr Funeral Home.

Keynote speaker was Randy Rainwater, talk show host of Drive Time Sports on KABZ 103.7 The Buzz.

Rainwater told the audience that he had gotten his education from sports. He said that he learned to multiply from studying New York Yankee Hall-of-Famer Micky Mantles baseball statistics.

After going to college for several years as a professional student, he joked, he took a few odd jobs before his best friend invited him to cover a Lonoke vs. Cabot basketball game. By the end of the first quarter of the girls basketball game, he said they had taken over the hired broadcasters spot to finish the rest of the games.

After that first broadcast, he began broadcasting anything and everything  including parades and bake sales.

He said his most interesting broadcast was a football game full of technical problems. When his crew got to the game and set up the equipment, their receiving line was dead. They bought a couple hundred feet of phone line, and ran it a couple hundred yards from the field house. Rainwater said he stood in a chair for the entire game, with a phone to his ear, in order to broadcast the event.

He later started a talk show with a co-host at a small radio station.

If our wives werent listening, he joked, then nobody was.

He then began interviewing anyone he could find to agree to an interview. He said his knees knocked as he spoke on air with his first guest  the Voice of the Razorbacks, the late Paul Eels.

He said a couple of his favorite guests throughout the years have been Major League Baseball player Bruce Sutter and voice personality Art Gilmore.

In 1989, Rainwater began working for Signal Media as an account executive, where one of his first broadcasts was covering a Gurdon Go-Devils basketball game.

When the owner of the station asked Rainwater how the station could make some money, he proposed a Saturday morning sports talk show. He immediately began his talk show, and sold radio spots for $10 each.

The owner asked Rainwater to have the show Mondays through Fridays from 4-6 p.m. He took the offer, and began Drive Time Sports.

But he could not make it on air until 5 p.m. because of his duties selling advertisements. To top it off, his co-host left to work for a newspaper job.

Since then, he has been on the 100,000 watt radio station as the host of his listener-driven talk show where the motto is Hang up and listen.

He said he gets no greater satisfaction than from the High School Scoreboard, although disc jockeys from radio stations in different states seem weary of announcing high school sports on such a far-reaching station.

I love it because Im talking about our kids, Rainwater said. He said its all worth it  even if it motivates only one student athlete to try his best.

He told the audience it is the listeners duty to run his show rather than his.

If Im not talking about the Go-Devils or the (HSU) Reddies, he said, dont get mad at me  call in and talk about it.

In concluding his speech, he asked for questions and said, Ill hang up and listen.