Popular Saturday show discontinued

By John Howell
When Ricky Swindle announced the end of the 14-year run of the Local Yokels Saturday morning radio broadcast on WBLE, it was no surprise that he made it on the sign in front of his business at the corner of Highway and Eureka Street.
Swindle said that he was informed Tuesday that the show would be discontinued. He said that the decision stemmed from different views with management over programming.
“Batesville Broadcasting Co., Inc. was so lucky and honored to have the Local Yokels show be a part of the history of WBLE radio,” according to a statement provided to The Panolian by the station. “The support and impact that they had on the community is something everyone should be proud of. Recently, we have changed the format of 106.9 to a country legends format,” WBLE’s statement continued.
“Given the preference of the style of music on the Local Yokels, we offered them the opportunity to bring their show to that station. Due to things beyond the radio station’s control Ricky was not pleased with that decision and it was decided the time had come to part ways. Batesville Broadcasting Co., Inc. will be forever grateful to the contributions made by the Local Yokels and wish them continued success in the future.”
Swindle said that while WBLE broadcasts with 50,000 watts on FM 100.5, WHKL 106.9 has a more limited reach with 5,000 watts.
“I was willing to do that to keep the show going,” he said.
The story of how the program started has been often repeated — about how in 2003 he came up with an idea for a six-week radio advertising campaign to promote his tire and muffler business while featuring songs by local musicians. It worked so well, that he kept going after the six weeks. And now it’s been 14 years.
On Saturday mornings, Swindle and co-host Johnny Pace bounce wisecracks from one to another between birthday announcements, prayer requests, announcements about charity fund-raisers and church events and, of course, the music. During recent months, Panola County Circuit Clerk Melissa Meek-Phelps has joined them, giving as good as she got with the on-air teasing. Before that, Gina Cotten answered the phone and bantered with Pace and Swindle.
The criteria for any musician who wanted his or her song played on the radio was to bring him the song on a studio-recorded CD. He always said that he would play it once. After that, the frequency for air play for any song was the number of requests he received.
“It was what it was; it was local,” Swindle said, though program hosts would occasionally expand their definition as far away as necessary to include anybody with local connections.
In 2004, the program went international over the Internet.
“Nick (son-in-law Nick Hughes) was in Iraq,” Swindle said, on his first tour there as a National Guard soldier. With help from Travis Ferguson of Complete Computers, who had with WBLE begun Internet streaming broadcasts of South Panola football games, the Local Yokels show was also live-streamed.
“I had a pretty good little fan base in Iraq,” Swindle said, as the program became a channel for local family and friends to extend greetings to service members on duty half-way around the world.
“It is just mind blowing the outstanding musical talent we have right here in Panola County and North Mississippi,” Swindle wrote in a Letter to the Editor published in 2008, on the eve of his fifth anniversary Local Yokels show.
“Great singers, amazing song writers, and God-given talented musicians number in the hundreds. We started the show with a dozen CDs. Now there’s over 500!” Swindle’s letter continued. “I’ll tell you that Johnny and I do have an ulterior motive. One day one of these ‘Local Yokels’ are gonna make the big time and invite me and him to The Opry. It’s gonna happen. There’s just way too much talent for it not to take place.”
Swindle said Thursday that his collection of CDs from local musicians now numbers over 1,000. He also said that he has the complete collection of Local Yokel programs on CD.
“I got to play folks that can’t sing any more,” Swindle said, recalling the lates Jesse Yates, Steve Hall, Ricky Harpole and Ladd Rogers among them.
Swindle would often lament the loss of friends in the community, usually with a funny story that would not have been included in an obituary, but his most memorable followed the death of his mother. By the time Annie Ruth Darby Swindle died in March, 2012, most listeners, due to Swindle’s frequent mention of his mother, felt like they had known her for a long time.
“She died on a Thursday night and we did the show Saturday morning and played only happy music for her like she asked me to do,” Swindle said.
“One fellow asked me what I was going to do on Saturday mornings,” Swindle said. “Then he said, ‘wait a minute, what am I going to do?’”