Karen Moses is an Advertising & Marketing Expert. She has been working in Small Market Radio Sales and Radio Station Managment for over 20 years. She has worked in several markets in Kentucky and Florida. She is also a Sales trainer.  

She is currently the President of: 

• Strategic Impact Marketing Consulting Corporation
• LGBC Media Corporation
• SIM Communications

Call Karen for your next Marketing Plan, Advertising Schedule and Sales Training.

Calvin Coolidge Smith was born in Clay County, Kentucky on June 14, 1932.  He was our company President from 1965 until his death in 1987.  In a story about his death, he was referred to as "the common thread" for the community.

He was an Army verteran and attended the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music.  He worked in radio at various stations in Kentucky, Tennessee, Indiana and West Virginia.  His first radio job was at WFTG in London, Kentucky in 1956.  From there, he went to the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music before starting full-time in radio at WWXL in Manchester, Kentucky.  The following appeared in the Manchester Enterprise newspaper in November, 1957

Calvin Smith, son of Mr. and Mrs. Cloyd Smith, is a native of Clay County. He graduated from the Clay County High School and from Eastern Ky State College with a BS degree in business administration and a teachers certificate. He completed two years in the Armed Forces with the 18^th Airborne Corps Artillery as Communications officer and Headquarters Battery Commander, with the rank of 1^st Lieutenant. He did graduate work in the radio and television Arts Department at the Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music, coming directly from the school to WWXL in November in the first days of the station's operation. Cal is married and he and wife Ruth lives with their two fine sons, Calvin Lynn and David, near Manchester. Cal is a great asset to the station, because he is well qualified and because he is well liked by all who meet him.

He came to Stanford in 1965 buying the interests of W.G. Morgan, S.C. Bybee and Ray Doss in WRSL Radio Station.He also worked for the Kentucky State Treasurer and Kentucky Secretary of State in the 1970's and early 1980's. During his time in Stanford, he headed may civic organizations.  He was past president and director of the Stanford-Lincoln County Chamber of Commerce and its Citizen of the Year in 1986, past president and director of Stanford Lions Club, a director of Lincoln County Fair Board, past president of Stanford PTA and member of the Lincoln County Industrial Authority.

He was the emcee at nearly every community eventHe also served as the Public Address announcer for Lincoln County high school football games, was a member of the Lincoln County Quarterback Club and was active in the promotion of youth sports through the Stanford Lions Club. He was married to Janie Ruth Coffey Smith and they had six children:  Calvin Lynn Smith, David Lee Smith, Phillip Layne Smith, Jonathan Logan Smith, Joseph Lanier Smith and Amy Lu Smith Bastin.

He died on November 15, 1987 from pancreatic cancer after being diagnosed with that terrible disease in February, 1987.  At 55 years old, Cal Smith died much, much too soon.

Janie Ruth Coffey was born on November 27, 1930 in Rockcastle County, Kentucky, and spent her first years in a small house on land that is now under water as part of man-made Lake Linville.

She was a 1948 graduate of Mount Vernon High School and attended Eastern Kentucky State Teacher's College, now Eastern Kentucky Universty.  She left school to become Mrs. Calvin Smith in 1951 and spent the rest of her life taking care of him and their resulting family.

She was the epitome of a loyal wife.  She organized and tolerated over 34 moves from 1954-1965 as Cal served in the Army and then climbed the radio ladder by moving to different towns for better opportunities. After Cal's death in 1987, she bravely took over the company and worked tirelessly to continue its business.  She retired in 1994.

She never really got over her husband's death and longed for him every day.  She never slept in their bed after his death, instead, she spent her nights dozing on the couch with the television on for company.

She died on December 3, 2003 from lung cancer after being in remission from the disease for nearly 4 1/2years.

Arvil Jones was born on Paces Creek in Clay County, Kentucky.  His parents, Pearl and Polly Jones, lived next door to Gilbert and Vicie Abner.  The Abners were Calvin Smith's grandparents.  Across the road from the Abner home was where Calvin Smith lived.

Arvil was nicknamed "Plow" by a cousin apparently because Arvil was so scared of a local fellow named "Harvest Plow" that he would hide under the bed whenever the man came to their house.  The nickname stuck and that is what most people knew him by.

Plow survived a childhood bout with polio and other than stunted growth of his legs and the use of crutches, he led a normal life. He eventually married Janice Bowling of the Big Creek section of Clay County and they had three children:  Janie Melissa Jones Hogue, Jeanie Michelle Jones Kidd and Jeffery Michael Jones, all of whom still live in the Stanford area.  Plow and Janice divorced in the early 1980's.

Plow began working in radio in 1958 in Manchester, Kentucky. He was visiting his friend Calvin Smith, who was that station's manager, when Smith put him on the air.  Plow thought Cal went into the other room to listen to him.  In a few minutes, Cal called him from a service station downtown and told him that he was sounding good.

Plow used to tell the story that he couldn't find the phone and once that he did, he left the microphone turned on and the conversation went out over the air.  Jones worked at WWXL with Cal Smith and later also worked at stations in Barbourville, Pineville, London and Corbin.

He came to work for WRSL in 1965 when Cal Smith bought the station and stayed until his death in 1995. For a while when Cal also owned WKDO in Liberty, Plow used to work a mornng shift in Stanford and then drive to Liberty to work an afternoon shift there.

Plow died on March 5, 1995.  He too, died too early at only 57 years old. The following is a text of a column written by Byron Crawford for the Courier-Journal in 1982:

After fighting polio, man plays life's song

By Byron Crawford

Louisville Courier-Journal (Spring 1982)

Stanford, Ky.- It was 41 years ago when, at the age of 3, Arvil "Plow" Jones of Clay County was among the first children in Kentucky to be placed in an iron lung at Kosair Hospital in Louisville.

Arvil, who was suffering a mysterious and awful illness called infantile paralysis, or polio, had been moved to Louisville from London by train.

As Christmas drew near that year, a Courier-Journal story carried the headline: "Boy, 3, Lends Iron Lung to Girl at Kosair Hospital, But She Dies."

 

It was accompanied by a picture of Arvil, who had temporarily given up his iron lung, the only one at Kosair, to a girl from Marion County who later died of polio.

 

The newspaper story went on to explain that Jones could stand no more than one hour out of the iron lung, and that nurses had stood by to give him artificial respiration had another iron lung, borrowed from City Hospital, not reached Kosair in time.

 

"Smiling pleasantly at visitors, the little boy, whose chest muscles have been injured by the disease, will sing a breathless tune about Santa Claus when he becomes sufficiently acquainted," the newspaper reporter wrote.

 

The "little boy" is now 44 years old, but he is still making music. His afternoon record show on radio station WRSL in Stanford is a permanent fixture. And several years ago he organized a country music band in which he sings tenor.

 

Jones was not able to walk until he was 18. Then, following many operations and years of therapy at Kosair and at Cardinal Hill Hospital in Lexington, he was finally able to move about with the aid of crutches and a brace.

 

His first brush with broadcasting came when he was still a youngster on Paces's Creek in Clay County. Plow and an older brother who had studied electronics built a radio station in their smokehouse.

 

It could only be heard for a mile or so, but folks thereabouts tuned in each day to hear the Joneses and a neighbor boy, Cal Smith, play records and plug local "businesses," such as Gib Abner's mule lot.

 

By and by Smith landed a job at radio station WWXL in Manchester, where he eventually became manager. Plow often came to visit his friend at the station, and one day Smith put him on the air.

 

"I thought he (Smith) was going into another room and listen to me," Jones recalls, "but in a few minutes he called me from a service station downtown to tell me I was sounding good.

 

"I couldn't even find the telephone when it rang. And when I did, I left the microphone on and the conversation went out over the air."

 

After stints at WYGO in Corbin, both Smith and Jones wound up at Stanford in Lincoln County, where Smith is the owner and Jones the station manager of WRSL-AM and WRSL-FM.

 

Although Jones has long since discarded his brace, he still needs crutches to walk. But he flips switches on turntables and broadcast boards with masterful dexterity.

 

I do about what anybody else can do. It just takes me a little longer, " he quips.

 

He still goes by the nickname "Plow," which has been with him since he was a baby.

 

There used to be an old man named Harvest Plow in our neck of the woods," Jones explains, "and when he'd come to our house, I'd crawl under the bed. I was scared of him. My cousin started calling me 'Plow,' and it stuck.'

 

Broadcasting is not quite as exciting to him now as it was when he started 26 years ago. But Plow is more than satisfied with his career.

 

Had Polio not crippled him, he imagines that he would have followed his father and brothers into the coal mines.

 

He currently works a 10 a.m.-to-4 p.m. shift on radio before coming home to his wife and three children. What more could a man want?

 

"Well, I've dreamed," Jones remarked with a smile. Just once, he says, he'd like to introduce a country music act on the Grand Ole' Opry stage, one of his favorite entertainers, such as Charlie Louvin or Bill Monroe.

 

"In radio, you play the entertainers' music for so many years, and feel so close to them, it would be fun to introduce them live," he said.

 

Maybe one day he will.

 

After all, 41 years ago, as he lay in an iron lung at the point of death, who'd have given Plow Jones much chance of making a career as a disc jockey, or singing tenor in his own country band?

 

Copyright 1982, The Courier-Journal.