This week marks the 85th anniversary of radio station WKEU which has served the public interest of the Griffin-Spalding County area since its initial broadcast on December 2, 1934.
Allen Marshall, Jr. was the founder of the radio station which was the 11th licensed to operate in Georgia. The original WKEU studio was located inside the Griffin Hotel, located next door to what is now Slice’s Pizzeria in the 100 block of West Solomon Street. The location of the studio moved in 1946 to its current location on Memorial Drive where it has been for the last 73 years.
WKEU was the first station in the country to broadcast a live high school football game, a contest featuring Griffin High School in 1936. Live on scene news reporting predated that first football broadcast by a year.
Among some of the memorable talents that have worked behind a microphone for WKEU include Marshall Mann, Johnny Smolka, Bobby Chappell, Dewitt Simonton and cureent owner and general manager Bill Taylor, who began his radio career as a 9th grader.
One of the station’s most notable productions comes with the interviews that are conducted every year with the members of the Spalding County Junior Deputy Patrol on their annual trip to Washington, DC, a tradition that was begun in 1948 when students traveled to the nation’s capital by train.
WKEU also has a long sports tradition. The station began airing Braves baseball when the team moved from Milwaukee to Atlanta in 1966 and also broadcasts Atlanta Falcon football, Atlanta Hawk basketball, Georgia Tech athletics, (where WKEU is the longest continual Yellow Jacket affiliate) as well as its staple presentations of Griffin Bear and Spalding Jaguar football.
88.9 FM The Rock, Georgia Public radio was added to the WKEU family in 1999 while 102.3 FM, operating on translator W272DM, began simulcasting the AM signal in 2017.
WKEU is proud to be a small part of the fabric of the Griffin-Spalding County area and hopes to continue to serve the public interest for any years to come.