DJ Al Shade

I keep meaning to write this article. I met Al Shade a few years ago at a flea market. He was selling old radio trade magazines like Country Round Up, memorabilia, a nice Reel-to-reel deck and copies of his autobiography. I bought some of everything, shook his hand, and regret to this day not buying that reel-to-reel deck. He stood around and told stories to people all morning. I wanted to interview him. I didn't make time and I lost the opportunity when he died in January of 2026. [SOURCE]  Dammit. 

Allen Shade was born on October 21st, 1927 in Gratz, PA. The town sits at the base of Short Mountain in the Appalachians. A small town even today with only 742 residents. The population has been flat for all of shades life, the population when he was born was 615. It's about an hour north of Harrisburg, near nothing in particular.  It was the Lykens Valley Coal operation which sustained the town through the 1800s, but that pinched out in 1933. Shade is surely the most famous person from Gratz.  More here. 

In his autobiography (Which was equally about him and his wife) he wrote that on Saturday nights he listened to Lonnie Glosson and Wayne Raney on WCKY-AM out of Cincinnati, OH; and the WWVA Jamboree out of Wheeling, WV with Doc Williams, and the Border Riders with Chickie Williams. He started guitar lessons at the age of 12. His wife Jean did the same but with WSM, and The Grand Ol Opry.  In 2026 The Lebanon daily news published a nice bio which I'll quote here: 

"As a child, Shade first started getting into music by listening to what his parents tuned into on the radio at his home in Gratz, Pa. Often he would sneak into his grandmother’s living room to press the pedals on the old player piano or escape to the outhouse to sing his favorite tunes in private. Sometimes he would even draw in a crowd of up to 10 people on his front porch when he thought he was only singing to himself." 

He played his first gig, a square dance, in 1945. He started his first radio show in 1952 playing just ten minutes a month on 1270 WLBR-AM in Lebanon, PA. The station began broadcasting on July 26th, 1948 from North Annville, and moved to Ebenezer in August of 1950. In 1948 WLBR debuts it's FM stick, on 104.1. It was reassigned to 100.1 in 1949 and became WUFM in 1974, and WQIC in 1992. Today it's 100.1 WFVY. Throughout all those changes, in location format, frequency and ownership, WLBR-AM never changed calls, only the brand and format. That 10 minute spot on WLBR-AM turned into a weekly 3-hour music program. For the first 8 years it was mostly live music, which after 1955 included the Gesford sisters (Jean and Joann) It gradually became a DJ program, flipping records. He stayed with WLBR for 25 years, with a gap in the middle. Al and Jena married in 1955.

WLBR schedule of Sept. 6, 1953 - Lebanon Daily News

In 1961 Allen "Al" Shade and the Short Mountain Boys were in full swing doing live shows every Sunday at Himmelreichs Grove in Wommelsdorf, PA. Now definitively a duo, the Shades went to 940 WADV-AM in Lebanon in 1976.  This is sometimes cited as 1967, but that's surely a typo, as the station only signed on in 1976 as WVLV, the Voice of Lebanon Valley. It only picked up the WADV calls in 1987 making for a continuity issue with many Shade biographies. 

It's worth mentioning that WADV was only nominally online for years operating illegally. In 2007 fined WADV Inc. $4,000 for broadcasting over powered at night. [SOURCE] The fine included a warning that WADV previously has received three Notices of Violation, two of which included violations for over-powered operation. It went offline for a period in 2011, and again in 2016.  Eventually the station went dark again in 2019 and getting a large FCC fine. The Kochel family struggled to run it, but it did resume in 2021, and go dark again in 2023.[SOURCE] They managed to file a proper STA for being off air temporarily but it was a very protracted kind of temporary. It's gospel audience is small but loyal. More here.

Al Shades official bio on his website reports that he made the move for better pay, a decision that comes up for us all. Country singer Jo Ann Thomas was also a DJ there. Ted "The Bear" Foreman was the original morning host, also did time at WSHP and WCBG. The station signed on with a country format, and switched to AC in September of 1981. Foreman died in the late1980s.

I'm a star on WLBR - AlJean records in 1966

At the time shade was still mostly a songwriter and live performer. But let's back up a little bit. In 1958 he advertised his band in a classified ad for gigs at "parks, fairs and carnivals."  He went through a series of nicknames but nothing stuck:  The Goose Pimple Kid, The Jolly Green Giant and Rattlesnake Daddy. He would use his real name for most of his career. He used the Rattlesnake Daddy stage name on his one hour weekly WVLV program. He later added a a 3-hour Saturday show. His biography makes clear he was at WADV for 14 years. He was earning enough between gigs and radio that he quit his factory job in 1963. 

That Rattlesnake Daddy nickname was very idiosyncratic; the only one originating in the blues idiom. It has a likely origin in Cliff Carlisle's single in 1933, Also covered by Homer Callahan and Jesse Rodgers. But in Shade's active years it was notably covered by the Bailey Brothers in 1949 and Marvin Taylor in 1951. Shade didn't cover the tune until 1978. Blues and even Rockabilly were strictly on the periphery of Al Shade's works. His heart was in country music, so later Shade formed the Short Mountain Boys and recorded three LPs with them and his wife Jean. Those were released in 1965, '66 and '67 respectively. [SOURCE] Even after he left WADV Shade continued his radio career at other regional stations. Today WADV-AM is white gospel station, still on air, kinda, sometimes... 

In 1966 the Shades started their own record label AlJean records, an amalgam of his and his wife's first names. The Billboard Country Music Source books of 1978 & 1979  lists the address as RD4, Myerstown, PA.17067. I don't think it ever moved. I think the road was renamed Colonial Ave sometime in the '80s.  If you check Google Maps, the 2012 image shows Al Shade in the drive way walking toward his garage. The painted image on the mailbox is too blurry to read... 

Bridging the unreliable income of a performer, Al Shade also managed Williams Grove Park, near Mechanicsburg, from 1966 to 1971.  In one bio he wrote ominously that "changes occurred" at WADV and they changed his schedule. So Shade took his sponsors and left for 92.1 WCTX in Palmyra, PA. It was an FM station where he stuck is out for 4 months. WADV caved in and invited him back for a weekly 5&1/2 hour on Saturday mornings. More here.  So it came as a shock to them when the station flipped formats to what his bio calls "rock music."  His bio is short on dates but the 1988 Broadcasting & Cable lists the format as MOR. So lets' assume his departure then. WADV also had a horrible fire around then, and the owner was arrested for arson.  Looking for a new home they discovered WLBR was happy for them to return in 1989. More here. 

Al has also had a show on 1280 WHVR-AM in Hanover, PA for 25 years. It appears in most of his bios but I'm left wondering which 25 years. He barely mentions the station even in the autobiography he sold. The sole reference I found was the March 5th 1966 issue of Billboard lists him as a DJ on two stations "WHVR, Hanover, PA., and WLBR, Lebanon, PA." That particular article was about his launching the Shade Agency" to specialize in packaging country and gospel music shows. Anyway, his spot on WHVR was on Saturday mornings, clearly concurrent with his tenure at WLBR. When they were little, their two kids, Faron and Debbie Ann, sang on the program. Faron went on to become a musician himself.

Al Shade and the Short Mountain Boys, probably about 1955

Al got a spot on 1320 WGET-AM in Gettysburg, PA by 1987. There he had an hour show each Saturday morning from 9:00 to 10:00 AM. I did find some oddball references, outsourced that reported him on WEEU and WCOY. These are apocryphal. By 2012 they had moved to 1500 WWSM, in the the former WCTX studios three days a weekBy 2016 his arthritis was bad enough he had to give up playing guitar but he still sang 40-50 shows a year. 

business card sized photo, undated

Jean died at the age of 87 in 2017 and Al pressed on performing and broadcasting.  When I met Al Shade in the Fall of 2020 he was already 93 years old. He dug in his pockets, and got out a big overstuffed wallet and handed me his business card and a wallet photo of him and Jean. The photo was old, probably from the 1980s. His hair was still blonde in the image, and it was now fully gray; mostly white. The business card was clearly printed at home, with the tell-tale perforated edges. 

Business card circa 2020

It plugged his program on 1510 WWSM-AM, gave an address and phone number, and in the upper right hand corner it read "Championship Harmony Yodeling." On the back it gave the name of his radio program "Your Kind of Country, With Al and Jean Shade, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday 11:00 AM to 12:00 Noon..."  He had just celebrated the 70th anniversary of his radio program in 2022.

The Beginning and End of KLCN

1945 KLCN Hymnal

 

I found a hymnal, as I sometimes do. This one is titled Three Hundred Country Chapel songs and Hymns. At 49 pages you'd think it can't possibly have 300 songs, but it does have 4-12 songs squeezed onto each page. What makes it interesting is the words at the bottom of the front cover "Radio Station KLCN, Arkansas Oldest Radio station, Blytheville, Ark." On the back is a calendar from 1954 which firmly dates it. On the back is also the address it was originally shipped to: the 3rd armored division base in Fort Knox, KY.  The hymnal was compiled by Alfred Edward Brumley, a prolific gospel song writer. Also, being Brumley, it's all shape note music. I know his name because in 1938 he wrote the song "Turn Your Radio On." While not the first song about radio, it's notable. 

KLCN often claimed to be the first radio station in Arkansas, and that's technically true. But while it signed on August 15th, 1927 the book Arkansas Airwaves by Ray Poindexter reports that "Arkansas radio pioneers are aware that radio broadcasting was done in the area several years prior to that date." It's mysterious, and unattributed claim, but probably true. The station sign on was also delayed by the timing of the Radio act of 1927. Only 7 radio stations were allowed to proceed under a judges order. [SOURCE] (The other 6 stations were WKBJ, KHMC, WTHS, KFYO, KGGF, and KGGH.) The New York Times wrote: 

"Explaining that the regions involved have only a limited number of stations, Judge E. O. Sykes, Federal Radio Commissioner, in whose district the stations are located, said: "These permits were granted to stations which were constructed prior to the passage of the Radio act of 1927. They were held up by the Federal Radio Commission pending action by stations already licensed, and were assigned frequencies which in the judgment of the Federal Radio 'Commission will not be harmful to other broadcasters. The commission feels that these stations will render a real public service in States which heretofore have had very limited broadcasting facilities, and with their low power will not create material new interference.”

While it started on 1050 kHz it couldn't stay there. (possibly on 800 kHz prior) A year later, after the great frequency move of 1927 it moved to 1290 kHz, still at 50 watts, broadcasting daytime only. The Department of Commerce Service Bulletin of November 20th 1928 listed the owner as Charles Leo Lintzenich. But the New York Times listed the owner as the Daily Courier News. In fact the CN in WLCN stands for Courier News. [SOURCE] But it's all one and the same. Lintzenich was employed at the Courier News as a typesetter and later as the advertising manager for the paper. He got his start in radio serving with the U.S. Signal Corps. The owner of the Courier News, Edgar Harris was supposedly a "major share holder" in the station. But in 1928 Harris sold the paper, and Lintzenich bought him out of the radio station. 

It's worth mentioning that Lintzenich was proudly Dutch, a Dutch nationalist whose nickname was "Dutch" and recollections of him often use that nickname. [SOURCE] But speaking of the New York Times, in 1929 they reported "freak atmosphere" radio reception of KLCN in 1929. 

"For two consecutive nights between midnight and 3 A. M. KLCN, a radio station here, broadcast with seven and a half watts power test programs heard more than a thousand miles away. All previous records for low-power broadcasting on the regular radio channels are believed to have been broken in two test programs put on the air by the station after midnight Sunday and Monday and heard in Lakeland, FL.; New York City, Buffalo and Syracuse; Egg Harbor and Greenfield, NJ; Harrisburg, PA.; Windsor, ON., and Fort Worth, TX, in addition to fifty other cities and towns..."

The Times also reported in that story that the station was co-owned between Lintzenich and J.A. Bass, owner of Radio Sales Co. They went on to explain that the Institute of Radio Engineers, built the transmitter, consisting of one UX210 for an oscillator, while three UX250s as modulators. Later QSL cards confirm reception 1,750 miles away in Alberta, Canada. [SOURCE] A signed letter on Radio Sales Co. letterhead confirms J.A. Bass is James Bass. Their business connection seems to have been brief. 

The Radio Pictoral magazine of 1931[SOURCE] lists Lintzenich as the sole owner as do the 1936, '378 and '38 Broadcasting Yearbooks, but both note the station was operating at 100 watts. The 1933 Kelly's Radio Call book lists it at 50 watts, which is correct. The increase was in 1934. The 1936 issue of Radio Index lists the radio station location as at Main & Division Streets. That 1938 issue also listed off the makes of microphones in use: RCA, Amperite, Sure [sic] and Western Electric. The PD was William Secoy.  [SOURCE] Secoy remains obscure. Other than those 3 issues of the Broadcasting Yearbook heremains elusive.  That appears to be the entirety of his radio career.

Radio engineer Fred O. Grimwood bought the station from Lintzenich in 1939 but Broadcasting magazine described Grimwood as the former licensee by 1945. Grimwood built a new 208-foot tower, and got them a power increase to 250 watts. He also weathered the NARBA frequency allocation changes and moved the station to 13020 kHz. [SOURCE] But it was Grimwood who sold the station to Harold L. Sunbury for $15,865.12. It's an odd number but was recorded in the NAB reports. Broadcasting magazine reported only that after the sale "Mr. Grimwood is now engaged in war work." Later he popped up as the owner of WPAD in Paducah, IL.  [SOURCE] Sudbury was not a fan of Lintzenich. He was once quoted as saying 

"[Lintzenich] was a genius in radio technology.... He was way ahead of his time, but he let time pass him by. With Dutch, radio was a toy. He violated every rule the FRC and the FCC ever formulated, and some they hadn't thought of."

Sudbury wasn't a carpet bagger. He went to high school in Blythville.  He joined the station staff in 1938.  He was also a radio Ham, W5GSY. The 1938 Radio Amateur Callbook puts his station at Tenth and Chickasawba in Blytheville, AL. Somehow he managed to buy out KLCN 6 years later. But it must have been on a shoe string. In the March 1944 issue of Broadcasting KLCN placed an add for new and used recording equipment and 279A and 270A tubes.  

In 1953 Sudbury filed for a modified CP with the FCC to increase power from 1,000 watts to 5k. WCOC in Meridian, MS objected. But KLCN moved to 910 to protect their contour.  In 1954, KLCN-AM broadcast at 1,000 watts on 910 kHz. It was in the Sunbury era that KLCN had it's most famous guest. Johnny Cash performed there while still a student at Dyess High School in 1949. Cash was far from the only musician, The Dixie Stompers, Clayton Hunt Orchestra, Jimmie Boyd, Stoney and Wilma Lee, The Melody Playboys, Calvin Frazier, Houston Stackhouse, Sonny James, James Clecy Haggett, the Leachville String Band, the Sahara singers, and others. Ray Duke and his Sugar Creek Gang were also regulars, and had their own KLCN songbook. (Notably from that list Haggett was also a DJ there.)

When Tom Hill was engineer in the 1970s KLCN was on 910 kHz at 5,000 watts, but still just a daytimer. They owned the FM stick, KHLS 96.1 FM which in 1974 duplicated KLCN 10% per the Arkansas Radio book. Sudbury died in 1987 and W5GSY was reported as a "silent key" in the subsequent call books into 1987.  By the 1990s KLCN was broadcasting an ill-fitting AC format. But by 2002 the paired station flipped to classic country.  The FCC hit them with a $9K public file fine for omissions occurring between 1999 and 2003. They did try a novel argument in 2011 invoking a small business law to no avail. The fine stood. [SOURCE] [SOURCE] 

Around 2003 Sudbury Services acquired 98.7 KOKR. It wasn't the first. By 2019 they also owned KNBY, KOSE, KTPA, KXAR, KAMJ, KHLS, KHPA, and KQMJ across the south. But KLCN was not doing well. After the $9,000 fine the future seemed inevitable. It's not a titanic fine, but apparently it was enough. Sudbury Services Inc surrendered the license for KLCN to the FCC on April 30, 2018. The FCC subsequently cancelled the license on December 31st, 2018. [SOURCE]

Unidentified Radio Ephemera

 

I found this small scrap of paper in a cookbook, being used as a book mark. It's roughly 1" by 3" and appears to bear a printed advertisement. It's not newsprint, it feels more like cheap magazine paper. It would be unremarkable for me except for the intriguing words "Disc Jockey."  The ad looks oddly familiar but I can't place it. 

The back bears a little text, the number 12. and a few non-sequential words interrupted by the tear "...toon Classic Disney's Best... Fabulous Fifties (Disney)". I've had no luck identifying it from any of those details. 

 Clues, hints, guesses and answers are all welcome. 

Radio Tiraspol vs. Radio Bessarabia

Workers Library Publishers 1941

This pamphlet (above) was published in English, as a translation of a radio address Stalin made on  July 3rd, 1941. WWII history in 1941 usually focuses on December 7, 1941, Pearl Harbor. But this is something equally important. 

Stalin's speech came after a different speech on June 22nd, 1941 by Vyacheslav M. Molotov, the Soviet People’s Commissioner for Foreign Affairs. [SOURCE] These followed Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany. Stalin was not heard publicly for 11 days after the invasion began, while radio news chattered, he remained mute and radio played a key role leading up to this pivotal time. 

Before the Molotov speech, the Romanian Radio Broadcasting Corporation, (RRBC) made propaganda broadcasts, falsely claiming that Soviet aircraft had fired on Romanian airfields. This was similar to the false flag operation that preceded the invasion of Poland; the Gleiwitz incident. This was state controlled media, and while Romania would later switch sides and join the Allies in August of 1944, King Carol II and his Kingdom of Romania were very much part of the Axis in 1941. It is unclear which station(s) broadcast that claim, but it is clear where it began... 

Radio Romania logo 1940s

Radio Tiraspol was founded on October 30th, 1930, by the Soviets in Ukraine. It started broadcasting with 4 kW. DX logs from around 1934 also list RW57 on 282 meters and RW86 on 1013 meters. The Radio Call book of 1931 lists two on 838 meters in the USSR. A 1938 BBC Foreign Programme Journal describes the station as RS3 "Political Talk" and lists it at 30 kW of power, on 280 meters. In truth, it primarily broadcast Soviet propaganda. A new radio mast was built in 1936 in Tiraspol, for greater signal penetration into the territory of Bessarabia. To quote the book Soviet Subversive Action [SOURCE] by Dumitru Stancov:

"Soviet radio stations carried out a lively propaganda campaign, paying special attention to Bessarabia. While our Chisinau radio station, out of its 4-5 hours of daily activity, reserved 3-4 hours for dance music, the Tiraspol radio station, out of its 8 hours of activity, devoted at least 5-6 hours to propaganda."

In response, RRBC founded Radio Bessarabia in Chisinau in 1937, broadcasting at 20k watts on the 291.2 meter band.  This is in modern Moldova. According to Radio Romania International. [SOURCE] Radio Bessarabia was specifically intended to combat anti-Romanian propaganda broadcast by Radio Tiraspol. In 1939, Radio Bessarabia the Marconi Company installed a more powerful 200 kW transmitter in Chisinau... this was described at the time to be twice as powerful as Radio Tiraspol.  To quote the February, 1931 issue of Radiocorriere [SOURCE] (an Italian-language listings magazine) 

"For some time now, Romanian broadcasts have been disrupted by Russian short- and long-wave stations; these not only drown out the voice of Radio Bucharest but also take pleasure in broadcasting—in French—news highly detrimental to the beloved neighbor. According to experts, radio sets in border areas are constantly "swamped" by Soviet broadcasts, especially since the USSR recently installed a new station right in Tiraspol, on the Dniester River—mere hundreds of meters from the border. The Tiraspol station broadcasts talks and news in the Bessarabian Romanian dialect, a move that has caused considerable concern among the authorities. Technicians have proposed installing a station in Chișinău to neutralize the Russian one, while others favor increased activity from Radio Bucharest, suggesting it should broadcast talks and news in French and other foreign languages ​​to counter Russian propaganda."

But all this Soviet propaganda wasn't pointless provocation. In 1940 Russia invaded and began occupying some Romanian islands, parts of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina. This wasn't unexpected. The "secret" German-Soviet treaty, [SOURCE] The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939 granted Russia this territory as it was populated predominantly by ethnic Ukrainians. Some histories, including the one in Wikipedia state that this was a violation of the treaty. It specifically says in article III "With regard to Southeastern Europe attention is called by the Soviet side to its interest in Bessarabia. The German side declares its complete political disinteredness in these areas." Their deal seems clear. 

Russia gave a 48 hour ultimatum over the radio. So in June 1940 the Radio Bessarabia station personnel and equipment were evacuated to Huși, just across the Prut river. The Soviets occupied the Bessarabia studios starting June 28th. They brought in staff from Radio Tiraspol to operate the station. When then finally withdrew, they blew up the buildings, the antenna and destroyed the transmitter. I believe it was this original staff, working from Huși, who broadcast the anti-soviet propaganda on behalf of the Nazis.

Levitan in 1944

On June 22nd the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany is reported on Radio Moscow by Yuri Levitan. Levitan was their Dan Rather, the primary new announcer on RV-1, Radio Moscow. It broadcast on medium wave and shortwave in that era. The station was jammed in Italy by Mussolini, and also by Romania but less effectively.

In WWII the Allies did fine work recasting Stalin as partner, and rehabilitated his image in the Western media. It's strange to read books and periodicals published between 1939 and 1945 and see Stalin cast as a kindly, grandfather figure, just one of the good guys. [That changed immediately after the war of course.] Anyway, in response to the German invasion, Stalin gives an unusual speech where he knows he has a larger audience than usual, and he leans into that new branding and opens by calling his listeners comrades, but also, brothers and sisters dear friends.

 Some sources describe this speech as an address to the CPUSA. That's the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA), a Marxist-Leninist political organization that was founded in Chicago in 1919. This is unrelated to the American fascist group, TPUSA, founded in 2012. But I think Stalin's address was actually to the CPSU, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. 

Anyway, I found a translation online which is slightly different. [LINK] There are a few more out there. I've read that translating Russian is a challenge [LINK]. If you speak Russian, you can listen to the original speech here: [SOURCE] His speeches, and writings are widely circulated if you are into political writing.

Find that Philco

 

Are these all Philcos? No. I just like the alliteration. This dial lists KOA, KGIR and all the other buttons are knocked out. That's not a lot to work with. 850 KOA-AM signed on in 1924. They signed on as a 5,000 watt station and in 1927 increased to 12,500 watts, becoming an NBC affiliate in 1929. The station was so ubiquitous in that era it does not narrow the date range. 

Today the KGIR-AM calls reside in Cape Girardeau, MO. But back in the 1930s, KGIR was a 500 watt station in Butte, MT on 1360. With only 500 watts of power, I think that puts our radio somewhere between Butte and Cody, WY. They're about 500 miles from Denver, but surely able to receive a clear channel station in that era.  The station signed on in 1929 and changed its call letters to KXLF in 1946 which book ends our date range.

Here we have a more to work with, though the labels have slid around unhelpfully: KMPG?, KOH, KGMB, KGKB, KROV, and KICA. But what a weird selection. 590 KGMB I can hardly believe as it's was based in Honolulu. It also can't be KGME-AM in Phoenix, AZ. It signed on in 1940 on 1200, as KPHO only picking up the KGME call letters in 2000. I hope I'm misreading that one. KROV does not exist that I'm aware of. I think that could be KRGV in Oroville, CA but more likely 690 KROW in Oakland, CA which used those calls from 1936 until 1964 before it changed to KABL.  More here. 

980 KICA-AM was most recently a farm station in Clovis, NM. The calls are not cut off. But earlier it was a TV station with the same calls in the same city. It was on 1240 back in the 1940s, and 1370 in 1936. This is highly unlikely with it's distance from the other bay area stations, but I have no other plausible matches. 

630 KOH-AM was not in LA, it was in Reno, NV from 1928-1994 when it became KRCV-AM. The stick on 780 in Reno is KKOH, it borrows the brand name but is not otherwise related. The original KOH, now KPLY is known the oldest radio station in Nevada. 

The first calls are KMP-something. Station 710 KMPC-AM was in Los Angeles. More here. The calls have moved around and currently broadcast Radio Korea on 1540 in LA. The original station first signed on as KRLO in 1927 and changed calls to KMPC in 1930 and held the calls for 67 years. Gene Autry owned KMPC in the 1950s. It aged with it's audience and was Adult Standards and talk radio in the 1980s.  

Just one more. This one is fun with the vertical station levers instead of push buttons. I see KGFW, KFAB, KMMJ, WGN, and WOW.  KGFW, is another heritage station, founded in 1927in Ravenna, NE. The station moved to Kearney in 1931 where is remains today on 1340. KFAB is even older and first signed on as KFRR in 1924. It moved to 770 in 1928. 

KMMJ is almost as old, having been founded in 1925 in Clay Center, NE. Noe how near Kearney that is.  I think 720 WGN-AM out of Chicago is an outlier, received only because it's a clear channel station.  Likewise 590 WOW has been on air for 100 years but never more than 5,000 watts. I think this radio sat between Omaha and Grand Island. This set of stations is pretty consistent.