In 1960 Kemmons Wilson, the founder of Holiday Inns, in anticipation of the Corp of Engineers Lake being constructed near the town of Hebrew Springs, Arkansas, bought several thousand acres of what would eventually become lakefront property and the Town of Fairhaven Harbor.Wilson subdivided the property into lots and began selling them as vacation and retirement homesites. Ownership included membership in the Community Services Club, which came to own a world class golf course, a marina, a club where alcohol could be served (Rugburn and 7 counties around it were all "dry.") and various recreational facilities. It also had a radio station.
In November, 1963 WFHH, 87.9 on the FM radio dial, went on the air with a mix of contemporary and classical music, local news and announcements. There had been a big push the get the facilities completed and the station up and running in time for the visit of President John F. Kennedy, to mark the official dedication of the Freers Gerry Lake and dam. Unfortunately for all, especially the president, he was unable to attend.
Instead of coverage of the lake dedication, the first big news story and coverage was of Kennedy's assassination in Dallas, the manhunt for his murderer, the capture of Oswald and then his own murder at the hand of Jack Ruby. The nation and Rugburn County were stunned.Everyone was glued to their radio for days. The only television station in the area was a Public Television station out of Hillview that rebroadcast off a tower on a long bluff 20 miles North, near Wolf, Arkansas. Even it came in grainy with the sound fading in and out. The Little Rock station did not come in at all. The area did get an over-powered station from Neuavo Laredo from late evening until morning on clear nights but, it was all in Spanish.
WFHH then covered the State Funeral and trailed off over the weeks with announcements from President Lyndon B. Johnson about the recovery of the nation. From this auspicious beginning began a large listening audience that probably would not started out near as large, if not for the horrendous events that gripped the nation and this fledgling little community.
Wilson's Fairhaven Harbor, Inc. sold plots, rather lots, like pancakes. Old timers insist that this was the spark that led the local Lion's Club to the idea for a fund raiser. Every Saturday and Wednesday from 7-10 am from late Spring to early Fall since 1981 they've had a Pancake Breakfast for busy families of tourists headed out on the lake.
As the fortunes of Mr, Wilson, FHH CS Inc., and the local community grew so did WFHH. Advertising revenue came in, at first from Leverne's Hardware Store, the heart of downtown Leverne, then later booming FHH Reality and Rugburn Construction.
In 1973 WFHH was able to hire popular DJ Fred "Happy" Harold from the much larger radio station in Hillview, WEIV. The station solgan was "We may be backwards but, we have a view!"
Happy was just that . He drew in a lot more listeners to the little rural station. His most poplar pronouncement on the air was that before he got to the beautiful community of Fairhaven Harbor, he was Fred "Not So Happy" Harold. Now, even the call letters of the station bore his initials, WFHH - Woooee Fred "Hap-py" Harold!
Very few people knew he'd used a similar schick after his move from Paducah, Kentucky years before. He left Paducah for "other employment opportunities" in the middle of a live broadcast. This was 15 minutes after putting on the record "Knights in White Satin" to have a private conversation with the station manager's young wife. Happy had not realized he'd left the broadcast mircophone switch in the "on" position.
Everyone in the Harbor area listened to WFHH all through the 1970s. It offered more and more daring music including Frank Sinatra, Jazz, Roy Oberson and orchestral renditions of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. It could be heard at Millie's Homestyle Resturant and Crafts Shop, the Highway 333 Cafe (Half the Devil as Good!) and the 19th Hole at the Hill Ranch Country Club.
In 1981, Fred "Happy" Harold left the station after a group of angry women attacked him at the WFHH live broadcast from the Hills Folk Center outside of Hillview. The sheriff said someone told a women what Happy was referring to when he said he loved Arkansas women because they all had Sommer Teeth. They had laughed giddily at that often repeated remark, on air, for years.
"Those women had to have averaged 350 each. It was like a thundering herd. I couldn'a stopped them with a 12 gage pump," said Rock County Sheriff Cowie Lawmann.
The first problem the station's choice of broadcast frequency occurred in 1983. No one knew why at first but, suddenly in 10 to 15 second bursts, Led Zepplin or Black Oak Arkansas' "Jim Dandy to the Rescue" would blare out of locals' radios tuned to WFHH. The shock was more surreal because the lovely flow of the London Philharmonic Orchestra would quietly continue on with Bach as though nothing had happened. Locals also noticed this most oftened happened when a car or truck with a Shelby County (Memphis) Tennesse licence tag was driving by.
Because a genuine UFO sighting had been made just that month over Sugarbread Mountain by a group of Kansas City Police Officers there on a fishing weekend, several locals and the minister of the Angletine Best Bible Baptist Church claimed that aliens where responsible. "They plan to saturate our youth with Rock and Roll music to take over their minds and their souls," said the Right Reverend Paul Sandsman. "When they finally get this right, it will be too late for all of us!" WFHH refused the Right Reverend's demand to shut down the station and lost the Angletine BBB Church Sunday morning broadcast for invalids and shut-ins. (It sounds better in French)
By 1988, bits of cell phone conversations were being heard over WFHH. Doobie Brothers and Styx where commonly breaking into the "Morning Easy Listening Show" and coverage of the monthly FHH Butterfly and Biped Insect Show. The mystery was solved that Summer when a Laverne HS student did something remarkable. He actually read the instructions on the box of the Phillips remote cassette player, with car kit. He bought it at the local Walmart in Hillery. The first line said,"Set your FM Radio dial to 87.9.
For six years WFHH petitioned the FCC to allow them to broadcast on a different frequency. It was finally approved in 1995, but by then no one used that type of remote cassette player. WFHH dropped its request and stayed on 87.9.
One more victim fell to the frequency snafu in 1999. Herman Dollar, a married local real estate agent, was engaged in a lively, if not drivistically safe, cellphone conversation with his surreptitious girlfiend. She was at home taking a relaxing bath while her huband, a lineman for the Gene Petty Power and Light Company, was at work.
Very few people knew he'd used a similar schick after his move from Paducah, Kentucky years before. He left Paducah for "other employment opportunities" in the middle of a live broadcast. This was 15 minutes after putting on the record "Knights in White Satin" to have a private conversation with the station manager's young wife. Happy had not realized he'd left the broadcast mircophone switch in the "on" position.
Everyone in the Harbor area listened to WFHH all through the 1970s. It offered more and more daring music including Frank Sinatra, Jazz, Roy Oberson and orchestral renditions of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. It could be heard at Millie's Homestyle Resturant and Crafts Shop, the Highway 333 Cafe (Half the Devil as Good!) and the 19th Hole at the Hill Ranch Country Club.
In 1981, Fred "Happy" Harold left the station after a group of angry women attacked him at the WFHH live broadcast from the Hills Folk Center outside of Hillview. The sheriff said someone told a women what Happy was referring to when he said he loved Arkansas women because they all had Sommer Teeth. They had laughed giddily at that often repeated remark, on air, for years.
"Those women had to have averaged 350 each. It was like a thundering herd. I couldn'a stopped them with a 12 gage pump," said Rock County Sheriff Cowie Lawmann.
The first problem the station's choice of broadcast frequency occurred in 1983. No one knew why at first but, suddenly in 10 to 15 second bursts, Led Zepplin or Black Oak Arkansas' "Jim Dandy to the Rescue" would blare out of locals' radios tuned to WFHH. The shock was more surreal because the lovely flow of the London Philharmonic Orchestra would quietly continue on with Bach as though nothing had happened. Locals also noticed this most oftened happened when a car or truck with a Shelby County (Memphis) Tennesse licence tag was driving by.
Because a genuine UFO sighting had been made just that month over Sugarbread Mountain by a group of Kansas City Police Officers there on a fishing weekend, several locals and the minister of the Angletine Best Bible Baptist Church claimed that aliens where responsible. "They plan to saturate our youth with Rock and Roll music to take over their minds and their souls," said the Right Reverend Paul Sandsman. "When they finally get this right, it will be too late for all of us!" WFHH refused the Right Reverend's demand to shut down the station and lost the Angletine BBB Church Sunday morning broadcast for invalids and shut-ins. (It sounds better in French)
By 1988, bits of cell phone conversations were being heard over WFHH. Doobie Brothers and Styx where commonly breaking into the "Morning Easy Listening Show" and coverage of the monthly FHH Butterfly and Biped Insect Show. The mystery was solved that Summer when a Laverne HS student did something remarkable. He actually read the instructions on the box of the Phillips remote cassette player, with car kit. He bought it at the local Walmart in Hillery. The first line said,"Set your FM Radio dial to 87.9.
For six years WFHH petitioned the FCC to allow them to broadcast on a different frequency. It was finally approved in 1995, but by then no one used that type of remote cassette player. WFHH dropped its request and stayed on 87.9.
One more victim fell to the frequency snafu in 1999. Herman Dollar, a married local real estate agent, was engaged in a lively, if not drivistically safe, cellphone conversation with his surreptitious girlfiend. She was at home taking a relaxing bath while her huband, a lineman for the Gene Petty Power and Light Company, was at work.
Getting too close to home to finish his conversation and straighten himself, Herman pulled over. He parked his Badman and Dollar Real Estate Company Chevy Tahoe behind a kit-made large log cabin office building with a tall aluminum tower next to it .
Regrettably for everyone involved, Herman was behind the broadcast station of WFHH, 87.9 on your FM dial. When his girlfriend asked him where he was, he told her. When he asked her where she was, she told him. When she asked what he was doing, he told her. When he asked what she was doing, she told him.
What they didn't know, until 10 minutes later, when Herman heard his girlfriend screaming, water splashing and a male voice yelling, was that the entire broadcast area of WFHH, 87.9, could very clearly hear their entire conversation. It was just starting to dawn on Herman, in shock and panic. Then oddly, the driver's side window of Tahoe crashed in on him and 18" cast iron frying pan slammed against his head.
He finally left the Van Haylen County Hospital in Hillery 3 months later. However, one 38 cal. bullet is still lodged in the back of his neck, dangerously close to his spine. It occasionally gives him trouble on cold wet days.
Today, WFHH is a bright successful entity in the Fairhaven Harbor community. Still committed to its roots, WFHH brings the soothing sounds of Contemporary, Classical and Easy Listening to it's aging and mellow population of listeners. On Forth of July it broadcasts patriotic music for the annual fireworks on the lake. In December you can hear the rousing sounds of bright, cheery Christmas music and the deliberately cadenced barritone of the DJ wishing all a Merry Christmas, rather than a politically neutral Happy Holidays.
With WFHH on the air, all is right with the world.
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