With new owners, and a few tweaks to the station programming, Iola Radio will continue to strive to be one with the community, Chris Shank promises.
Shank is president and sales manager with Ad Astra Radio, which acquired Iola’s KIKS and KIOL radio stations from Tom and Monica Norris July 1.
Shank and his family, as well as other Ad Astra crew members were in Iola last week to begin sorting through the equipment housed at the station as part of a planned upgrade for several components.
He spoke about some of the prominent changes — classic hit songs are back on the 1370 AM station, and Kansas City Chiefs games will now be broadcast on 101.5 FM — while stressing a commitment to “local radio.”
“We believe in local radio,” Shank said. “When people turn into these stations, they’ll get the music they want to hear, and they’ll get local news, weather and sports.”
Ad Astra is based in Hutchinson, and owns stations there, as well as McPherson and now Iola. KIKS and KIOL are the 10th and 11th stations under the Ad Astra umbrella.
In fact, a motorist could travel from the Missouri state line to west of Garden City and be within a radio signal of an Ad Astra station.
EVEN with the new ownership, several familiar faces will remain a part of the KIKS/KIOL team.
Mike Sailor, who worked part-time at the station in the 1990s, then served as Tom Norris’s assistant for about 18 months until being laid off in the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, returns as the station’s new sales manager.
He’ll also continue to serve as the voice of Iola High School for football and basketball games, along with broadcast partner Gene Myrick. This season will be the duo’s fifth behind the mic.
As an aside, the pair’s debut came in September 2019, with their first-ever game, Iola’s historic 54-48 loss to Parsons in five overtimes.
“I remember the Parsons radio announcers came up to me afterwards, telling me how they’d been doing this for 30 years, and they’d never had a game like that,” Sailor said. “It took them 30 years to do the game of their lives, and it was my first game.”
TWO OTHER familiar faces will remain.
Tom Norris will continue to serve as morning host on KIOL from 6 to 8 a.m. weekdays.
And Mike Russell, who brought both KIKS and KIOL into the 21st century after acquiring the station 50 years ago this month, in August 1973, continues to work part-time in the office each morning.
