"Mr. Murfreesboro" John Hood

WGNS signed on the air at 10:00 o'clock on the evening of December 31, 1946 and then rang-in the New Year of 1947!  (Below photo) Well known Murfreesboro native John Hood was one of the early announcers on the Good Neighbor Station, which is what the G N S stands for in the call sign, shared memories of the early days.

In addition, another early voice, Jerry Brown, who is now age 88, joined the conversation over-the-phone to talk about the early days.

Memories With Jerry Brown

Jerry started as a guitar player-singer with Carl Tipton's band. They became very popular with a daily radio show over WGNS. After awhile, Jerry became an announcer on the station and even did Swap'n Shop for many years.

(Photo) left is 2013 picture of Jerry, right is one from 1965. 

Although WGNS could have broadcast 24-hours daily from its first day on the air, Cecil Elrod decided to keep the overhead down by broadcasting from 5:00AM each morning until 10:00PM at night. The popularity of rock'n roll music at night for area students caused the station to expand programming to 11:00PM. 

It was not until Bart Walker arrived in 1984 that the station expanded to 24-hours a day operation, and at that time added new technology called "AM Stereo".  On February 26, 2007 WGNS began to broadcast on FM 100.5 and FM 101.9.