KELO-AM is celebrating 80 years on the air in 2017. Since it's early days, it's been about news and being in the community.
Just like today, the station played an important role in informing the Sioux Empire with news and information about disasters.
"The river used to flood downtown," said long-time broadcaster, Jon Michaels. This was before the Corps of Engineers built the Big Sioux River diversion around the city.
"KELO would be saying we need volunteers to for sand bags, to keep the river in its banks by Weatherwax's," he said.
This was in the 1960s. Weatherwax's was a men's haberdashery.
Also like today, the station did remote broadcasts. Except it took considerably more logistics than a smart phone or a near-studio quality sounding Comrex unit to make it happen.
"We used to have a trailer called 'Big Mike that was in the shape of a microphone" Michaels said. "We would actually play the records and broadcast from locations."
But broadcasting from "Big Mike" could make even the simplest things difficult. Again, this was in the 1960s.
"I remember doing remotes where we had to put a nickel on the turntable so the wind wouldn't blow it off the record," Michaels remembered.
Not only has Jon Michaels worked at KELO-AM for over 40 years, he grew up not for from the station in Sioux Falls.
