be expended in its purchase, a million fold. Early in the campaign, the Paducah Exchange club held a radio-broadcasting banquet at the station, a live radio event that boasted fourteen entertainment acts. Children from the Home of the Friendless listened to the broadcast at the car barns in the rail yard where the radio club held meetings. Several Paducah businesses and businessmen also raised funds to give local firemen a radio for the central station. The firemen had been tinkering with homemade sets, but the new set included a 100-foot (30m) antenna wire that stretched from the fire station to the flagpole on city hall. Station closure As of March 1, 1923 WIAR was one of only four stations — and the only one in the western half of the state — located in Kentucky. However, the next month the Sun announced that the station would close for the summer season, ending regular evening broadcasts until the fall, because the unventilated studio would be very uncomfortable for performers during the warmer months. At the same time the paper announced that afternoon baseball news broadcasts would begin in three days, which would continue throughout the summer. The last entertainment program was an appearance by the George Rock Minstrels on the evening of May 2, 1923, moreover, promotion of the daily baseball score broadcasts ceased in mid-May, after which the newspaper made no further references to the station or its possible return. WIAR was formally stricken from government records the following March. Station equipment was sold to the Acme Flour Mill in Hopkinsville, a Louisville, Kentucky company, and in early 1927 this company founded station WFIW in Hopkinsville (now WGTK in Louisville). A 1946 review of WIAR's short life stated that operations were expensive, especially since the absence of advertising revenue meant the newspaper was responsible for its full costs. It was estimated that $3,500 was spent setting up the station at the Sun, and a major expense was due to an average of two or three vacuum tubes burning out every day, at a cost of seven dollars apiece. A later account also reported a staffing issue caused when the station's licensed "operator had left to gain employment in Louisville". Paducah would be without a local radio station until WPAD debuted in 1930. In 1946 the newspaper, now known as the Sun-Democrat'', returned to the airwaves when it started AM station