KMA (960 AM) is a radio station licensed to serve Shenandoah, Iowa. History The station was founded in 1925 by seed salesman Earl May. In 1925 Henry A. Field, owner of Field's Nursery in Shenandoah and a business rival of May, founded a competing radio station, KFNF. While both stations offered farm news, the two were to become most competitive by offering live productions of hillbilly music. According to KMA's website, more than a million people traveled to small-town Shenandoah to hear the music. May built the station headquarters and Mayfair Auditorium at the Mayfair Theatre (the theatre being closed in 1963, the studio demolished in 1964 due to its being declared structurally unsafe by the Iowa State Fire Marshall, and the entire building being demolished in 1966) across the street from the nursery business. Between music sets, May would pitch his seeds and tell nostalgic stories. In 1926 May won the third annual Radio Digest Gold Cup Award, after being voted the "World's Most Popular Radio Announcer" by over 452,000 people throughout the United States. The KMA shows which were broadcast in the afternoons were called the "KMA Country School" and according to the format emanated from the fictional KMA District No. 9 school with the shows beginning with the ringing of a school bell. Performers would often go to Council Bluffs, Iowa, after the show where they would perform at night. The most famous celebrities in KMA's history were the Everly Brothers, Don and Phil. In their early teen years, the brothers and their parents would appear on KMA to sing as "The Everly Family", but by 1952, they were discovered by a talent agent, and made their way to fame in Hollywood with such hit songs as "Wake Up, Little Susie". With the high visibility KMA operated on a slogan of "Keep Millions Advised", which was adopted in early 1926, after sorting through a reported 4,000 suggestions. KFNF was to operate on "Keep Friendly, Never Frown." In 1949, May Broadcasting company started KMTV in Omaha, the second-oldest television station in Nebraska. May Broadcasting originally wanted to call the television station KMA-TV. The Federal Communications Commission, however, would not allow the two outlets to share call letters as the cities of Shenandoah and Omaha were too far apart (61 miles (98 km)). In 1968, May acquired a second TV outlet, KGUN-TV in Tucson, Arizona. May Broadcasting sold both