{"id":18428,"date":"2018-08-11T04:16:41","date_gmt":"2018-08-11T10:16:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/al-ba.com\/wp2\/?page_id=18428"},"modified":"2018-08-11T04:16:41","modified_gmt":"2018-08-11T10:16:41","slug":"don-markwell-2018-aba-hall-of-fame","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/al-ba.com\/wp2\/don-markwell-2018-aba-hall-of-fame\/","title":{"rendered":"Don Markwell – 2018 ABA Hall of Fame"},"content":{"rendered":"

Don Markwell\u2019s Viewpoint: 1956 to 2008<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"
Young Don Markwell on the air<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Don\u2019s story begins with his birth in Island, Kentucky on January 29th, 1936.<\/p>\n

From his hometown, Don and his twin brother Ron form a gospel \u2018quartet\u2019 and performed on Sunday afternoons for 15 minutes at a time on local station WNES-AM while in college at Western Kentucky.<\/p>\n

While in the studio with his quartet, Don noticed the DJ had set his feet up on the radio board reading the newspaper and drinking a soft drink as they were singing. Don decided \u201cthat was the job for him!\u201d<\/p>\n

Don left Kentucky in 1959 and went to work at WCOV-AM as the evening DJ.\u00a0Don decided to start Montgomery\u2019s first local call-in talk show, which he called \u201cViewpoint.\u201d The program began in 1967, under Don\u2019s direction, with two of his disc jockey\u2019s hosting the show.\u00a0The following spring of 1968, Don agreed to do the show and the rest is history.<\/p>\n

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Don’s last day on the air in 2008<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After a year, \u201cViewpoint\u201d was getting 30+ shares in the Arbitron ratings (which meant 30% of the market was listening!). It was the highest rated adult listening audience.\u00a0Don then began \u201cDon Markwell\u2019s Viewpoint\u201d on stations WQTY-AM and WFMI-FM in October 1972.<\/p>\n

Don left WQTY and WFMI in 1977 to start Montgomery\u2019s Country giant \u2013 WLWI-FM.<\/p>\n

In 1988, Don found his way back to Talk Radio on 1170 AM which now went by the call letters WACV (Stroh Broadcasting) in Montgomery.<\/p>\n

From 1988 to 2008, \u201cDon Markwell\u2019s Viewpoint\u201d covered many diverse subjects. Political subjects were the bread and butter of the program being that the program originated from the capital city. Don took delight in holding politicians, public education, taxes, state employees, and government in general -accountable.<\/p>\n

Back in March 1969, famous Montgomery Independent journalist Joe Azbell asked Don in a feature he was doing on him on the first anniversary of Viewpoint, \u201cWhat is the future of Viewpoint?\u201d\u00a0Don answered, \u201cWe go on each day thinking it is the last or it might happen that we will get one wrong call and I\u2019ll be driving a milk wagon.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Don Markwell – 2018 ABA Hall of Fame<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In that same 1969 article, Don said, \u201cPeople want to talk about what they\u2019re interested in. If you put somebody on the show that doesn\u2019t interest them nobody calls.\u201d\u00a0And in the end, the people called.<\/p>\n

Don ended his last day on the radio, August 29th, 2008, to the tune of the Son\u2019s of the Pioneer\u2019s \u201cLast Roundup.\u201d\u00a0Don\u2019s voice was finally silenced in March 2011 upon his death.<\/p>\n

According to Montgomery Advertiser<\/em> files, when he retired, Markwell said he wanted to be remembered \u201cas an old radio bum\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Don Markwell\u2019s Viewpoint: 1956 to 2008 Don\u2019s story begins with his birth in Island, Kentucky on January 29th, 1936. From his hometown, Don and his twin brother Ron form a gospel \u2018quartet\u2019 and performed on Sunday afternoons for 15 minutes at a time on local station WNES-AM while in college at Western Kentucky. While in … Continue reading Don Markwell – 2018 ABA Hall of Fame<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-18428","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/al-ba.com\/wp2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/18428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/al-ba.com\/wp2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/al-ba.com\/wp2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/al-ba.com\/wp2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/al-ba.com\/wp2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18428"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/al-ba.com\/wp2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/18428\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18432,"href":"https:\/\/al-ba.com\/wp2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/18428\/revisions\/18432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/al-ba.com\/wp2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}