WWKY continues supporting community of Winchester

By Matt Cizek

This sto­ry first appeared in The Winchester Sun.

For a vari­ety of rea­sons, peo­ple through­out Winchester have come to know their local WWKY radio sta­tion on 102.9 FM and AM 990.  Over 40 years after Gateway Radio Works was found­ed in 1983, staff took time to reflect on its history. 

“Everybody’s got to have its own unique sell­ing point, and our sell­ing point [was] we’re going to be very Clark County cen­tric from day one,” said Jeff Ray, General Manager of Gateway Radio Works. “The radio busi­ness is less and less local and more con­glom­er­ate some­times, and the way to beat them…is to be local.”

Though Gateway Radio Works was found­ed in 1983, busi­ness in Winchester real­ly picked up sev­er­al years ago. 

“WWKY had been in Winchester for a long time, and it sold [I believe] once or twice…went dark, and then came back,” Ray added. “It was actu­al­ly a pret­ty con­vo­lut­ed process to get it back on the air.” 

Over the years, the company—which is locat­ed along Interstate 64 as far away as Morehead—has served many com­mu­ni­ties. In Winchester, while news is always occur­ring, there are cer­tain­ly a few areas that the sta­tion seeks to home in on. 

“Winchester didn’t have a local sta­tion, and that’s what we hang our hat on is being a local sta­tion [pro­vid­ing] local sports, local news, local pro­gram­ming, [and more] as much as we can,” Ray added. “It’s almost impos­si­ble to be local all the time, but that was our intent.”

Those want­i­ng to keep track of cham­pi­onship-win­ning ath­let­ic teams from George Rogers Clark High School have had an oppor­tu­ni­ty, with cur­rent radio per­son­al­i­ties Joel Bennett and Bobby Baldwin often present to pro­vide com­men­tary.  Those up in the ear­ly hours have long been able to enjoy lis­ten­ing to “Mornings on Main,” typ­i­cal­ly broad­cast five days a week. 

While 2024 Kentucky Mic Hall of Fame inductee Tim Smith long host­ed the pro­gram until recent health chal­lenges occurred, the pro­gram con­tin­ues with retired four-term Winchester Mayor Ed Burtner on the airwaves. 

“Everybody knows him…if there ever was a fel­low that is very Winchester [and] Clark County centric…it’s Ed,” Ray added. “You can tell just in his con­ver­sa­tions [that] he loves the community.” 

WWKY Radio also con­tin­ues to be active in oth­er ways, includ­ing by work­ing with the Winchester-Clark County Chamber of Commerce, Clark County Public Schools, local church­es, adver­tis­ing events such as the annu­al Beer Cheese Festival, and more. 

When asked what he enjoyed the most about WWKY, Ray was quick to offer a response.   “When you get those rela­tion­ships with people…it just gives you a bet­ter under­stand­ing of the behind the scenes work that goes on to make Winchester and Clark County the strong com­mu­ni­ty that it is,” he said. “It’s got all the pieces in place.” 

Those inter­est­ed in adver­tis­ing with WWKY Radio can con­tact Herb Triplett at (352) 223‑4653.