Missing in Alabama: A Radio Tower and 'The Sound of Walker County'

The radio tower that overlooked dense forests and poultry farms had an AM signal just strong enough to serve WJLX's intended audience: the people in and around Jasper, Alabama, who watch the Jasper Vikings football broadcasts and news on Friday evenings. high school wanted to hear. of the burger specials at Alabama Stackers on 19th Street.

Then it went quiet in “The Sound of Walker County,” as the station has long called itself.

The tower, all 60 meters high, was gone; the 3,500 pounds of spindly steel beams may have been cut into pieces and dragged away by thieves earlier this month, police said.

“Who in the world steals a radio tower?” said Brett Elmore, the station manager, who recalled his stunned reaction when a maintenance worker explained to him why the station he often calls “my life” had been taken off the air.

The disappearance has led to one of the most puzzling cases handled by Jasper police, which has yielded few clues so far.

Many in Jasper, a city of about 14,000 people located 40 miles northwest of Birmingham, fear the perpetrators have taken more than a lot of steel.

Listeners described WJLX as a trusted source for local news and extreme weather warnings, cutting through the noise of a cluttered landscape on radio, television and the Internet with something that felt distinctly theirs.

That lifeline, which has been broadcasting on AM radio since 1957, has been severed. For Sherrie Pike, 54, that means a morning commute without WJLX's shows and music, including a daily sermon from the Church of Christ on 6th Avenue.

“Everyone loves the radio station because it's all we have,” Ms. Pike said last Saturday, as she sat in her pop-up jewelry store near the cream-colored courthouse downtown. “I think everyone's first reaction to the news was, 'Oh no, we're going to lose our channel.'”

Radio stations have long served as accessible sources of information for residents of the rural South, where many areas lack reliable cell service and broadband internet.

Alabama's healthy listening audience has survived the rise of the Internet and streaming thanks in part to residents' love of high school football, said Sharon Tinsley, president of the Alabama Broadcasters Association. The booming voices of broadcasters can often be heard crackling on county roads and in backyards, while touchdowns elicit guttural cheers.

But people in the radio business say it's their role during severe weather that they are most proud of. The medium is often credited with helping save lives after cell towers go down or TV broadcasts are halted.

“I think it's safe to say that these rural communities across the country live and die through their local radio stations,” Ms Tinsley said.

More than 82 million Americans listen to AM radio every month, according to the 2022 Nielsen Fall survey. Yet radio stations have recently faced an existential threat as automakers have considered, and in some cases even gone ahead with, eliminating AM radios from their newer models. Broadcasters say such decisions will deprive motorists of a crucial source of news in emergency situations.

Jasper has suddenly felt so deprived. Mr Elmore said the tower was not insured. Buying a new one would cost between $60,000 and $100,000, he said, an exorbitant price for a station the size of WJLX (it has three full-time employees).

Mr. Elmore said he asked the Federal Communications Commission last week if he could use a nearby FM translation station to stay on the air. But the FCC said stations need an AM tower to use an FM translator.

The FCC said in a statement that it was “sorry to learn of the theft of the radio tower that took this station off the air,” and that it “is happy to assist in any way within the law.”

For Mr. Elmore, 40, who followed in his father's footsteps at WJLX, the theft has forced him to radiate optimism to anyone who asks about the case. They will be fine, he promises.

But as he drives the three miles from his duplex to WJLX headquarters, he sighs as he thinks about the sound residents will hear when they turn the dial to his station: static.

It's a sound many have heard in recent weeks as they drove through Jasper's revamped downtown area, which is used by small businesses colorfully painted images of mules to advertise their stores. .

“We're completely off the air right now,” Mr. Elmore said at The Pie Factory pizza restaurant and bar in Jasper, smoking a cigarette as a country singer sang about lost love.

“Do you want me to return your tower?” one man jokingly asked Mr. Elmore.

“I got your tower!” another man said seconds later. A third teased that he had seen a spaceship behind the chicken poultry factory where the tower had stood for almost seventy years.

“I'm back on the air,” Mr. Elmore assured them. But underlying the jokes was the reality that his business, a legacy of sorts from his father, Johnny Elmore, who died in 2022, was in danger.

He threw away the cigarette butt and asked the men around him: who would steal his livelihood just to make a few thousand dollars?

The theft from two weeks ago has quickly become the main topic of curiosity in the city. At The Cigar Box Lounge, Travis Hill, who works at a local barbershop, wondered what would come back to Jasper first: an AM tower, or the first movie theater in years.

“Whoever stole it, I hope he can afford a better chicken than this,” Mr. Hill said, pointing to his crispy brown honey barbecue nuggets from Walmart.

Bill and Mary Cain, who have lived in Jasper for decades, said they had not seen such a bizarre crime in the city since two inmates used peanut butter to escape from a prison in 2017.

“The nerve of some people,” Mrs. Cain said, frowning.

Some reports online have theorized that Mr. Elmore himself was responsible for the theft, in a quest for attention and money. But Mr Elmore said such accusations were ridiculous given the lack of insurance on the tower.

One of the most promising theories is that the tower was mistaken for its metal, although workers at demolition companies in the area said in interviews that they had not seen anything suspicious coming in.

However, there are some precedents in Alabama. In 2021, police in Dothan arrested a man for stealing a 30-foot aluminum trailer with a folding radio tower that reached up to 100 feet. And in the summer of 2013, police in Talladega said a 75-foot steel radio tower and other equipment had been stolen from a broadcasting company.

WJLX continues to broadcast online, but reaches a smaller audience because many people, especially older residents, prefer to listen in their cars. Remarkably, the advertisers, almost all of them local businesses, have still been buying ads, said Terrell Manasco, 61, who helps with sales at the station.

“They're just confident that we're going to bounce back and get stronger,” Mr. Manasco said.

Rusty Richardson, the owner of Bernard's Store For Men, a 75-year-old local clothing store, said he never considered retiring as an advertiser.

“A small town means something,” said Richardson, 66. “We know each other, we care about each other. And that is what life is all about: caring about each other and loving your neighbor as yourself.”

Mr Elmore said he was determined not to let the station die like this. Still, he thinks about how the perpetrator handled the robbery.

Whoever did it may have noticed that the tower was in a perfect spot for such a crime, authorities said, hidden behind the Mar-Jac Poultry Alabama facility, which is under construction and filled with trucks carrying equipment that could have served as cover. .

There is only one way in and out of the fenced area, officials said. The perpetrator probably drove into the forest via a muddy road to reach it.

Mr. Elmore recently visited the scene, where frogs croaked and ticks crawled in the dry, tall grass. He wondered if the thief had seen the 'no trespassing' sign.

“Danger,” it said.

On Monday evening, Mr. Elmore sat in the broadcaster's booth next to the basketball court at Bevill State Community College, his microphone on, his throat cleared and ready to call the game. His eyes hurt from reading all the emails he had received about the crime. But right there on WJLX's websitehe could see that more than 100 people had tuned in to the livestream, keeping his station afloat a little longer.

“Thank you very much for listening,” he said after the final whistle. “And we wish you a very pleasant good night.”

Susan Campbell Beachy research contributed.