NEBRASKA CITY –  Johnny Horton’s “Battle of New Orleans” was the top song, Alaska and Hawaii had joined the United States and U.S. scientists demonstrated the existence of the “anti-proton” in 1959, but here in River Country the date is best known for the inception of KNCY AM Radio.

The radio station started at 1600 mhz on June 28, 1959, and will be 61 years old on Sunday.

On the year it started, gasoline costs 25 cents per gallon, a movie ticket was $1 and a yearly wage was around $5,000. (Still in that range for program director Marcus Lind, but, whose counting?)

Milestones for KNCY include signing on at 97.7 FM in 1977 and  linking to an earth satellite in 1982.

KNCY constructed a 500-foot tower north of Syracuse in 1988 for the FM signal. The new station would send a signal from Omaha to Hamburg, Iowa.

The station featured “party line,” hospital news and publicized for its 30th anniversary that it was monitoring CB radio station No. 9 for local news tips.

The local program, “Christian Faith For Today” has been with the station since its inception. Pastor Michael Schmidt of the First Christian Church is doing the program, now in its 61st year. Over 3,000 programs have been delivered.

Our own Sunday morning on-air announcer Sandra Adkins joined in 1982 and our friend Dave Messing joined in 1971.

When the station opened, the top radio song in the United States was “Lipstick on your Collar” by Connie Francis. Johnny Preston had released his famous song, “Running Bear.”