Mel Turner made the news for his station's coverage of Hurricane Frances and service to the community in September of '04.  Click here to read all about it.

Wednesday,
December 22, 1999

Gainesville-based AM station WLUS 98 is off the air

By JANINE YOUNG SIKES
Sun business writer

A Gainesville radio station has been silent since Monday morning, when an unpaid debt led to the confiscation of some of the station's equipment.

Alliance Broadcasting Group, the parent company of WLUS 98 AM, owes $21,544 to L&K Properties of Fort Lauderdale, which filed for legal action in circuit court. In accordance with a court order, the Alachua County Sheriff's Office sent movers and two radio technicians on Monday to 3135 SE 27th St., the site of the radio station. They seized two radio transmitters, three satellite receivers and one computer, said sheriff's spokeswoman Linda White. The station's radio signal stopped about 10:30 a.m. Monday. If the debt is not paid, the equipment will be held for 30 days and then sold on the steps of the courthouse, she said. The price paid for the equipment will be reimbursed to L&K.

The debt was incurred when the station was owned by the now-defunct Eagle Broadcasting Co., said Tom McCoy, Federal Communications Commission attorney for Alliance. Eagle later sold the station and its debt to Pinnacle AM Broadcasting, a subsidiary of Alliance.

The debt has not been paid because Alliance decided to sell the station to Tallahassee-based Prime Time Radio, McCoy said. "It is a simple legal matter that should have all been cleared up a long time ago," he said. McCoy said Alliance planned to pay off the loan when the sale to Prime Time was closed. But L&K chose not to wait and exercised its legal right to demand payment.

Gainesville attorney Herb Webb is negotiating the sale and the payment to L&K. Webb did not return calls Tuesday.

The station has been on the air since 1954, said radio station employee Jim Brand, who's worked at the station for more than 30 years. Its programming, considered "easy listening," was changed from country in 1986, he said. In addition to Brand, the radio station employs a part-time worker.

McCoy said he did not know how long the station might be off the air, but added that both sides are trying to close the sale before the end of the year. "We expect to have the equipment back and be back on the air as soon as possible," McCoy said.

WLUS is one of five AM radio stations based in Gainesville.

-----------------------

Thursday, August 31, 2000

Sun columnist and radio host dies at 92

By GARY KIRKLAND
Sun staff writer

To the end, Eloise was Eloise.

Eloise Cozens Henderson, a columnist with The Sun since 1972 who also hosted a Sunday morning radio program for 25 years, died Tuesday night of cancer. She was 92.

For Mrs. Henderson, writing was like breathing or eating -- not a pastime, not a hobby, but part of her life force. She kept at it until her final days, scratching out columns, which appeared Saturdays on The Sun's Religion page, in tight, hard-to-read longhand on a yellow legal pad.

"I don't ever remember getting writer's block," she said in a 1990 interview.

Physically, she was tiny, never tipping the scales at more than 100 pounds and weighing much less in her later years. She was frail with a sweet smile and a head of hair as white as fresh-made grits.

But in her eyes the determination always gleamed. "Gumption" is the word that summed up her approach to life. A native of Athens, Ga., married at age 15, with three kids by the age of 25, she didn't fret over life's obstacles; she mowed them down.

Her initial foray into formal education stopped at the eighth grade, but she later went on to study journalism at New York University. She built a career in broadcasting, public relations and writing, and along the way rubbed shoulders with the likes of Joan Crawford and Minnie Pearl.

Her mother died when Mrs. Henderson was 3, and at age 5 she and her older sister, Gladys, spent a short time in an Atlanta orphanage, before they were adopted by Sally and Joe and Sally Withrow, who she would know as Mama and Papa. It was Joe who carved her first writing desk from a tree stump. She got her first byline at age 9 for a poem she submitted to "Common Sense," the hometown paper.

The tales of those early days, spiced with a sprinkling of fiction, were the subject of her first book, "Preachin' Every Fourth Sunday," published in 1987. She eventually wrote six others. The most recent, "Move Over Mountain: Learning the Lessons of Faith," was published in 1994.

Mrs. Henderson was published in numerous magazines, served as director of the United Fund in Tampa and as executive director of the Gulf Coast chapter of the Multiple Sclerosis Society, and established the first Little Theater in New Smyrna Beach.

She was past state president of the National League of American Penwomen, past chairman of the Gainesville Woman's Club creative writing and drama group, and past state president of American Women in Radio and Television.

Her columns, "from the heart -- the only way I know how to write," were a mixture of recollections, reflections and encounters with people, seasoned with a dab of scripture.

"The simplest writing in the world is the hardest," she said in an interview just two weeks ago. "That's the way it seems, anyway. But I'm not an authority."

Her daughter, Laura Chambless, who lives in Gainesville, said when she thinks of her mother the word "cheerful" isn't strong enough. Instead she offers "gay," in the oldest sense of that word. She enjoyed parties, and Chambless said her mother would send her out with the instructions, "Have fun and give fun."

"You felt like something was going to happen around her," Laura said of her mother.

She is also survived by a second daughter, Betty Condon of Athens, Ga.; and a son, Thomas Harmon Jackson Jr. of Miami; seven grandsons, three granddaughters and seven great-grandchildren. She was preceded in death by husbands Thomas Harmon Jackson, William J. Cozens and the Rev. Samuel Henderson. She was a member of the First Baptist Church.

Mrs. Henderson said most of her readers were over 50 and from smaller towns. She said the fan mail she received frequently started with an explanation of just how long the writer had been meaning to send her a note, and a common theme was, "I know we've never met, but I feel I know you."

Many of these fans also knew her from the Sunday morning radio show that ran for 25 years on WDVH and WLUS.

For the entire run of her "Lady of Smiles" program, Mrs. Henderson had only one sponsor, Gresham's Drugs. Marvin Gresham said Mrs. Henderson came to him pitching the idea of the radio show, and he decided to give it a shot. From the ads to interviews, she worked without notes and ad-libbed, talking to a listening audience in the before-church time slot.

"Of all the advertising I've ever done, this is the only one where I received numerous letters thanking me for doing the program," he said.

Her former editor at The Sun, Margaret Warrington, had predicted that Mrs. Henderson's determination would keep her writing to her last day on earth. Warrington didn't miss the mark by much.

Mrs. Henderson was hospitalized in July after suffering a fall and doctors found an inoperable cancerous mass in her stomach. Finally she was forced to put her pencil down.

But when she talked about this just two weeks ago, there were no tears. She faced this change as she had the many others in her lifetime, with a smile and matter-of-fact determination.

The family will be receiving visitors from 6 until 7:30 tonight at Williams-Thomas Funeral Home, 404 N. Main St. Services for Mrs. Henderson will be held Friday at 11 a.m. at the First Baptist Church, 425 W. University Ave.

-----------------------

Click image to see the article

Home Page