The clients and employees at The Opportunity Center of Owensboro came up with a fantastic and fitting way to commemorate January 13th, which was National Public Broadcasting Day. Hometown Hoedown is a country music-infused show that the clients created, voiced, and produced under the direction of local radio great Brian Jackson.
The radio is obviously not unfamiliar to Brian Jackson. He has worked on several stations in western Kentucky, including Q102 and WVJS, but his most well-known role is his decades-long tenure on the morning show on 96 WSTO. He is able to share his passion for communications with the staff and customers at The Opportunity Center of Owensboro, where he currently works.
On National Public Broadcasting Day, Amanda, a programming employee at The Opportunity Center, had the idea to use Brian’s radio experience. Their objective was to develop “some kind of experience that would involve (Opportunity Center) participants in the process of making an audio recording suitable for broadcast.”
Brian thought it was a great idea and quickly approached Ashley, the “wise Executive Chef” at Pinocchio, for advice. She proposed, “Why not let each group pick a song, and then be the DJs to introduce it to the audience?”
The outcome?The Battle of the Hometown! Brian defines it as “a celebration of shared love of music, of cooperative participation, of meaningful inclusion and of disciplined entertainment.”
The process itself was, well, country and interactive. “Country music was our first genre,” Brian says. Before choosing their on-mic spokespeople, each day’s training small group had to choose a representative song. They learned Brian’s tried-and-true WARP technique, which shaped his 42-year radio career. You write, edit, rehearse, and perform using the WARP approach.
The Opportunity Center’s aspiring broadcasters accomplished just that. The final product, according to Brian, surpasses his expectations. “The result is something so lovely it eclipses its original intent altogether and has become, I think, emblematic of what The Opportunity Center is all about the practice of diversity in an atmosphere of human compassion.”
The Hometown Hoedown is here!
