Murray State’s NPR station, 91.3 WKMS presents the second program in its “Sounds Good Documentary Series” with a re-airing of Kentucky Dam Power for the People on Tuesday, June 25 at noon, during the second hour of Sounds Good with Tracy Ross. The special hour-long documentary underwritten, in part, by Hunter Marine of Nashville and Paducah, first aired Sunday, June 3, and chronicles the Dam’s inception, construction, and impact on the region through human stories. A soundtrack of music and archival newsreels help set the scene for the documentary.
Click here for the documentary's program page.
WKMS Morning Edition announcer and reporter Todd Hatton hosts the documentary which is told through voices of the past who lived and worked in the region prior to the dam’s construction. The archival recordings were provided by a Murray State University oral history project conducted in the 1990s.
The WKMS News team collaborated with local experts and includes the voices and expertise of current Kentucky Hydro Electric Dam Manager Bill Stallion, Murray State History Professor Duane Bolin, West Kentucky Community and Technical College Sociology Professor David Nickell, University of Tennessee Economist Larry Bray and Retired University of Kentucky Agriculture Extension Agent for Calloway County Ted Howard.
Kentucky Dam is a hydroelectric dam on the Tennessee River between Livingston and Marshall Counties. It is TVA’s largest dam at 8,500 feet long and it moves more than a million cubic feet of water per second. TVA built the dam in the late 1930s and early 1940s to improve navigation on the lower part of the river and reduce flooding on the lower Ohio and Mississippi rivers. Western Kentucky's landscape and economy were forever changed by the Dam.
WKMS has a weekly audience estimated at about 20,000 listeners in the Four Rivers Region of western Kentucky, southernmost Illinois and northwestern Tennessee. The station's public media services include 91.3 WKMS-FM, Murray; WKMS HD-1 and All-Music HD-2; 90.9 WKMD and WKMD HD-1 and HD-2, Madisonville; 89.5 WKMT, Fulton; 99.5 Paris, Tenn., and All-Music 92.5 Paducah and 105.1 Madisonville. The station also offers both channels WKMS HD-1 and HD-2 at wkms.org, where regular weekly schedules of programs are available. Listeners with questions can call 1-800-599-4737 during regular business hours.
Contact: Membership Coordinator Jenni Todd (270-809-4748 or jtodd14@murraystate.edu)
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