By John Howell Sr.

How do you plan a live radio show worthy to celebrate 10 years of consecutive Saturday broadcasts?

You don’t. Not if you are Ricky Swindle and you’ve arrived at about 500 Saturday mornings without a plan yet. 

“Never planned, never written down, totally live and unscripted,” Swindle said this week as the landmark anniversary of the Local Yokels approached. The only special arrangements are invitations to a host of local musicians to come to the studio at radio station WBLE and perform live. 

And even when they get there — this year, he’s invited Robert Reed, Mark Massey, Tony Boyd, Jason Evans, Steve McGregory, Jim and Kate Ellis and Ricky Harpole, among others — they will stand around in the limited space of the station’s studio waiting their turns, squeezing past one another carrying their instruments as Ricky calls one and then another to the microphone to perform.

And everyone will have a good time. The musicians, Swindle, co-hosts Johnny Pace and Gena Cotten, and the listening audience. Especially the listening audience.

“It’s fun radio to listen to and they can tell we have a good time,” Pace said. 

It started out as a six-week promotion to advertise Swindle’s Batesville Tire Mart with an infomercial showcasing local musicians. “There’s no place around for local people to be played,” Swindle said. Swindle bought six weeks of radio time. After the second week, he had picked up sponsors and kept on going. By the eighth week, he had extended the show to an hour.

Radio deejay and musician John Ingram was Swindle’s co-host during that first year, occasionally filling in since when Pace is away. On Saturday’s 10th anniversary show, Ingram will return as special guest to play his guitar and sing, “the first time ever live on the Local Yokels Show,” Swindle said.

Another person who has received a special invitation to Saturday’s show is J. C. Sexton, former Panola’s Chief Deputy Sheriff and once the nemesis of musician Harpole, whose lyrics in his song, “Crenshaw,” chronicled his encounter with the Panola lawman:

(“We don’t get stoned down on Main Street down in Crenshaw anymore;

Leo and J. C. are there and they’re declaring a holy war”)

Swindle’s criteria for airplay on Local Yokels is a studio-cut CD.

“My only guarantee is that we’ll play your CD once,” he said. Further play, Swindle continued, is dependent on listener and sponsor request.

And it must be family friendly.

“My grandma listens every Saturday; I know my mama is up in Heaven, listening,” he said.

“Ricky is the show,” said Pace, who joined Swindle after the show’s first year. “He knows everybody, and he’ll talk about anything.” 

Because Swindle buys the time — now 75 minutes — he has more flexibility from Federal Communications Commission restrictions, giving him leeway to air local musicians’ music on a schedule he chooses. 

He charges his sponsors only enough to cover his air time costs, he said. He has no plans to add sponsors and curtail the show time, but should any present sponsor drop off, he has a waiting list of those wanting the spot.

“I’m proud of the fact that 10 years ago I decided to accept no political advertising,” he said. “It’s a lot easier to tell the whole world no when you’ve never told anyone yes,” he said. 

The statement is a one of many Ricky proverbs listeners will occasionally hear sprinkled through the broadcast. That, in addition to the music, light-hearted banter and birthdays — the show has become the community’s clearinghouse for birthday and anniversary wishes phoned in or communicated via social media to the hosts and then announced on the air.

Cotten is the birthday anchor. Her Gena’s Cuts ‘N Tans is a program sponsor, and when joined Swindle and Pace in 2007 to take request by phone. She said it was Swindle’s “persistence” that finally coaxed her to the mike in 2010. Since then, “she’s gotten pretty comfortable,” said Pace, himself a 25-year veteran of broadcasting.

(Cotten said that she’ll miss this Saturday. “Business comes first.)

“People are drawn to hometown folks,” Pace said. “They know the same places; they know the same people, and they appreciate that. Ricky is about as hometown as it gets.”