It was before sunrise when La Pine’s morning radio show crackled across the airwaves at 6:30 a.m. Wednesday, and that was a good thing for the volunteers who host the morning show.

All but one of the radio hosts, retiree Bob Shotwell, 84, also hold down day jobs that range from teaching PE to designing steel trusses and running a small business, so the morning show is just a stop on the way to work.

Despite the hosts’ busy schedules, “The La Pine Morning Show With Bob Shotwell and the Radio RoughNecks” is still on the air one year after it started in March 2008. The show broadcasts from 6:30 a.m. to 8 a.m. Monday through Friday on KITC 106.5 FM in Gilchrist, a 5-year-old, low-power radio station that listeners can pick up between Sunriver and Chemult, according to the station’s Web site.

The Federal Communications Commission created the low-power FM radio service in 2000, and the stations are only authorized for noncommercial educational broadcasting. KITC also streams live on its Web site, www.kitcfm.com.

Over the past year, hosts on the La Pine morning show have provided residents in the area with local news, anecdotes, music and health advice in an attempt to inform the community.

Content on the radio show comes from the volunteers’ own backgrounds, interests and skills, as well as local officials and other guests. KITC 106.5 FM has a range of radio shows through the rest of the week, including jazz and acoustic music.

Loyal listeners

While it is not known how many people tune in to the La Pine morning show, those who do said they like the local information.

Cia Hutto is a first-grade teacher at La Pine Elementary School, and she moved to the area two years ago.

“I usually listen on Monday and Tuesday, and the reason I do (is) I’m new to the area,” Hutto said. “I learn a lot of things about La Pine.”

The morning show focuses on community news and events, and other subjects include school sports and health and fitness.

On Wednesday morning, Ed Criss, 59, played blues songs and during breaks, Tony DeBone, 42, read information about an election in May to establish a tax base for the La Pine Park and Recreation District and other local news.

On the air Wednesday, Criss and DeBone mentioned the groundbreaking for the new La Pine Elementary School building, and they took the opportunity to debunk a rumor.

“It’s not a Safeway,” DeBone said. “There have been rumors of a Safeway (coming to La Pine).”

Criss chimed in, “They’re just rumors, people, rumors.”

When the time drew close to 8 a.m., it was time to wrap up.

“It’s 7:58 a.m.,” Criss said.

“Time to go to our day jobs,” DeBone said.

Getting on the air

DeBone said he started the radio show with his friend Dave Harms because he saw a need for a good way to keep the community informed. Harms has since moved to Texas, but others have joined the show.

“When I moved to town, it was obvious we needed some more communication, news,” DeBone said. At first, DeBone wanted to set up his own radio station, but he decided it would be too difficult after talking to Bill Scally, 62, the general manager of KITC who started the Gilchrist station in August 2003. So instead, DeBone and Harms began to broadcast the morning show on KITC, over an Internet connection from La Pine in March 2008.

“We started off real slow,” DeBone said. “We’d lose the signal in the middle of the show.”

Now, a dedicated Internet audio link that cost about $3,000 allows DeBone and the other La Pine radio show hosts to broadcast live from Little d Technologies, the computer and business technology support company in a small office on U.S. Highway 97 that DeBone runs with his wife, Kathy DeBone.

Scally wrote in an e-mail that he does not know how many people listen to KITC over the airwaves, but listeners have connected to the Web site radio stream more than 100 times a day on multiple occasions in the past three months.

Hosts bring interests, knowledge to show

On Monday mornings, listeners can hear Gary Tash, who goes by the name “Coach Big Dog,” talk about local school sports and other school topics.

“I interview a lot of the players and coaches from the La Pine and Gilchrist area,” said Tash, who lives in Bend and does the radio show every Monday before he goes to his job as a PE teacher at La Pine Elementary School.

Tash said he spends about an hour and a half every Sunday night preparing for the show. One reason Tash does the show is that many households in the La Pine area have only one parent, he said, so they need more male role models.

On Tuesday mornings, state Rep. Gene Whisnant, R-Sunriver, calls in to the show to give a report on what is happening at the state Legislature. And then Wednesday is Criss’ blues show.

Criss, who plays the electric guitar and bass guitar, is in two bands — FX and Bluesquarter — and brings in his own blues CDs to play on the show.

“This one is for all those people thinking about running for office,” Criss said on Wednesday, as he introduced the song “You Better Think Twice,” by Robben Ford.

A local financial adviser hosted the Thursday morning show for about a year, but he quit this week out of concern that he should have sought approval from his employer before taking on the show.

On Fridays, Joe Pace, 38, of La Pine, talks about nutrition, health and fitness. “Food is very important, and it’s very important to keep the quality high,” said Pace, who works as a light-gauge steel truss designer and is also a martial arts instructor. “I try to pass that along and encourage people to eat right and make sure they’re making good decisions for a long and healthy life.”

“In today’s age, everybody wants the best bang for the buck, and they cut short what they buy food wise, in order to go out and buy (an all-terrain vehicle),” Pace said.

‘It’s about anything we want to talk about’

Shotwell works with the other hosts most mornings of the week, and DeBone said the addition of Shotwell was the most exciting thing to happen on the show.

“He’s the one that brought new life to it,” DeBone said.

Shotwell, who is retired, previously worked as a newspaper correspondent and at a radio station in Bend.

“It’s about anything we want to talk about,” Shotwell said of the morning show. “For a while, the big issue was the nitrates in the groundwater. Then, it was the (La Pine) girls basketball team.

“It’s just an eclectic talk show because if you have a topic you want to talk about, you can call in, and we’ll talk about it with you.”