Radio station receives Pioneer award

On Oct. 27, Missouri Southern held its annual Media Showcase.

Southern’s Media Showcase is a day for local middle school and high school newspapers and television stations to come out to the college.

While the students are at the college for the day, they go through workshops and find out the winners to the competition entries they had sent in at an earlier date.

This is the ninth annual Southern Media Showcase. It was started in 1997 by the communication department.

Every year at the Showcase The Pioneer Broadcaster Award is given out to someone in the area whose their efforts have shown they are true pioneers in the broadcasting profession.

“The Showcase Day is a joined effort to show the community examples of the early days of radio,” said Judy Stiles, general manager of KGCS-TV. “It’s good to show the students today what the main form of getting information was back in the 20s and all of the different perspectives today.”

In the past nine years, The Pioneer Broadcaster Award was given to individuals that have brought forth the advancement to broadcasting and have made great contributions to that profession.

“The individuals in the media field need to be recognized. There is not really anything in the area that gives credit to them, that is why The Pioneer Broadcaster Award was started,” said Ward Bryant, associate professor of Communications. “The people that we give these awards to are really true pioneers. They have all helped bring mass communications to this area. Some of them have even built and started radio or television stations in the area too.”

The 2005 Pioneer Broadcaster Award was presented to WMBH Radio. This was the first year that the award was not presented to an individual, but to a broadcast station.

WMBH was first started in Chicago, but was moved and started in Joplin in 1926.

It is the longest-operating radio station located in Joplin.

Many Joplin people have said WMBH was the station they tuned into for the early days of radio. WMBH is recognized for its efforts over the years and the impact on broadcasting it has made in the area.