12/31/2023
FYI message from James Rhodes to all CCC members:
About every dozen years, the FCC opens up frequencies for new low power F.M. radio stations. The last time this event happened we were in Alabama and applied for a new FCC license for the town of Phenix City, Alabama-a moderately large town that had no radio station or any other form of media outlets as they were all across the Chattahoochee River in Columbus, Georgia.
During the colonial American period, when Georgia was a colony and Alabama was a territory, Phenix City was then known as Coweta Town, capital of the Coweta Creek Confederacy, home of the Red Sticks that would later fight Jackson at Horseshoe Bend. Our loss there ended the Creek empire as it resulted in the vast majority of Creeks being relocated to Oklahoma. My ancestors would escape relocation and continued the guerrilla fight against the government until the Civil War at which time we all fought on the side of the Confederacy (note: this had absolutely nothing to do with the issue of slavery.)
The point is that our proposed new F.M. radio station would serve the needs those residents that did not have a voice. After our FCC filing, we were immediately opposed by all corporate media forces in Columbus, Georgia and they were successful in killing our application for a new, and only, radio station in Phenix City. Alabama.
Now comes December 2023, the FCC has opened frequencies up again except this time we are in Coulterville, California and there are no local corporate media outlets to oppose our application! As a matter of fact, Kevin Bowman-Greg Little and the Mariposa KRYZ radio group has been most helpful with assisting and supporting us in our FCC filings. They have been a tremendous help and we actually did submit our FCC license request the second week of December and we are now waiting on their approval to move ahead with establishing a low power F.M. radio station in Coulterville-which we envision will be on Main Street.
In anticipation of our application being approved, we will be seeking community input as to your thoughts as to what our station should be and how we can best serve our local area. We want young people involved, especially in learning how to run such a facility. We want to feature and promote local musicians and artists. We want to promote local programming that serves our remote veterans and our unique needs addressing issues that seem to get lost in the shuffle at the county and state levels. We want to be that voice of those who have been overlooked or just feel they want to be heard because we recognize all voices are important.
We want to build upon the Baha'i concept of establishing vibrant local communities. We want to actively support the great works of local non-profits (giving air time to), inclusive of, but not limited to: what the Christian Food Ministry is doing (Jerry Lyman), and what a tremendous asset It's A New Day Recovery Home (Jerry-Barbara Johnson) are doing; the Coulterville Community Club; Banditeras Veteran's Memorial Park; the VFW and Auxiliary; the Coulter Cafe; History Center; Main Street Deli; Coyote Consignment; Together with Veterans; Operation New Earth; the Fire Brigade; Odd Fellows; our animal rescue ranches-we have so much going on here that we really need to coordinate our activities.
As our application progresses, we will keep you informed; however, we also solicit your suggestions and ideas. This radio station will fall under the non-profit umbrella of Operation New Earth and at some point in time in the near future, we will be seeking fund raising ideas to keep this station operational and to buy the equipment we will need. Thank you!
