Sad situation in Seymour TX. Following the death of Mark Alabaugh in 2023, his family has requested and been granted the cancellation of the licenses for KSEY AM/FM. Mark was a one-man band, and after his passing, some equipment that had been loaned to him was repossessed and the family was unable to return it to the air. I assume they were unsuccessful in finding anyone interested in the stations. I did personally try to help them as much as I could from a distance, but I have not been in contact with them for the last 6 or 7 months. Seymour would have been a tough slog for anyone. The town is very isolated, and the total pop count for the FM was around 4k. Very economically depressed area.
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KSEY AM/FM Seymour Cancelled
- Thread starter exdjted
- Start date
Not true.. they had at least one offer on the station, including someone i spoke to.... and right before he died, he was going to gift the station to his engineer and told that guy.. under no circumstances should his family get it.. but mark died before that could be done.
The family told someone that they didnt care if it remained a radio station or someone bulldozed it and made something else out of it. They just wanted money and an absurd amount of money at that.
Mark was a great guy and well liked in Seymour.. id been in contact with him quite a bit over the last 15 years.. and even did vocie some commercials for him from time to time
Huh. Thanks for the info. Obviously I wasn't given the whole story. I went out of my way to offer up contacts and help to get the estate settled. I gave them the name of a local broker as well as my opinion of what the station was worth. It was implied to me that nobody wanted it. I'll certainly look a bit harder at all parties involved before I help people in the future. Maybe it's time I re-evaluated my penchant for helping people out when they reach out to help solve their problems.
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to tell you what kind of guy Mark was..
Back years ago when I was looking for work, i would scour radio locator looking for stations who were in small towns, had a format i might liek and had a clear commitment to LOCAL... wether or not they had openings, id send them an email. Mark replied....had to have been 15 plus years ago, and we simply stayed in touch on and off ever since.
He even sent me a christmas gift, prob. a station trade out, but still a thoughtful gift
Mark was the kind of broadcaster many aspire to be and many wish they had in their own.. he didnt just talk the talk, he walked the walk... he cared about Seymour
Mark ALWAYS..... without failing, ever..... answered the phone at KSEY with a smile in his voice and said "Its a beatiful day in Seymour at KSEY" In my 15 years of calling him, thats what he said every time.. that was his greeting to all callers.
I only dealt with the family. My mistake was trusting that I was being given the facts. Obviously they were giving me their side of it. Never again.
Understand.. weve all been there
It definitely would've been. I know there were several attempts over the years to move the FM into Wichita Falls as a rimshot. Don't know if that would've been viable either. Wichita Falls isn't an easy place to make money, and it would never have had the signal to be highly competitive there.
I'm disappointed to hear he couldn't get everything together to get the station to go to the people he wanted. Can't say I blame his family for not wanting to operate it after inheriting it, though. Much as I like the business, I'm not sure I would've wanted to go through the effort of running an operation like that. I suspect I would get very frustrated very quickly.
I worked for Mark Aulabaugh in some capacity from 2009 until his passing. He helped me start a syndicated program and also taught me several things about the business. From 2018 until his passing, I programmed the AM through barix connection from my home in Oklahoma and eventually was doing local/regional sports talk and sending syndicated national programming for the area. We even kept all of the AG programs.
Mark was my friend and I miss him dearly. I would make about three trips to Seymour a year or stop by when passing through Seymour and was able to witness some of the issues that he was dealing with to keep the business end of the station up to speed. Mark marched to the beat of his own drummer and that was something I respected him for greatly.
However, change and transparency were not things he embraced. When I would visit and try to get a feel for the true status of the situation, Mark would just prefer to visit and I even appreciated that aspect of who he was. Mark also told me he would gift me the station or sell it to me at a very reasonable price but would never set a timeline and you couldn't rush Mark on things as he would bring up the topic when he felt like it.
When he passed, I was able to meet his family and also his engineer. Options were available to try and keep the station on air but none of them were doable for me.
In the end, I don't fault anyone involved for their actions dealing with the station after Mark died. The family was dealt with an issue that they tried to deal with from a long distance and they put in a lot of hours to try and figure out what to do with a small town radio station.
KSEY was a big part of my life for almost 13 years and I miss it being on the air just as I miss my friend that was always a pleasure to visit with and taught me so much about radio.
Attached are the logos, I came up with for the AM during the time I was programming that side.
I hope this post brought some clarity for the ending of the station. God Bless...
Mark was my friend and I miss him dearly. I would make about three trips to Seymour a year or stop by when passing through Seymour and was able to witness some of the issues that he was dealing with to keep the business end of the station up to speed. Mark marched to the beat of his own drummer and that was something I respected him for greatly.
However, change and transparency were not things he embraced. When I would visit and try to get a feel for the true status of the situation, Mark would just prefer to visit and I even appreciated that aspect of who he was. Mark also told me he would gift me the station or sell it to me at a very reasonable price but would never set a timeline and you couldn't rush Mark on things as he would bring up the topic when he felt like it.
When he passed, I was able to meet his family and also his engineer. Options were available to try and keep the station on air but none of them were doable for me.
In the end, I don't fault anyone involved for their actions dealing with the station after Mark died. The family was dealt with an issue that they tried to deal with from a long distance and they put in a lot of hours to try and figure out what to do with a small town radio station.
KSEY was a big part of my life for almost 13 years and I miss it being on the air just as I miss my friend that was always a pleasure to visit with and taught me so much about radio.
Attached are the logos, I came up with for the AM during the time I was programming that side.
I hope this post brought some clarity for the ending of the station. God Bless...
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