Hands down, the craziest KAAY promotion (a.k.a. Stupid Stunts In Public) that I remember would HAVE to be the Great Cowchip Toss-Off. As I recall, the winner of the Little Rock competition got an all-expense-paid trip to the national championships in Beaver, Oklahoma. And the "ammunition" for the event didn't cost the station a thing. Chief Engineer Felix McDonald always grazed a herd of cows at the transmitter site, so he just hitched a wagon to his Ford tractor and went collecting around the towers.
Another promotion that intrigued me occurred in the summer of 1970, when listeners were encouraged to send in postcards or letters to win the official KAAY Rubber Band. Yes, the prize was a rubber band--and hundreds of entries poured in! It was not until the winner was announced that it was revealed that that rubber band would be wrapped around "a crisp, new, one hundred dollar bill." I believe that promotion came from the very fertile mind of Program Director Barry Wood, alias Mike McCormick II. The story goes that he wanted to prove that listeners would respond to the most mundane prize in the world if the "marketing" of it was handled properly. Well, it was and they did!
KAAY listeners always had front-row seats in the Theatre Of The Mind.
David B. Treadway
Doc Holiday VII 1971-72
And a couple of times after that
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