Allegheny Mountain Radio’s STAR Award Winner for 2023 Is Dwayne Kennison

The Allegheny Mountain Radio STAR Award winner for 2023 is Dwayne Kennison.   Kennison started volunteering at WVMR in 2014.  In 2020 he and his wife Joyce, the Lil’ Red Headed Intern, moved to the Myrtle Beach area.   It was a move they had always talked about making when their kids were grown.  Since moving they have continued volunteering, by pre-recording shows that air on Allegheny Mountain Radio.

“I didn’t want to quit doing the radio shows and neither did Joyce, so I already kind of had it planned out,” says Kennison. “I already had a recorder picked out and kind of had a plan set for whenever we left and it was just a matter of getting a slot.  In the beginning, Joyce and I only did one show together, which we called It’s Five O’Clock For Those About to Rock.   So, we did two hours every other week until some more slots opened up.  I love doing the radio too much to give it up.”

In addition to volunteering, Kennison also worked as the WVMR Station Coordinator and the AMR Underwriting Director.

“Allegheny Mountain Radio is a different type of radio station, as we all know,” says Kennison.  “Some people equate Allegheny Mountain Radio as being the older style of station and it is in some ways, there’s multiple facets to it.  Of course, there’s always the emergency part of the station that is the lifeline for everyone during blizzards, derechos, flooding and everything like that.  But then there’s just the community side of it, where, I don’t know how many times I’ve been on the air and you’ll get a call and say ‘There’s a cow in the road’.  It is very important to the neighborhood and when I was there I trained high school students to be DJs.  It was a very rewarding experience being the Station Coordinator there at WVMR.  It was hectic, it was busy and sometimes the hours were long, but again, it was well worth it, very rewarding.  All the staff and the volunteers, they’re more like family now than employers or anything like that.”

The STAR Award is presented annually to an Allegheny Mountain Radio volunteer.  Staff, board members and volunteers vote.  The STAR Award is the Steve Terry Area Resource Award, created in honor of the first recipient, Steve Terry of Highland County.

“I’m very honored to get it,” says Kennison.  “There’s so many very important people at Allegheny Mountain Radio that have won the STAR Award.   I wasn’t expecting it at all.  I tend to think of myself more as just the goofy guy on the radio.   I know I did a lot more when I was Coordinator, but I never really thought much about something like that.  Sometimes you don’t realize what kind of impact you have on the audience and the listeners, you know, when you’re in your own head at the station all the time.  I want to thank everybody very much.  I didn’t expect this.”

Currently Kennison hosts It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere every other Saturday from 6 to 9pm.  His wife Joyce, the 2018 STAR Award winner, hosts For Those About to Rock every other Saturday from 3 to 5 and Glorious Gospel every Sunday morning from 9 until 10.