KAYO Public Hanging

   September 30, 2026



I was working weekends and on call at KAYO, and mornings part time in a
boiler room in exchange for free real estate license school. So I had
free time to go down to the radio station during the week and I was
always bugging Bobby Wooten with some idea for a promotion (and also
trying to make sure he didn’t forget I existed).

Neighbors in Need was a local charity having money problems at that time
and I came up with the idea that Kountry KAYO wanted to help but was “up
in the air” about what to do, so let’s run Bobby up a flagpole and leave
him there until some goal was met. Management, months later, changed it
to a “public hanging” which was much better. I thought no more about it.

Much later, I was filling in middays for Gary Vance and the door from
the newsroom opened. There in the doorway was station owner Jessica
Longston. No smile, no “Hello”, she just made some oblique reference to
the promotion, said, “We’re sending you and your wife to Reno”, backed
out and closed the door. I barely had time to say, “Thank you” and she
was gone.

That was the last I heard on the subject. The Reno trip never happened.

Dick Ellingson

A man and his dogs in a little country town. Parcel post crusher; blood'n'guts laundry serf; parking lot fender bender/bumper jumper; Lazy B flunkie with 7-word job title; P-I down crew; bobtail trucker; Sunbeam breader; retail store mangler; bothersome boiler roomie; fake real estate agent; d.j./copywriter/p.d./ripper/reader - 600 KGEZ Good Advertising, Kalispell; Community Radio 1510 KURB, Mountlake Terrace; 1540 News/MOR/92.5 Solid Gold Rock & Roll KFKF, Bellevue; 1150 Kountry KAYO America's Own Music, Seattle; 1300 KoMPaSs Radio 13 Modern Country, Seattle; 1360 KLFF Good Music & Great Memories, Glendale/Phoenix; 106.3 Koncert 106 KONC, Sun City/Phoenix; 1580 KCWW Real Country Network, Tempe/Phoenix. Four-year Volunteer P-I/Times/TNT news reader for Evergreen Radio Reading Service broadcasting from the Washington Talking Book & Braille Library, Seattle; dotcomboom day trader who came out alive; King County Metro Bus Driver; Seattle Streetcar Operator. I threw it in at 78 and frequently have bizarre dreams about radio and bus driving, my two preschool dream jobs. More articles by Dick

2 thoughts on “KAYO Public Hanging”

  1. The hanging

    William • September 30, 2026

    When did the Wooten “Public Hanging” occur?

    Reply

    1. Sky-High Wooten

      Jason Remington • September 30, 2026

      The hanging was October & November 1972.
      And there was another similar promotion that ran for 6 months. Wooten and his wife lived in a penthouse in the Space Needle.
      April 2, 1975 . . Radio deejay Bobby Wooten comes down from his Space Needle penthouse this Sat., having lived on the observation deck for six months now. The pad, complete with waterbed and 360-degree view, will be torn down, after some radio contest winners spend the night there. The city permit runs out and summer visitors are coming.
      Shortly after that–
      April 16, 1975.. Return to Arkansas
      Bobby Wooten, Billboard Magazine’s country-music program director of the year for 1973 and ’74, will retire from radio station KAYO in mid-June, the station announced yesterday.
      Wooten, who in addition to his duties as program director handles the 6 to 10 a.m. slot for the station, has been with KAYO as an on-the-air personality since it switched to a country music format in 1963. He will return to his native Arkansas in June.
      KAYO station manager John DeMeo said no replacement had been chosen for Wooten.

      Reply

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