wame until 1969 see wsua . for the charlotte north carolina radio station known as wame until 1990 see wgfy . wame city statesville north carolina branding real country 92.9 slogan decades of country music frequency 550 am and 92.9 fm first air date 1955 format classic country power 500 watts day 53 watts night class d facility id 63146 transmitter coordinates 35 47 43.00 n 80 51 17.00 w 35.7952778 n 80.8547222 w 35.7952778 ; 80.8547222 former callsigns wdbm wdrv wist affiliations mrn prn owner statesville family radio corporation sister stations wist fm wtix website wame online wame 550 am country legends 550 is a radio station broadcasting a classic country format . licensed to statesville north carolina usa . the station is owned by statesville family radio corporation . wame s programming can also be heard on fm at 92.9 mhz over translator w225bd which operates at 19 watts . the programming is currently a mix of locally produced programming and dial global s classic hit country format . contents 1 history 1.1 duke family 1.2 ferguson family 1.3 metrolina communications 1.4 ghb broadcasting 2 references 3 external links history edit duke family edit the station on 550 am in statesville north carolina began in 1955 as wdbm and operated only during daytime hours with licensed power of 500 watts . wdbm was founded by walter a. duke . in 1967 the duke family started wdbm fm at 96.9 fm now known as wkkt which initially was simulcast with wdbm . wdbm fm continued to broadcast easy listening music in the evenings after wdbm signed off . ferguson family edit in 1973 the duke family sold the both stations to the ferguson family . the new owners separated the operations of the am and fm and the am began broadcasting a country music format . the fm was given the calls wooo and on air was called triple o 97 . metrolina communications edit in 1979 both wdbm and wooo were sold to metrolina communications corporation . wdbm became wdrv and switched to an adult contemporary format . ghb broadcasting edit wdrv was sold to statesville family communications a subsidiary of ghb broadcasting . the format was changed to southern gospel music and religious teaching . in 1990 the call letters became wame and in 1994 they became whym . 1 in 1996 the station became wist station of the stars an affiliate of the music of your life adult standards network . 2 in 1997 ghb broadcasting created a regional talk network called total radio to compete in the charlotte nc market against heritage station wbt . as part that effort the call letters changed to wtli when it joined the total radio simulcast . 3 4 the attempt to compete against 50 000 watt wbt was not successful . 5 by 1998 the wist call letters were back to statesville with the real country format on the station and the station became wame again in october 2000 . in the early 2000s long time radio personality j. d. benfield began doing the morning show on the station and the remainder of the day s programming was the stardust satellite format from abc radio networks . in february 2008 wame became country legends 550 . benfield left the station in august 2008 . 6 on october 1 2008 country radio personality john glenn joined wame as operations manager and morning show host . big country mornings with john glenn began airing on monday january 12 2009 . 7 references edit call sign history . retrieved 2012 05 08 . joe marusak radio station pleases wist ful 40s fans the charlotte observer august 4 1996 . kay mcfadden talk radio station signs on to battle for wbt listeners the charlotte observer july 8 1997 . jim morrill the unlikely rebel behind the microphone the charlotte observer october 19 1997 . kay mcfadden format change will be blow to charlotte talk radio the charlotte observer november 22 1997 . mark washburn more than a little bit country the charlotte observer mar. 15 2008 . fuller bethany january 15 2009 wame s new format classic country racing statesville record & landmark external links edit official website query the fcc s am station database for wame radio locator information on wame query nielsen audio s am station database for wame retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title wame & oldid 668657870 categories radio stations in north carolinaclassic country radio stations in the united statesiredell county north carolina navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages add links this page was last modified on 25 june 2015 at 19 13 . text is available under the creative commons attribution 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