The building has a new look and the broadcast has a new sound, but KGEZ, the oldest radio station in Northwest Montana, is back in business.

Starting over the weekend, the radio station at 600 AM started playing 10,000 songs straight — with no commercial breaks — allowing for renovations to continue on the building on U.S. 93 south of Kalispell and for the new operator to prepare for a shift to regular programming in mid-February.

John Hendricks, a veteran in broadcasting, will operate the station under a Local Marketing Agreement with Todd and Devar Gardner, who acquired the station and license last year.

“They will continue to own the station and the property and the license,” Hendricks said of the Gardners. “We will be responsible for programming decisions and all operations. It’s similar to a lease situation but it’s more complicated than that because there are so many [Federal Communication Commission] regulations to deal with.”

Hendricks said KGEZ will play a blend of pop standards and top 40 tunes entirely from the 1950s and 1960s, along with providing five-minute news updates every 20 minutes.

“We’ve essentially launched a brand new radio station,” he said.

A complete station renovation got under way a couple months ago.

“The building has been completely refurbished from the inside out,” Hendricks said. “We literally cleaned the building out. Everything’s been repainted and there’s new carpeting. The studios are being refitted with new equipment.” 

The Gardners led the way on the building renovation while Hendricks’ company, Flathead Valley Wireless Association, is bringing in modern digital broadcasting equipment.

The Gardners “have been incredibly helpful and they have gone far beyond what I expected them to do” in terms of renovations, Hendricks said.

He anticipates the station will have about nine full-time employees by summer, including broadcast personalities who will be responsible for the news broadcasts, which will focus on local news but also include Associated Press news.

Hendricks will host the weekday “KGEZ Good Morning Show.”

He said the station will be seeking input from listeners and he anticipates “the programming is going to kind of develop as we go forward.”

KGEZ was the second radio station in the entire state of Montana when it was licensed in 1927, and it was the only radio station in Northwest Montana until 1955, when KOFI went on the air. It has had several owners, including the Kalispell Chamber of Commerce during one period .

The Gardners acquired the station after the previous owner, controversial talk show host John Stokes, lost the station through bankruptcy proceedings.

The Gardners had been awarded a defamation claim against Stokes in 2008. They later purchased the station, property and license from bankruptcy trustees for $875,000 last year.

Stokes still has an active legal appeal in the bankruptcy case, but Todd Gardner said he is comfortable investing in the radio station.

“We’re excited about it. We’re looking forward to what John Hendricks can do with it in the future,” said Gardner, who will not be involved with the station’s operations. “We deferred to John’s experience. He’s been in radio for a long time and he has a great excitement for what he’s doing.”

Hendricks was born and raised in the Flathead Valley and started his broadcasting career at radio stations in Seattle before moving on to radio and television jobs in Denver.

He worked in New York and had a brief stint at KOFI in Kalispell in 2004 and 2005 before returning to New York to work as a media consultant.

“Now I’m going to be a radio station operator,” he said. “I view it as the capstone of my career because it is literally going to require every skill I have learned and all my experience.”

Reporter Jim Mann may be reached at 758-4407 or by e-mail at jmann@dailyinterlake.com.