7 APR 06: WHAT, ME WURY?

The Columbus Catfish opened their new season Thursday night at Greenville. The opening game was NOT broadcast on local radio - but then again, the Vipers and Cottonmouths have shown that's the key to a winning record.

BLOG EXCLUSIVE: While spinning around the radio dial looking for the Catfish game, I found something unexpected - a new FM station playing soft religious music. It apparently signed on from Seale in the last couple of weeks. So while the Catfish may not have a home, Russell County High School baseball could.

You can find the new station at 97.1 FM, but it may hard to hear in parts of Columbus. It's one of those "low-power" radio stations - which makes two low-power stations in town, focusing on a Higher Power you'd think would be much stronger.

(I heard this station with soft music near FM 96, and for a few minutes I thought hardline Baptists had taken over Beacon University's radio station to stop the Christian rock tunes.)

The new radio station is quirky for several reasons, besides its weak signal. Take the call letters - WURY-FM. You'd think a religious radio station wouldn't make me WURY all the time....

Then there's the denomination behind WURY - the Seventh-Day Adventist church. If you know anything about this group, you may realize the song "White Christmas" could refer to prophet Ellen G. White.

Online records show the Uchee Pines Institute of the Seventh-Day Adventists has been working on this radio station for more than two years. A construction permit was granted in October 2003 - and then the members apparently collected offerings of a few watts at a time.

WURY may not have any local programs. Instead, it's broadcasting a Seventh-Day Adventist network from California called "Radio 74 Internationale." I'm not sure why it's called Radio 74. Perhaps it's because the music is so "easy listening," that's the average age of the audience.

Radio 74 Internationale is on satellite, as well as about 25 FM stations from coast to coast. All of them are low-power stations - so if you drive too fast down the highway, you might miss it.

So what makes WURY different from the two other traditional Christian stations on Columbus FM radio? From what I heard Thursday night, very little - except that it plays a lot of music without a lot of preaching. And surprisingly for the Adventists, no one urged me to buy veggie burgers....

WURY also stops the music to read from the Bible every three hours. The other FM Christian stations only do it two or three times a day -- those wimpy backsliders.

Now let's stop WURY-ing about this, and consider other news items from Thursday:

+ The group "Citizens Against Government Waste" reported Congress gave Columbus $250,000 last year for its Train Depot. If this is the same depot that the Chamber of Commerce calls home, this is strange. I thought the Chamber promoted free enterprise and business growth, not socialism.

+ Alabama Gas announced a four-percent rate reduction. In fact, it took effect last Saturday. So they announced a rate cut about five days late, and in April?! Some utilities need new public relations departments....

+ John Morgan took the oath of office as Russell County's new coroner. He's a former paramedic, with a gray-haired ponytail - tempting me to wonder if he's really former "TalkLine" host Russ Hollenbeck with a falsified resume.

(John Morgan plans to run for Russell County Coroner in November. One announced opponent is Arthur Sumbry Jr., who goes by the nickname "Pee Wee." A coroner named Pee Wee?! That belongs on a "Blue Collar TV" parody of "C.S.I.")

+ Russell County held a training session for storm spotters. Could we please have one of these in Columbus, so the bogus warning sirens can stop for a while?

+ WRBL's new meteorologist Harmony Mendoza declared at 5:00 p.m. an 81-degree temperature was "very very warm" - then said at 6:00 p.m. it was "pretty mild." Someone must have told this woman she's not in Chicago anymore....

+ Auburn University's College of Liberal Arts invited high school sophomores to campus, for "C.L.A. Day." I'm not sure that's the right name for this event. Friends will ask these students, "You C.L.A.?" - and the next thing you know, they'll enroll in Los Angeles.

+ Meanwhile, the national champion Auburn swim teams were honored at the White House. The men's team presented President Bush with Speedo swimming trunks. If Bill Clinton still was President, the women's team might have handed him a string bikini.

+ The National Football League's 2006 schedule was announced, with only one Monday night game for Atlanta. The Falcons will face the Saints September 25, in the first game at the New Orleans Superdome since Hurricane Katrina. In related news, Lysol was named the Falcons' official disinfectant.

+ Instant Message #2 to T&T Tires on Veterans Parkway: Ohhhh - it's MARTIN Taylor, not Mark. My apologies. He talked faster in his TV commercial than my ears could hear him - but I'm not sure that's a good thing.

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