1430 came to lifeOctober 29, 1955, as WHER, a pioneering station with an all-female air staff. The radio station was the brainchild of Sam Phillips, who used a portion of the $35,000 he made from the sale of Elvis Presley's recording contract to RCA Records to finance the station. A portion of the balance of the funding came from Holiday Inn founder Kemmons Wilson, who also provided the station's first home, in a part of the third Holiday Inn ever built. It aired light music and had the slogan "1,000 Beautiful Watts". The licensee was Tri-State Broadcasting Service, initially owned by Phillips, Clarence A. Camp, and James E. Connolly.
WWEE
In the early 1970s, WHER went to a mixed-gender air staff and became talk stationWWEE. The station gave birth to the longest running sports talk show "SportsLine". "SportsLine" went on the air in 1972. Notable former staff members include Marge Thrasher, Bill Thomas, George Lapides, Dick Palmer, Jim Fields, and Jeff Weinberger. In 1981, the Phillips family bought out the other owners of Tri-State Broadcasting Service, becoming known as the Big River Broadcasting Corporation. Big River liquidated in 1986, selling WWEE to the Ardman Broadcasting Corporation of Tennessee. In 1989, after seven months spent simulcasting co-owned WEZI (now WLFP with the same call letters, Ardman relaunched the station as WNWZ. Flinn bought the station in 1993, changing the call letters to WOWW in 1997.
Format flips
On April 10, 2013, WOWW changed their format to country, simulcasting WEBL 95.3 FM. On June 21, 2013, WUMY dropped its classic country format for variety hits as "97.7 Guess FM". On January 2, 2014, WOWW began stunting, directing listeners to WUMY 830 AM Memphis, Tennessee, which took over the "Guess FM" variety hits format. A few days later, WOWW changed their format to country, branded as "The Rebel", simulcasting WEBL 95.3 FM Coldwater, MS. On August 6, 2018, WOWW changed their format to classic hits, branded as "97.7 Guess FM".
Translator
In addition to the main station, WOWW is relayed by an FM translator to widen its broadcast area. It also provides the listener with high fidelity/stereophonic sound.
