KROW FM RADIO
FOR SALE

Heiress Seeks Local Buyer
By George "The Streak" Talmer

Mary Higginson has formally announced that she is placing Smallville's 93.7 KROW radio station up for sale. The heiress to Ernest Higginson's Plains States Media Group says the time is right to pass Smallville's most popular signal on to more capable hands.

Mary's husband, Ernest, passed away last year at 91. He left all his holdings to Mary--making her second only to Lex Luthor as Lowell County's wealthiest resident.

Ernest began his career as a reporter for The Smallville Ledger in 1927. In the early 1930s, he left to begin working as a radio talk show host for KNBA in Metropolis. He remained in Metropolis for 10 years, met Mary (who at the time was a popular vaudevillian) during an interview, saved enough money to return to Smallville and founded the AM radio station KORN with her in 1944. The station flourished for the next 30 years, providing several services to the greater Smallville community. KORN AM did everything from broadcasting town hall meetings to covering the Smallville High School Crow football games. Then came the advent of FM radio, and Ernest jumped at the opportunity to get in on the ground floor by starting 93.7 KROW FM.

As fans quickly became enamored with the FM format, KROW grew into the best performing radio station in all the heartland.
Tommy Di Castro, former head of one of the nation's largest radio conglomerates, stated that "KROW is a great purchase for any radio group. The big ones have been trying to buy it from Ernest and Mary for years now. Her selling it is huge news."

Mary's reason for letting the station go? "I just can't keep up with running it anymore," lamented Mary. "It was Ernest's passion. Our kids have no interest in broadcasting, so it's best to sell The KROW to someone who'll have a genuine passion for it, someone who can really take it to the next level, someone with vision." When asked if KROW will continue to turn out its hugely popular CDs once the station is sold, Mary replied, "They'd be crazy not to--people around here are mad about them!"

No buyers have been mentioned, but Mary says serious offers are coming in from all around the country. She confided, "I'd love to sell it to someone local. The KROW has always been a big part of the Smallville community. I know Ernest would want her to stay that way."

EZRA SMALL AND THE YEAR
IT RAINED FIRE
Part I

By Christopher James Beppo

In commemoration of Smallville History Month, the following account was compiled from various source materials, including surviving fragments of Ezra Small's personal journal, in the McDaniel Collection at the Lowell County Historical Society, Edge City, Kansas.

Ezra Small sank his skinning knife to the hilt in the rich Kansas earth. In a month, the ground will be too hard to do that, he thought to himself, glancing up at the gray twilight sky. Time to settle in for the winter. It was more than two decades before Silas Kent would raise two unruly boys on this land, more than a century-and-a-half before another man named Small would raise hell in defense of this land.

It was October 1833, and Ezra knew he was in for the same kind of bone-chilling season as he had endured up north with the Absarokee tribe the previous year. It had taken him months to gain the natives' trust, but the skills he learned had proven invaluable when he decided to strike out on his own.

Yes, the Kansas winters were harsh, but Ezra liked this particular bend of the Elbow River. Berries and game were plentiful; the water was fresh; and the Kawatche people in the territory were friendly and accommodating. Ezra had learned enough of their language to begin understanding their legends and rituals, which fascinated him. While the beaver pelts he sold usually ended up warming pampered socialites in the big cities, the Kawatches' furs played a much deeper role in their lives, an almost mystical role.

Other than the seasonal rendezvous, when outdoorsmen converged to trade pelts, supplies and tall tales, the life of a trapper was a solitary one. During long, frigid nights, Ezra looked to the one-eyed wolf in the sky for comfort. Retelling the Kawatche stories to himself made him feel less lonely. The doleful baying of the wolves that were his only apparent company sometimes took on an almost human quality, as if legions of souls were mourning the past...or forewarning the future.

Nights like that made it easy to believe the Indian legend of the Windigo. The tales varied, but in this part of the country, it was said that during the new moon, great hairy humanoids roamed the land.

Today, we call such beasts Sasquatch or Bigfoot. Don't laugh--in almost every county in modern-day Kansas, people have reported seeing something similar to a Windigo. In 1869, Crawford County residents witnessed a giant, gorilla-like man lurking near their cabins. An 1886 article in The Lawrence Ledger (the precursor to this publication) describes the capture of a hair-covered "wild family." In 1938, a deputy in Siegel County reported finding miles of animal tracks, each print measuring 17 inches by 5 inches. And in 1984, two women gathering plants by the side of the Kansas Turnpike near Lawrence claimed that they were followed by a huge, bigfoot-like creature.

But none of this had any consequence for the 19th-century frontiersman. All Ezra knew was that he wanted to get to sleep fast, before the wolves' whining was joined by another, less earthly sound--moaning and grunting that was unlike any kind of animal the well-traveled trapper had ever heard--at least not the kind he wanted to ponder while shivering alone in the middle of the wilderness. But as he finally drifted off, tightly bundled against the chill, Ezra also had no way of knowing that he would soon come into close, personal contact with the ungodly thing making those sounds--and that a new legend in Smallville would be born from the petrifying encounter.

Read next week's Ledger for the continuation of "Ezra Small and the Year It Rained Fire."

SMALLVILLE HIGH SCHOOL WELCOMES NEW PRINCIPAL


By Angie Perez

The students of Smallville High School have something new to crow about: Highly touted educator Terrance Reynolds, 55, has been hired as the principal, replacing the late James Kwan, who died tragically last year. Reynolds, a Harvard alumnus, earned his Ph.D. in education from Columbia and was once headmaster at Excelsior Prep. He is widely regarded as a strict but fair teacher with several years of experience. The Ivy Leaguer has taught at exclusive prep schools on the East Coast and in Europe. Recently, Reynolds was mentioned to head the Metropolis Board of Education, but fortunately for us, he decided to educate the leaders of tomorrow right here in Smallville.

LIONEL LUTHOR AVERTS DEATH AS HELICOPTER CRASHES

By Gena McGuiness

Lionel Luthor, his assistant Martha Kent and his private pilot escaped serious injury yesterday when the tycoon's helicopter failed during takeoff, an apparent malfunction of its main rotor. "Fortunately, we were only about six feet from the ground," said the senior Luthor in a phone interview.
"Bob is a masterful pilot and was able to avoid a catastrophe." Martha Kent had no comment. Pilot Bob Tuscan was treated at Smallville Medical Center and released. Blinded as a result of injuries suffered in Smallville's recent tornado disaster, Luthor was about to make his first business trip to Metropolis since moving to the Luthor mansion in September.