On Monday, Mildred and Dean Loudy, one of the most recognizable couples in the Northern Neck, celebrated the silver anniversary of their golden wedding anniversary. Put mathematically, they have been married for 75 years.
The Loudys are originally from the Midwest, but the Northern Neck has been their bailiwick for most of their lives. In 1975, they founded WKWI, Kilmarnock’s local radio station, and operated it for the next 20 years, giving the community the best of what great broadcasting can be.
Their motivation was to bring about a facility that could be of service to the community by providing the news, music and perhaps most memorably, Dean’s day-by-day comments on life in the Northern Neck, the feature of his daily morning program. When they retired, I asked Dean who would be waking me up each morning, to which he replied, “I still can do that—for a fee.”
WKWI became the fulfillment of Mildred and Dean’s vision for a service-oriented facility to enhance the quality of life across the span of the airwaves. They always were there in times of emergency, such as hurricanes, traffic accidents, road closures, and the like, making sure that as many people as possible were informed of critical happenings in order to be able to make the right decisions. In that regard, they were not public officials, but they definitely were public servants.
They correctly gauged the aura of the area and the heartbeat of the people, and they offered special programs to connect with the local populace. Dorothy and Ron Evans presented a customized music show once a week, and after Ron’s death, Dorothy continued, moving the show up to the afternoons.
In the new space, she called it, “Teatime with Dorothy.” During the course of the program, the records for which she would bring from home from her personal collection, she described the songs and the artists playing them. She personalized each show with comments to and about local personages.
As her sight failed, and she no longer could drive, Dean stepped in and sent a car for her, usually driven by C.D. Hathaway. Dean was an adherent of the wisdom of the 19th-century circus ringmasters who would announce to their audiences under the big tents, “The show must go on.”
Dean knew the public through his airtime and Mildred knew them from her desk to the right as one entered the studio. There she managed the day-to-day operations of the station, making friends with everyone who walked through the door. Mildred also is a proficient practitioner of the art of cross-stitching, making beautiful artistic creations with her needle.
In times of crisis, Dean and Mildred always put the community first, broadcasting whatever information they could gather to keep people safe and alerted to changing conditions. Tom Davis and the late Bill Goss, both natives of the Northern Neck and familiar with the land, the water and the people, would broadcast continually until the dangers had passed.
Each morning, the station would list the famous and the local birthdays, always with a touch of humor for the latter. Dean can see humor anywhere he looks. Listening to him was a good way to get the day off to a bouncing start.
For those of us who were here throughout the “Loudy Days,” the station remains an iconic part of the modern heritage of the Northern Neck, Mildred and Dean’s legacy for generations to come. Despite our long-standing friendship, I never did take Dean up on his offer for a personalized morning wake-up call. I was worried about what the fee might have been.
Congratulations, Mildred and Dean, on your Semisesquicentennial! Ad multos annos!
