Project: BODYLOVE Program Dissemination Project
Organization: University of Alabama at Birmingham
Birmingham, AL
Written by Connie Koehler, Project Director

A Tale of One Town
Marion is a small rural community, the county seat of Perry County, Alabama. You head south on Highway 5, right down the middle of the state and Marion is just a couple miles off the highway. But right before you get into town you can see a small square building sitting in a field all by itself, next to a radio tower. Just like so many small rural stations we have visited across Alabama. As we pull up in front of the building the July heat shimmers even at 7:45 a.m. Reverend Glenn King, the owner of WJUS, has also just arrived. We are here to observe what goes on during a weekly BodyLove broadcast.

Reverend King lets us into the building and gives us the “tour.” There's the control room, he points. There's the studio. The control room is where Rev. King sits at the controls and spins out radio content: news, gospel, local announcements.  He's surrounded by knobs and speakers and microphones.  The studio is a smallish, square room with a large window into the control room. Under the window is an old metal desk on which three microphones sit. There are a few chairs pulled up to the desk. The only other furniture is a table with pamphlets on it. I'm thinking, “This is where they do the show???”

Now it's 7:55 and the show begins at 8:00. Is the host coming? Rev. King says she should be along soon and goes into the control room and starts broadcasting. We hear him greet the listeners and put on some music.  Just when it seems like there will be no host for the BodyLove show, in walks Frances Ford. She greets us. She has already met our project coordinator. The rest of our group (two students, project director, and intern) is introduced and we stand behind where she sits at one of the microphones. Rev. King introduces BodyLove and starts to play the week’s episode.

Today’s episode features a scene about Vanessa being frustrated with her husband Sonny. She is waiting in her BodyLove beauty shop where he was supposed to have picked up their son, TJ, to take him to the gym for some exercise. But it looks like he is going to be a no-show. Of course, Vanessa is just hoping for Sonny to show her he CAN be a responsible husband and father….. In the next scene we hear Reverend Higgins advising Rosalyn not to “over-do” until she has completely recovered from her kidney transplant….

As the episode plays we chat with Ms. Ford, who is a community health worker.  Then three more women come in – a local pharmacist with two interns in tow.  They are co-hosting the program.  The episode is played in two segments, allowing for a commercial. At the end of the first segment, Rev. King introduces Ms. Ford.  We have requested she ask callers to let us “University of Alabama at Birmingham People” know how they like the show.  So that is exactly what she does. 

Frances Ford is a very soft-spoken, unassuming woman, but she is incredibly comfortable behind the microphone.  She seems to be talking to a group of friends.  When she opened it up to caller, the first few came in fairly fast, but when she ‘rewarded’ one caller with a Bodylove T-shirt, the phone began to ring in earnest. At one point, Ms. Ford gives a little health information and phone numbers about community resources that are available for health needs.

Several times during the ‘talk portion’ we were inspired by callers to give a round of applause for one triumph or another such as a caller’s husband being discharged from the hospital. At another point, the pharmacist makes announcements about an upcoming hypertension screening and other community events.  Even the interns are included – they read short educational pieces to the audience. In all there were fifteen callers in a little over fifteen minutes.  Most of them were known to the co-hosts as regular callers or as diabetes or hypertension patients who attend the local public health clinic. Of course, comments were uniformly positive – that was to be expected given the circumstances.  But there were a few that were especially gratifying and a couple that were touching:

• One woman says she is diabetic but keeps it well under control now. She learned about cooking “naked chicken” (chicken with the skin removed) from listening to BodyLove. She is asked about her age. She says she is 93.
• Mrs. Ford asks a nurse who has called in what part of the program she likes best. They laugh over the fact that she admits to liking Fadelia’s antics best. Fadelia has recently started her own “health and beauty” radio show- a show within the show!
• The interns respond to a comment about depression. On the show, Maya is suffering from depression and the interns want to help the audience learn more about it.
• A man named Sam called in to be counted among the appreciative listeners. The hosts asked him if he was still using his ‘machine’ to check his ‘sugar.’ He was.
• A woman named Ettie May told us she listens “most every week” and says there is “so much you all speak about that I don’t know”.

I was thrilled to my very core. This was exactly how I had envisioned this project – small community radio stations engaging people through the serial drama to talk about health issues among themselves. In theory it’s called ‘para-social interaction,’ and now theory had come to life. We had heard that this particular community had really taken off with the call-in format, but I was not prepared for how exciting it would be to actually witness it. 

The BODYLOVE team left WJUS and Marion with many fond farewells and plans with Reverend King to have a “second anniversary” event this Fall with free food and t-shirts and a live broadcast of the show in which listeners could take part.  I can’t wait to go back.

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