KFRO’s 60th anniversary publication, highlighting the owners and key employees.

On its 87th birthday, “The Voice of Longview” will take to the airwaves with a new owner and format.

“It’s been on the air since 1935,” said Scott Rice, a longtime radio professional and enthusiast who is now the owner of FM 95.7/AM 1370.

At 8 p.m. Sunday, he’ll relaunch the station with a new format — exactly what is a surprise for listeners, he said, and he’ll do it with many nods to the history of Longview’s first radio station. (Read more about KFRO’s history in this 2011 column by the News-Journal’s former history columnist, Van Craddock.)

In fact, he’ll be broadcasting from what was once the living room of KFRO’s founder, J.R. Curtis, which is attached to the land where the stations’ radio towers are located. He owns both pieces of property.

“This is where I’m supposed to be,” he said this past week, as he showcased the studio he has put together with pieces of broadcasting equipment he saved from other radio stations. “I fell in love with it the moment I walked on the property.”

A shelf nearby holds a couple of signature KFRO pieces — an advertising clock that would have been used to list programs airing that day and a radio that looks like a microphone that was used for promotional material for the station. It only plays KFRO, Rice said.

The Curtis family owned the station for many years, until Curtis’ son, J.R. Curtis Jr., sold it in 1998. The elder Curtis and his son have since died.

The station has changed hands and formats several times since then, with Rice shutting off the signal for a few months when he bought it and then broadcasting the Galaxy Nostalgia Network’s “Galaxy Moonbeam Nightsite” — a nostalgia talk program — since about 2017. After Sunday, that program will continue to air between 9 p.m. and midnight Sundays.

“I was trying to get a nostalgia feel for the station,” he said, to remind people about what KFRO used to be.

The station also will go back to using the term “The Voice of Longview” to brand itself.

“It hasn’t been called that since the Curtises sold it,” he said. “It’s important to tie it back to the city of Longview because it’s been gone for so long.”

“Everyone needs to know that it is truly a Longview station,” he said, adding that other television and radio stations have moved their base of operations out of the city.

Radios and other equipment he’s collected over the years fill the studio and another room in his house. Each piece has a story about how he obtained it.

During the holidays, the station broadcast Christmas music.

He said that on Sunday, he and Gilbert Smith, host with Galaxy Moonbeam Nightsite, will present a show at 8 p.m. about the history and future of KFRO. Then, the station will switch over to its new format.

“I wanted to make sure everything was just right before I started,” Rice said.