After seventy years on the radio, Billy Burrell decided it was time to move on. His reason? “The Lord started this thing,” Burrell explained on the air to his co-worker Joel Williams, “and the Lord told me when to quit.” When asked about the longevity of his radio career, Burrell said, “I didn’t have any idea of how long this would last. It was a day to day thing.”
Burrell is a life-time early riser, getting up at 3:30 each morning. At 92, he still gets only 6 hours each night, but he also takes a long, two-hour nap after lunch each day. His radio schedule has fit easily into his natural sleep patterns.
That day-to-day gig included two radio stations in Toccoa and then Cornelia’s WCON. At one point, Burrell moved to Mississippi and would mail his broadcasts in to WCON on cassette tapes.
Technology challenged
Burrell has seen tremendous change in radio during his career. “I began on a 250 watt station. Today we’re at 100,000 watts here. That’s a major change,” Burrell said.
Burrell broadcasted from a studio with seven computer monitors, but he used only his microphone and the sound board. Burrell shared, ” One of the reasons I’m bowing out is all this technology we have today. I don’t know how to use it!” After Burrell’s show, he packed up two toolboxes with the CDs he had used on the air that morning. He recognized the significance of the moment. “Do you know they won’t even have a CD player in any of the studios here. I carry my CDs with me and that’s all I use.
Burrell’s broadcast, entitled Sunshine Melodies, was a combination of gospel songs and Billy’s unscripted life testimony in every word he spoke. He was unashamedly and unapologetically a preacher and a Christian believer on air. He was also someone his listening fans felt they knew personally. Burrell has lost track of the number of funerals he’s led for radio listeners, sometimes as many as two a day.
Burrell will continue to do funerals. He stresses, “I’ve told my listeners, I’m just retiring from the radio, not from preaching. As long as God opens the doors for me, I will continue to preach, do funerals, do interims for churches . . . whatever God has for me.”
Burrell’s successor
Mike Franklin, the senior pastor of The Torch in Cornelia, will step into Burrell’s place on Monday, July 4th. Franklin is also an early riser and looks forward to continuing Burrell’s legacy of “in your face” Christian programming.
Franklin credits John, Clayton, and David Foster, WCON’s owners, as the force behind the strong, Christian focus. “John Foster is the one who hired Billy Burrell seventy years ago and he’s the one who hired me,” Franklin explained. “When John Clayton hired me, he told me I can do or say anything on the air as long as God spoke it.”
Franklin’s version of the show will be slightly different than Burrell’s, but the focus will stay the same. “We’ll offer music that is more in tune with today’s churches, more contemporary, and I’ll have segments on God’s Word for the day,” Franklin states. Regardless of those changes, the show will continue to be unashamedly and unapologetically Christian.
Franklin’s show can be heard from 5:30-6:00 am on WCON 93.3 and and on The Breeze 107.7.
