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Our Story
The seeds for the
beginning of WRMK go back to the beginning of Good News Church. From
the church's inception, Pastor Matt Judd had said that through the
ministries of Good News Church, the
Word of God
would go out in print, on billboards, through radio and television.
So in the spring of 2000 when a fellow minister who owns a
broadcast radio
network approached Pastors Matt & Suzie with news of a unique
opportunity which the
FCC had created to license a series of low-power
FM radio stations to non-profit organizations, what had once
seemed like a far off dream, suddenly began to take root in their
hearts. Because of a limited time window, applications and
engineering documents were quickly prepared and filed with the FCC,
and then faith and patience went to work. Over the next several
months, despite many attempts from lobbyists from powerful
broadcasting moguls to kill the low-power FM initiative in both
houses of congress, in April of 2001 the FCC granted seventeen
initial construction permits out of thousands of applicants. Of
course, one of the recipients of a permit was Good News Church of
Augusta, Georgia. Good News Church now had eighteen months to
construct a station and get it on the air. Equipment was researched,
selected, and now Pastors Matt & Suzie had to believe in over
$25,000 to launch the station. In November of 2001, Pastor Suzie's
father, Ralph Kennedy, went home to be with the Lord. One of Ralph's
dreams had been to start a radio station in the
CSRA to
broadcast the Word of
Faith message. Ralph's wife Martha felt led to request that
memorial gifts for Ralph be used to start the yet un-named station.
Pastors Matt & Suzie desired to name the station in honor of Ralph
and Martha Kennedy, and applied for the call letters WRMK. Following
the memorial service, over $20,000 in gifts poured in from around
the country. Equipment was purchased, but there were still many
obstacles to overcome, including gaining clearance from the
FAA to build a
transmitter tower when an original arrangement to host the WRMK
antenna on a nearby cell tower fell through with little time left on
the construction permit. Once again, God was faithful and despite
unfavorable circumstances, all the proper permissions were granted
in record time, and the tower went up. WRMK signed on the air
shortly after 11:00 am on Sunday September 30th, 2002. Under
Low-Power FM regulations, WRMK's signal is limited to 100 watts,
which covers a radius of 4 to 6 miles
around the transmitter location on Warren Rd which allows the
station to cover almost all of Augusta/Richmond County, parts of
Columbia County,
and
Aiken County SC. The FCC granted the actual
broadcast license on January 29th, 2003. Though many other
construction permits have been granted to low-power FM applicants,
only a small handful have received a broadcast license. WRMK, Faith
100.3 is pleased to broadcast the
Word of Faith message,
and powerful praise
and worship music 24 hours a day to the CSRA.
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