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Tulare California was the first stop after WJML. Tulare is pronounced tuu-LAIR-ee and is in the heart of California's Central Valley

between Fresno and Bakersfield. It's a farming area near the Sierra Nevada Mountains making for an imposing view.

The station, KCOK at the time, was a 5,000 watt day time and 1,000 watt night time operation paired with KJUG-FM. This was the

first time I'd ever seen an automated radio operation. The billing and program logs were stored on 8 inch floppy discs, and the FM

Country format consisted of a syndicated program delivered on 12 inch tape reels. Tones embedded in the program triggered the local

commercial breaks. Commercials were played from Fidelipac cartridges housed in carousel players that were programmed

using what looked like a peg board with pegs, somewhat like golf tees inserted in the matrix. It was a separate staff that operated the

automation.

The AM side was 'live'. We selected our music out of a cardboard box sitting next to the audio console. There were no hot

clocks, station jingles or contests. It was pretty low key but my JML training kicked in and the program director never approached

me on my delivery style.

My stay at KCOK was brief, from late October until mid February. I was approached by Garry Brill who was building a station on the

Central Coast near San Luis Obispo and I was eager to leave.