Brundage Mountain Air, Inc., owner of KMCL AM and FM for the past 14 years, has sold the FM station and handed over operation of the AM station to Boise broadcaster Dave Combes.
The sale is pending FCC approval of the license transfer. Brundage Mountain President David Eaton retired from broadcasting on Sunday after a 40 year career in radio and television.
Combes is part of Mountain Air, LLC, along with Holly Larson of Boise. Combes
also operates KIOV radio, a sports and sports talk station Dave Combes, in Boise.
Eaton purchased the local FM station in 1994. Events he organized included the Warmer Winters coat drive to benefit young children, the Barq's Root Beer National Garage Band.
Festival for teens with a musical bent, Women With Bait steelhead fishing derby, Snow Plow Salute, Mother's Day Make Over and The Payette Lake Wet Tee Shot Contest.
He also joined with others to establish girls soccer, create candidate forums, and get a new street sweeper for McCall. KMCL also initiated the campaign to buy a Zamboni ice resurfacing machine for McCall's volunteer ice rink.
In 1995, KMCL FM and AM became the first public voices in favor of building what is now Tamarack Resort, formerly WestRock.
The station ran editorials in favor of permitting the project and Eaton testified at every public hearing as a small business owner that would benefit from the economic development spin off of the resort.
Combes has pledged to continue and expand this level of community service, offering more local sports broadcasts, more local news and greater monitoring of local government.
"With all the changes taking place in the communications industry today I thought it was time to hang up my microphone," Eaton said.
"Dave Combes enthusiasm for local radio and his understanding of the needs of our listeners for immediate accurate, relevant information make him the perfect successor," he said.
Over the next few months listeners will hear "Dave Squared," with both personalities, on the air in the morning.
Eaton will remain a part of the operation during a 90-day transition.
Combes, 61, has been in broadcasting since the 1960s, working for television and radios stations in Boise.
He took a break from broadcasting to become a stockbroker and has owned KIOV since 1995.
His daughter and son-in-law, Michelle and Don Whipple, live in Cascade.
"I've got a granddaughter and a daughter here, and it's just the perfect four-season place, Combes said. "Boise doesn't have four seasons any more; it has hot and hotter."
