Twelve-year-old Mary McCoy huddled over her radio outside the tent she lived in, hands trembling as she turned the dial. Tuning into radio stations helped tune out her poverty, but this time was different, radio offered a real escape. 

She stopped the dial at 900kHz, 1p.m., exactly as the KMCO radio manager said her pre-recorded audition would play. When her voice sang from the speakers, McCoy burst into tears.

In her mind, she already blew it.

“That’s the worst thing I’ve ever heard,” McCoy said. “That’s it. It’s over.” 

In reality that audition was just the beginning. Four days later, McCoy’s KMCO granted her wishes and signed her to a small Saturday record show. McCoy has remained on Conroe radio ever since that day 75 years ago.

Now 88 years old, McCoy is in the Radio Hall of Fame, Country Radio Hall of Fame and holds the Guinness Book of World Record for longest career as a female radio host.

“Radio was my life; radio is my life,” McCoy said. “I love radio and I love people. You have to love the people to be on the radio to do what you do. And I’ve loved every minute of it.”

McCoy still hosts on 99.7 FM on KVST from 10 a.m. to noon, Monday through Friday.

Born for this

McCoy’s earliest experience with radio arrived at 3 years old on the back porch of her Panola County farm. Sitting in her small rocking chair with her parents, they would tune into the Grand Ole Opry country radio show. Those nights shaped her.

“I’d rock away and sing along,” McCoy said. “I knew right then and there, I knew at that time what I wanted to do.” 

McCoy’s family left their homestead in 1949 to follow her dad’s employers, the Walker Brothers Lumber Company, which moved to Conroe during a boom in the local lumber industry.

McCoy lived her first four years in Conroe poor, sleeping in a saw-dust caked tent. At just 11 years old, poverty pushed McCoy into serving customers in a small downtown store called Wacker’s.

McCoy drove her dad to work in their Ford model A, then walked alone to school and work. Wacker’s fired McCoy a year later after a classmate offered McCoy a ride to work on his bicycle. Her manager saw the pair on the road and misunderstood the situation.

“He thought I was just playing, you know, goofing off and flirting,” McCoy said. “I said, ‘Please don’t fire me, because I’ve got to work to help my dad, my mom.’”

Despite losing the job, McCoy’s life changed for the better within the month after the 1951 Crighton Theater talent show. By chance, KMCO Radio Station Manager Jimmy Dorrell watched while McCoy sang “I Want to Be a Cowboy Sweetheart” by Patsy Montana. She won both the show and Dorrell’s attention.

After the show, Dorrell asked McCoy if she knew 15 minutes of songs she could perform on air. Guitar in hand, McCoy said yes. The recording played on KMCO at 1 p.m. that day. That’s when she cried.

“I thought that was the worst thing I’d ever heard in my life,” McCoy said. “I thought I was never going back, I thought my career was ended right now.”

McCoy’s career was far from dead. A week later Dorrell called McCoy, explaining the program earned a sponsorship from the Brown Sinclair Service Station. From then on, McCoy worked Saturdays on the Birthday and Anniversary Club program for $5 a week. “I Want to Be a Cowboy Sweetheart” eventually became her theme.

Four months later, McCoy moved into her dream job on the turntables.

“The DJ that was on the board came to me and said, ‘Mary, it’s sink or swim,’” McCoy said. “And he walked off. So guess what? I swam.”

McCoy worked records Monday through Saturday after school. On Saturdays, she would also drive roughly three hours to sing at the Big D Jamboree in Dallas. On top of everything, McCoy was an unpaid saleswoman. 

“I wanted to do everything I possibly could on the radio,” McCoy said. “I’d get off my show at 10 in the morning and I’d stop in every place I’d go to try and sell. My first manager said ‘Mary I’m gonna put an alarm on your watch so you know when to move on.’”

Meeting the King

McCoy would also organize KMCO sponsored music events. Her favorite was the 1955 Louisiana Hayride tour Aug. 24 at Conroe High School football field. The setlist featured performances from herself, Jim Reeves, George Jones, Jimmy Copeland, Scotty Moore and – most importantly – Elvis Presley.

Before the event, the king of Rock n’ Roll did an interview with KMCO’s station owner Reagan Smith. 

According to a Courier newspaper interview, McCoy’s friend Barbra Dampier was present for the interview, noting Presley was “fidgety” leading up to the performance and tinkered with a small piece of metal for the entire interview until it eventually broke.

The venue itself was homely; two flatbed trailers side-by-side parked in the middle of Tiger stadium.

“Elvis rode around the football field with his pink and black Cadillac and another Conroe guy rode around with his Cadillac right behind him,” McCoy said. “They were jealous; all the men were jealous of him.”

Hours away from performing, Presley approached McCoy, 16, at the stage steps looking to take her out to eat. 

“He said, ‘Well, why don’t we walk across the street and get a bite to eat before the show starts?’,” McCoy said. “I said ‘Sure.’ So. I got up and I was making my way up. But by the time I got up, he had 15 girls lined up behind him. I said, ‘Elvis, you go on. I’ll be here when you get back.’”

Presley returned that night, happy to see McCoy waiting for him. That’s when they took a photo together.

Now, McCoy has an entire room dedicated to Presley with thousands of dollars worth of merchandise she’s curated through gifts over her years in radio – few she actually bought herself. McCoy said her love for Presley begins with how his Rock n’ Roll flipped her music world upside down

“When came on the scene he changed the music,” McCoy said. “Everybody loved Elvis. His voice was just different. I mean I love country of course, but Elvis could sing. I could listen to him sing gospel music all day long.”

Her own Legacy

McCoy stepped beyond the air five years later, producing her first record with The Cyclones called “Deep Elm Blues” in a pair-up she describes as the “hottest rock n’ roll band around” meets “country as country can be.” 

The first time she heard the record on air was in a car ride with her manager.

“As he was changing stations, I heard the end of it,” McCoy said. “When he went to the next station, they were also playing it. He had to about tie me down, I was so excited.”

Over her first decade of radio, McCoy already built a strong radio reputation. According to an interview with The Guardian, McCoy would force advertisers and their romantic pursuits out the door after setting sales agreements.

KNRO Radio Station Owner Rigby Owens Jr. especially wanted McCoy’s talent. McCoy said Owens constantly asked her to transfer stations. She constantly responded with a hard no. By 1974 Owens took matters into his own hands.

“I told them, ‘KMCO, that’s my home. I grew up in that station,’” McCoy said. “Well, after a few weeks, I saw Rigby over at (my) station, and I wondered what he was doing here. The next thing I knew, he bought the radio station.”

Under Owen’s ownership, KMCO became KIKR and switched to FM 106.9. McCoy stood by her radio station until 1992 when the Owen family sold KIKR to Jimmy Swaggart Ministries which broke McCoy’s heart. 

McCoy’s next radio gig was a short search; K-Star radio immediately took her under their wing as another country radio personality which she still works as today with her co-host of 27 years, Larry Galla.

McCoy admits modern DJ equipment boggles her. The latest equipment McCoy worked on were in her late 20s as radio stations transitioned from classic turntables to cassette tapes which she praised for the ease of use.

“Even then I preferred the turntables,” McCoy said. “But of course with me, I can go along with everything. It was always fun, just more fun with the turntables for me. But you did have more freedom with the tapes, just put them in the machine.”

At the station, Galla runs the audio side while McCoy works the mic. Both watched as radio evolved from records, to cassettes in the ‘70s, to CDs in the ‘80s and now digitalization.

“I probably miss (records) more than she does,” Galla said. “Boy, I had fun loading up and queuing records. Not a lot of margin for error, now-a-days there is almost no margin for error.”

More than records themselves, Galla misses the thrill of working a table with listeners reliant on his skills. DJ roles are replaced with automated digital systems as technology advances; Galla praises that tech for its ease of use, but fears radio is headed down a path of complete automation.

“(This) Generation doesn’t know radio personalities like when we were growing up,” Galla said. “My idol was a guy named Steve Lundy. When I listened to him, I always thought ‘Man this guy is having so much fun.’ There were so many personalities from all over the nation.”

As radio stations are forced into automated streaming, they lose control to not only select songs, but also spotlight growing artists like KMCO with Elvis Presley in 1955. Galla said streaming is eliminating record companies.

 “As my dad used to say, ‘Everybody and their dog can do it,’” Galla said. “The whole industry is saturated with music, people fall through the cracks. I doubt there’s ever going to be another like George Strait or somebody of his caliber that was popular for so long because there is just so much out there.”

McCoy’s a sucker radio – but even more – she’s a sucker for her local community. Through the changes in radio McCoy misses Conroe’s small town feel most.

“It’s unreal the way it’s grown,” McCoy said. “I realize things have to change but it’s hard for me to accept it, because I have to accept it, because I remember how it was. But I’ve loved every minute of it, no matter where I’m at I’ll always come back to radio.”

Injury

2013 tested McCoy’s stamina after a fall while at home that fractured her neck. She recounts standing at her bar before dozing off and collapsing. An 8-hours surgery left McCoy in a Halo Brace for three months.

“I looked like Frankenstein,” McCoy said. “I still have holes in my head where they had the screws.”

Despite her injury, McCoy still felt a duty to record. 

“I said, ‘Larry, I can work that show with you,’” McCoy said. “He just laughed at me and said ‘What makes you say that?’ I said, ‘Just try me.’”

McCoy recorded from her hospital-grade bed every morning. The injury left McCoy struggling to move her head and now reliant on her daughter, Kim Stout, for transportation. 

“They don’t let me drive any more because they’re afraid I’m gon’ run someone over,” McCoy said. “But it’s not the same when (you have to be driven). When I could drive, I could stay doing sales for as long as I wanted too. I just love my people and that’s what gets me.”

Still Spinning.

As of 2025, McCoy’s received over a dozen honors including murals, a bronze bust, the Texas Radio Hall of Fame, National Radio Hall of Fame, Texas Daughters of the American Revolution Media Award, Country Music Associate of Texas heritage award and most recently, the Country Radio Hall of Fame. 

“I can’t express how happy this has made me feel,” McCoy said in the 2010 Texas Radio Hall of Fame induction. “… I just wanted to put a smile on somebody’s face.”

Through her seven decades on air, McCoy acknowledged her time to permanently hang up her headset looms ahead.

“I’ve gone as far as I can go in radio,” McCoy said. “And I know that the time is coming, that I’m gonna have to hang it up but you know what honey, I just don’t know how I’m gonna do it. I just cannot picture myself walking out that door for the last time.”

McCoy said she’ll need to be dragged from the station the day she retires. McCoy reaffirms that as long radio keeps people entertained, then radio will stay.

“Don’t give up on something you love doing,” McCoy said. “If you want to be something; be somebody; you will do it. But you really have to love what you do. And that’s what I’ve done all my life.”