“I just always was fascinated with radio when I was a kid,” Eichor said. “And I had a big brother who was into all kinds of building things like model airplanes and electronic stuff and he built me a little mixer board and a microphone and I had a 45 RPM record player and I would pretend to be a DJ.”

It’s been decades since Eichor has had to pretend, and next month he will be celebrating 61 years working as a radio DJ. If you’re from the Fort Dodge area, you’ve probably heard his voice on KWMT AM540 “True Country.”

Eichor grew up in Casey, near Adair, graduating high school in 1956. After graduation, he moved to Omaha to work at U.S. National Bank. In the evenings, he attended classes at the Radio Engineering Institute technical school.

“I earned my FCC first-class operator’s license, which back in those days, you pretty much needed if you worked in a radio station,” he explained.

-Messenger photo by Kelby Wingert
Dale Eichor, a DJ at KWMT AM540 in Fort Dodge, has been on airwaves for more than 60 years and was inducted in the Country Music DJ Hall of Fame in 2001.

While in Omaha, Eichor met his wife of 60 years, Caroline.

“She’s been a great supporter of me and my chasing my radio dreams,” Dale Eichor said.

The Eichors soon moved to Denison, where he took his first radio job at KDSN from 1960-1962. The couple then moved to Shenandoah, where Dale worked at KMA until 1967.

One of Eichor’s most memorable broadcasts, he said, was having to share the news of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963.

“My first two stations in Denison and Shenandoah, I played all kinds of music,” he said. “I did some engineering, going out and doing ballgames and I’d run the setup, the remote and things like that.”

-Submitted photo
KWMT AM540 radio DJ Dale Eichor poses for a photo with country music superstar Garth Brooks and Eichor's wife Caroline in this undated photograph.

But once a week, on Saturday night in Shenandoah, Eichor hosted a country music show and he fell in love with country music. His desire to be a full-time country DJ led him to KBUC in San Antonio from 1967 to 1968.

In 1968, Eichor and his wife moved up to Peoria, Illinois, and he started at WXCL from 1968 to 1972. This was where the couple’s son, Tim, was born.

With a new infant, the Eichors wanted to be closer to family, which led to their move to Fort Dodge in 1972.

“A mentor of mine, Mike Hoyer, we worked together in Shenandoah and then he was working here,” Dale Eichor said. “And he says ‘Hey, we’ve got a job opening here, why don’t you come on up and do it?'”

So for nearly the last 50 years, Eichor’s been DJing “True Country” for Fort Dodge and the surrounding area.

-Submitted photo
Dale Eichor, DJ on KWMT 540AM in Fort Dodge, was brought out on stage at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville by country singer-songwriter Bill Anderson after Anderson was inducted in the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2001. The same year, Eichor was inducted into the Country Music DJ Hall of Fame.

At nearly 61 years behind the mic, Eichor has been on the AM radio airwaves for more than half the time AM radio has existed. AM radio broadcasting began around 1920.

In 2001, Eichor was inducted into the Country Music Disc Jockey Hall of Fame in Nashville, but that wasn’t his first award. He was named the Country Music Association DJ of the Year for small markets in 1974 and he was named Billboard’s Program Director of the Year for small markets in 1989, among other honors.

Over the years, Eichor has had the opportunity to meet some of country music’s biggest stars — Dolly Parton and Porter Wagoner; Alan Jackson; George Strait; Ernest Tubb; Hank Snow; Don Gibson; Garth Brooks and more. Some of the artists were already stars when he met them, but some he met while they were up-and-coming.

“Vince Gill had a slow start in his career, but I always knew he’d be a success,” Eichor said. “When I first met Reba McEntire, she was just a struggling singer, playing in rodeos and stuff.”

Eichor noted how down-to-earth many of these superstars are.

-Submitted photo
Dale Eichor and his wife Caroline stop for a photo with country music legend George Strait during the Iowa State Fair many years ago.

“What I noticed down through the years was the ones that really make it bigger — maybe they had to struggle a lot to get there — but when they do make it, they’re the nicest people to deal with,” he said. “The bigger the star, it seemed like the nicer they are.”

Eichor retired from Clear Channel Radio, which owned KWMT at the time, in 2004, but remains on the air in the summer and fall doing part time fill-in. He also emcees and plays music at various country and bluegrass festivals in Iowa, Nebraska and Minnesota. He is self-taught on the guitar and bass.

Looking back at that little boy playing on the mixer board his brother made him all those years ago, Eichor sees how far he’s come in his broadcasting career, and thinks about what that young Dale would think about it.

“He would say that it’s a pretty wild dream,” he said. “No way. I couldn’t imagine this back then.”

-Submitted photo
Dale Eichor, DJ on KWMT 540AM in Fort Dodge, was inducted into the Country Music DJ Hall of Fame in 2001.