Radio New Braunfels
Women that make an Impact

By Betty Taylor
Photos by Sarah Griffin

Ask any of the women employed at KGNB/KNBT radio about their job description, and you will find that their job titles change depending on the day, hour or shift. And that’s just the way they like it.
For them, radio has been a way of life – even before some of them knew it.
Darlene Cook has worked for the station for 26 years, but she had not originally planned on pursuing a career in radio sales.
“I was a stay-at-home mom, and then I began working part-time at a clothing retail store,” she said.
“The sales rep who called on the store kept asking me if I wanted to join the sales team at the radio station, and I finally did.”
Cook, who was raised in New Braunfels and joined the radio station when it was owned by Herb Skoog, said she enjoys working in sales and watching businesses grow. Cook works as the senior advertising consultant for the station.
The fact that the majority of KGNB/KNBT employees are female (of the fourteen full-time employees, eight are women) is nothing new – at least not for the New Braunfels market. “New Braunfels has never been driven by the industry norm or by national statistics,” Cook said.
KGNB 1420 AM features local, regional and national news, sports and weather, as well as community issues shows, such as the long-running Comments. KNBT 92.1 FM was voted the number one Americana station in the country in 1999 and 2001 (which was the last year the award was given) by Gavin Magazine. Both stations reach listeners in Comal, Hays and Guadalupe counties. KGNB has a weekly listening audience of 68,000. KNBT has a weekly listening audience of 52,000, and an unlimited capacity for internet listeners.
Natascha Pannell, an advertising consultant, said this was the first time in her career that she had worked at a station where the majority of employees were female.
The Canyon High School graduate started out as a receptionist at a radio station in her home country of the Bahamas. “It was the first privately-owned station in the country – 100 Jamz,” Pannell said. After two months at the station, she began working full time in the sales department.
“I love finding out about other people’s businesses,” she said. “And this is the most effective advertising medium they can use. Helping businesses grow makes me feel good.”
After working at KCCY in Colorado Springs, Pannell came back to New Braunfels and joined KNBT/KGNB in 2005. “Of course, as a salesperson in general, you are dealing with rejection everyday,” she said. “But for every time someone tells us no, there is someone closer to telling us yes.”
For Darleen Dixon, radio was something she dreamed of since she was young.
“I have actually been a radio junkie since I was a little kid,” she said. “I would listen to Bruce Hathaway on KTSA when they still played music.”
When Dixon’s family moved to Spain during her middle-school years, she listened to Armed Forces Radio. “And then in high school, I watched ‘WKRP in Cincinnati,’” she said. “I wanted to be like Dr. Johnny Fever. There were no women DJs. I wanted to be a rocker DJ like Johnny Fever.”
During her first semester at San Antonio College studying mass communications, the Smithson Valley High School graduate joined KZEP (classic rock) on the overnight shifts.
“I just remember writing Chris Winston this convincing letter,” she said. “I told him I would be willing to sweep up floors . . . you have to be willing to start at the bottom.”
Dixon worked full time overnight for two years before being fired from KZEP. But she remarked that in radio, getting fired is something that happens frequently.
She went on to jobs with Metro Traffic doing news for KKYX and traffic for several San Antonio stations, as well as stints at KPAC Texas Public Radio, and Magic 105.3 FM, before she landed her dream job at 99.5 KISS.
“I worked at 99.5 KISS part-time for five years, working every Saturday and Sunday, and filling in regularly on the ‘nooner’ and sometimes on the Lisle and Hahn Morning Show,” she said.
She knew it was time for a change when she realized she was listening to KGNB/KNBT more than the station where she was employed. She joined the New Braunfels Americana station in March of 2004.
Now, she works as music director, promotions director and as an on-air personality (join Dixon beginning at 11 a.m. weekdays on KNBT for the ‘Two Step Café’).
Dixon believes more women are coming into the radio business. “Public radio has opened a lot of doors for women,” she said.
But there is still an issue of industry perception.
“You’ll hardly ever see two women hosting a show together,” she said.
“When I was filling in on the morning show with a woman at one of the previous stations where I worked, I was warned that if we talked too much it could be taken as us being catty.”
But the women of KGNB/KNBT are too busy for that kind of stuff. They have better things to do.
When Tiffany Banks isn’t on the air in the mornings (on the Americana Show with Wayne and Tiffany, beginning at 5:30 a.m. weekdays on KNBT) or doing a live remote in the afternoons, she is working as a sales rep.
“Because we wear so many hats, we are seeing the client’s product from beginning to end,” she said. “There is no one else who is a copy writer. No one else is creating the ad campaign. This gives the client the advantage (of having one person oversee the product).”
Banks said she always knew she wanted to talk, so radio was a natural fit for her.
At 16, in her small hometown of Dumas, just north of Amarillo, she went to work at the local radio station, organizing the office and writing obituaries. Before long, she was filling in as on-air talent on weekends, and doing voice overs for commercials. When she moved to the afternoon drive time, she would head directly to the station after school to make it to her afternoon shift.
Her teachers were impressed. She received calls from colleges even before sending in applications – teachers had sent in letters of recommendation.
While receiving her associate’s degree in journalism from South Plains College in Levelland, Banks took on jobs at two Lubbock radio stations, a production company and worked as a producer at a television station.
Banks pursued her undergraduate degree at Texas State University, at which time she came to work at KGNB as a reporter and on-air personality before graduating in 2003. She left to join a Shreveport radio station, before rejoining KGNB/KNBT in 2004.
She finds wearing her many ‘hats’ challenging, but can’t imagine it any other way. And she enjoys all the perks that her job brings her.
“I meet tons of new people every week. I get to help a hometown business open its doors. I get to be a part of that,” she said. “And I work at a station that plans a birthday party and 2,000 people show up (Crossroads America was April 15 at Landa Park). Talk about fun!”
She has met Willie Nelson, she added as a sidenote.
But, like her counterparts, she has paid her dues along the way. For those wanting to get into the business, she has this advice, “Work smart. Do not be scared to work hard. Take the trash out and write stories you don’t want to write, because if you say no, someone else will say yes.”
Banks believes that women in media, or in business in general, also have an added challenge. “Men can be silly and joke on the air, but if women do that, they seem less than intelligent,” she said.
“You want to be smart and driven and determined and also kind and ethical. If you make an unethical decision to get there, then none of it counts.”
Banks said that women in media, and in business, need to find a balance between being intelligent without being rough around the edges.
“It’s knowing when to stand up for yourself and when to be Miss Manners,” Banks said. “I think that’s a daily challenge for a lot of working women.”