When a three-day on-air funding drive fell $6,275 short of a goal needed to expand central Arkansas’s public radio signal, KUAR General Manager Ben Fry feared the station would miss the chance to improve the signal, reduce operating costs, and save the eventual expense of new tower construction.

But by the following Monday morning, Fry and all public radio fans in central Arkansas received an early holiday gift from Harold Gwatney of Gwatney Chevrolet in Jacksonville. The car executive spends much time in his car driving from his family’s dealerships in central Arkansas and Memphis, and he loves to listen to KUAR.

“I received a call this morning from Harold Gwatney, who asked how much we needed to make our goal for the tower campaign. I told him $6,275, and Mr. Gwatney said he would give us the remaining amount,” Fry said. “He hopes the move to the new tower will allow him to listen to KUAR longer during his drives.”

Gwatney’s gift, plus a challenge grant from the Rebsamen Fund, and the hundreds of individual contributors who called in during the Tower Campaign will make the new tower a reality.

“We weren’t sure how well this drive would go. We’ve never done a special on-air drive like this,” Fry said. “We’d just completed an on-air drive in early October, so we didn’t know whether people would be willing to make a second gift that soon. We were delighted by the response.”

More than 570 people responded to the end-of-the-year campaign.

“We had several people that gave gifts of $500, $750 or $1,000, but even more folks gave us gifts of $20, $25, $50, $100 – whatever they could afford. It proves again what I’ve always believed,” Fry said. “You can count on public radio listeners to support what they believe in.”

He said construction at the new KATV tower site will begin this summer, with the goal of getting KUAR’s antenna and transmitter moved by the end of 2011.