WNEG is a rarity these days. Founded by brothers Roy and Chuck Gaines in 1956, it’s an independent local broadcaster which dominates its community. Most radio today is generically syndicated with little or no connection to the community it serves, but not so with WNEG. The NEG in the call letters stands for North East Georgia, of course.
Downtown Toccoa Historic District, National Register of Historic Places
Art Sutton writes about the history of this building long after it served as a bank: After the Bank of Worth County moved to their new location, two of the major stockholders of the bank, Dr. J.M. Sutton and James Rouse formed Worth County Broadcasters, Inc. and started Worth County’s first radio station, WOGA, “WOrth county GA”. The station’s studios and offices were located in this building. The station’s 185 ft tower was located on Highway 256 (Scooterville Highway) at the city of limits of Sylvester. The station began operations in December 1963 at 1540 on the AM dial. It was a daytimer, only authorized by the Federal Communications Commission to operate from sunrise to sunset with 1,000 watts. The station had a variety music format and was very popular with local citizens but the station had limited financial success. In 1975, an Albany minister purchased the station and changed its format to religious then in 1979, Irv Feldman of Booneville, Mississippi relocated to Sylvester and returned local programming to the station. The call sign was changed from WOGA to WRSG for “Radio Sylvester Georgia” While Feldman likely built the station’s advertising revenues to their highest level ever, FM radio stations outside of Worth County were deeply eroding the audience levels of WRSG and other South Georgia AM stations. The station was sold once more before it left the airwaves and the license was cancelled by the FCC. I began my career in radio broadcasting at WOGA in 1977 at the age of 15. Now, 34 years later, I remain in the business and own a Toccoa, GA based group of radio stations operating in northeast Georgia, western North Carolina and upstate South Carolina.
Sylvester Commercial Historic District, National Register of Historic Places