Tuesdays 1-2pm

Salwa Khan
I'm speaking with Gary Zupancic, and his show is At the Hitchin’ Post. It's on 1 to 2:00 PM on Tuesdays. Give us a little about your background, and how you got interested in radio.

Gary Zupancic
When I was 16, my dad had a friend that was a disc jockey on a jazz type of stuff back then.They played standards, but it really got me interested in seeing how radio works. As I got further into high school, I had a television program with a friend, because they had internal TV. I really wanted to go to a big university that had a program, but my parents said, no, get your Bachelor's in anything you want, and after that you can do whatever you want. I did that. I became a legal assistant for Gulf Oil. I did that for about five years. I knew I had to get out of it because it wasn't really me.
I was able to go back to school and I got a whole bunch of TV credits and was able to do an internship at KUHT, the PBS station in Houston. I advanced there. I got to be a producer, director, writer for KTHT TV 67. Things for me dried up in Houston, so we moved to Austin and I went back to school. I got my master's degree and decided I wanted to teach. I taught television and video photography, that type of stuff.

Afterwards I got a job with the Wimberley View (newspaper), and I was a reporter there for eight years, and a photographer. I just loved it, but I wanted to get back in media. There’s something about live broadcasting.
At the Hitchin’ Post, it's a lot of fun because what I get to do is talk to people from the Wimberley community that I really like. There’s a lot of people that do things in town that you heard their name, but you have no idea who they are, such as the mayor or council people. We've had authors, musicians, teachers, we've had librarians. They're all from the Wimberley Valley; there's a lot of talent here, a lot of really great people. I felt we weren't covering that on a local radio station.

Gary Zupancic
I've been with the radio station for about eight years. What I do on Wednesday morning is bring in the Wimberley View News, the headlines, and I've been doing that for about eight years or so. I'm retired. This is what I always wanted to do with my life, on the radio. I realized that my skills are in interviewing people. I could probably be a disc jockey, but I'd probably be boring. I can't be anything like Jay Gardner, who's one of my heroes, a matter of fact.

Salwa Khan
How did you come up with the title of your show?

Gary Zupancic
Back in the old West, people would come into Wimberley, they'd come into town once a month for provisions and supplies and that type of stuff. And I always figured, Hey, there was a hitching post in front of King Feed or something similar. The old timers would either sit on the porch or gather at the hitching post when somebody came in and talk about the local news. I thought that was just wonderful <laugh>.

Salwa Khan
How do you go about producing your show?

Gary Zupancic
I have Pamela Phillips produce it. She's wonderful. We were both working at the high school along with Coach. There's a lot of camaraderie there. I book the guests and Pamela always adds in a good question or two. She's really fantastic. I love working with her.

Salwa Khan
So you find the people, is that right?

Gary Zupancic
Yes. Usually all I have to do is go on my contact list, because I did a story on them, like five years ago.

Salwa Khan
What can people expect to hear when they listen to your show

Gary Zupancic
I'll tell you what, at the very end, we play Wimberley Strong by Robin Ludwig. That was a song about the flood back in 2015. And the community, kids are singing it. So really, that's what we're trying to portray. Usually I start out by asking a person where they grew up, what was it like, where did they go to grade school? Did they move around? Where was your high school, where you went to college, why you went to college, just always good background.
After the first couple of minutes, I can usually get them to relax because I tell everybody, this is a casual chat. It's just me and you in a conversation. So I feel like I've done my job if I can make them relax, and usually at the end of the program they go, is that really a whole hour? That's why I call it the quickest hour in radio

Salwa Khan
What are the challenges and rewards of doing your show?

Gary Zupancic
Well, challenges, sometimes finding somebody that really would fit the qualifications to be on the show. You take a lot of things into account. You're taking the time of the year, what's going on in town, such as Christmas will be coming up, and there'll be a lot of people talking about all the events that are coming up.
I try to book a couple weeks in advance and sometimes things are going on, people can't make it. But, I've been really lucky, being able to have a good guest on every week. And when somebody says, I heard you and I really liked your show, that's the reward.

I really try to look at this as a job informing the community, trying to keep them together, trying to bind them together, with different people and events coming up, and people that they should know. We've had the fire chief on, the mayor and these are people that are really important, and they're part of our community.