SUNDAYS 9AM

Salwa Khan: Scott Baker’s show is called Wimberley Worship and it’s on from nine to ten AM on Sundays. Scott, let’s start with a little background on yourself.

Scott Baker: I made it to Texas pretty early; they say Yankee by birth, Texas by the grace of God. My parents moved here when I was in sixth grade, and I did most of my growing up in Texas. I went off to school in Tennessee at Vanderbilt and did ROTC through that program.
After I graduated, I went to the 36th Engineer Regiment out of Fort Hood and then did my deployment to Iraq in 2011. When I got out, I was at Fort Hood, just down the street from Austin. I didn't plan to come home quite so fast, meaning come back to Texas. But since the Army had moved me there, that's when I came back to Austin.
I went to St. Edward's University, got my business degree and worked for Apple part time while going to school full time. I got my MBA and had a decision to make. Did I want to try to push that into more of a career at Apple, or open up my own thing in this new town that we had just moved to, in Wimberley?
I decided on the latter and opened up a store called Wimberley Mac. Then we got a partnership with Apple and changed the name to a more global one, Mr. Mac. We've been doing that for almost seven years, just having a really good time helping support the Apple community here in Wimberley, and now at Kissing Tree over in San Marcos.
We had a (physical) store in the Wimberley Mountain Plaza, but after COVID we moved everything online. We've been online since October 2022, and that's been really good for the growth of the company. I’ve moved into the thing that I do best and worked on when I was at Apple, which was customer service and software support. We do support and moved out of hardware repair because modern computers are really not repairable. So that's been going great for us.

Salwa Khan:
Tell me how you became interested in radio and how did you come to KWVH?

Scott Baker:
I've always loved radio. If you have something to say, it's really the perfect platform for it. It’s been good, growing up, to listen to music and talk radio. 

When Mr. Mac joined the Wimberley Chamber of Commerce, we did a little 30-minute program where they (KWVH) interview small businesses who are chamber members and new to the community. And so that's how I got to know the station. Then I started doing a guest appearance every month on the Rural Genius with Dr. Hilda Carpenter and Dixie Newman. I really have a blast doing that, just keeping everything focused on new Apple technology.
When Tim Kiesling came on, he said, I heard that you were interested in doing a Praise and Worship Hour. I think he heard this from my dad, John McGimsey, who's on the (KWVH) board. Tim said, right now we just run the same 60-minute program every Sunday from nine to ten AM. It'd be nice if someone got in there and changed it up every week. I said, yeah, I’m definitely interested in doing that, and so that's when Wimberley Worship was born.

Salwa Khan:
How did the idea for the show come about? What inspired you?

Scott Baker:
I love praise and worship. That was the main thing, and, like I said, I've always loved radio and wanting to DJ. It's just something that I’ve always been interested in.

I thought about doing a second show and maybe doing something more technology related along with the Rural Genius. I just don't have the time right now, but I definitely have the time for that main interest of praise and worship music and just glorifying God by doing that.
I take a little pride in being able to bring some of the deeper cuts to the program and it's because there's just some really good stuff that doesn't get airplay. Some of the best praise and worship crosses that nine, ten, eleven-minute mark, because it takes that long to really get into the spirit, get into the places where the connections really happen. So that's some of my favorite stuff to pull up and I hope that we reach some of the audience that listens. I mean, I know we do. I'm hearing comments throughout the week and when I'm at the Blanco Brew or whatever.

Salwa Khan: If someone hadn't heard your show before and was thinking of tuning in, what might they expect to hear?

Scott Baker:
They're going to hear the most talented humans who've been given the gift of praising God. It says in the Bible that the throne of our Father is built with the praise that we do here as his creation. If that's what you're looking to do, you get to follow some of the best praise and worship leaders as they put together some of the best work.
You can praise and worship on your own, but some people are just so anointed and gifted with it, this is where they can come to hopefully capture one of the styles that speaks to them.

Salwa Khan:
Is the program all music?
Scott Baker:
It's ninety percent music. The other ten percent is maybe a mix between some instrumental and some spoken word. As an example, Steve Harvey has this really amazing three-minute introduction of Jesus Christ that he delivered from the stage, back in like 2004 or 2005. We've played that before. There's a couple of other ones that are short messages that either precede or end the song.

Salwa Khan:
How do you go about producing your show? What's your process?

Scott Baker:
I’ve got two ways that I do it. The main way is by listening to praise and worship on my own throughout the week, and just going deeper into the different genres and artists. Then also just keeping up to date on what's new, because there's been some really good stuff breaking out from Brandon Lake and from Maverick City.
Secondarily, people send me stuff. I’ve got friends and family that, if they find something good, they'll send it my way, and then they get to hear it on the radio. That's kind of fun for them.
I put the show together and oftentimes there's a connection from the start, the message from the artist at the beginning to the closing message at the end. And that's not me, you know, that's just Holy Spirit led. I'm really blessed when that happens. 

The rest is more traditional in terms of keeping the tempo to make sense, like building it with slower songs to faster songs, because praise and worship covers all different styles and speeds.
You got soaking music, you just kind of soak it in, let the spirit speak to you. You got praise, where you just want to jump up and down. You got marches where it's time to kind of get to work and pursue the kingdom. I prepare the audience a little bit to say, hey look, just so you know, this is a soak, so if you're doing something right now, put it down, and go lay on the couch.

Salwa Khan: Is praise and worship a music category? 



Scott Baker:
I think praise and worship would be a general category to describe everything that has Christian themes but goes across all genres.

Salwa Khan:
What are the challenges of doing the show?

Scott Baker:
The main thing that I work on is to stay fresh. Music seems to go through release cycles. This is my own personal observation, just as a consumer of music. It seems like, all of a sudden in the summer of ‘95, we'll have ten amazing songs. Those get played for a long time. Then we’ll have another little breakout. So just making sure to not overplay things and to keep my attention to what's new out there.

Salwa Khan:
What are the rewards of doing the show?

Scott Baker:
The main reward is getting to listen to praise and worship. I'm thankful that I have an opportunity to soak it up. The second benefit probably is being able to talk with other people and to get those recommendations. You learn about people from the art that they produce or art that they consume. When I get songs sent to me by my friends and family, I get to learn what kind of things speak to them and so that's been really neat.

Salwa Khan:
Thank you, Scott.