RADIO 2AY will ring in its 90th birthday this week, but it's not the only celebration for the Albury station's breakfast announcers.
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Kev Poulton and Kylie King will expand their audience next year by also broadcasting their program to Wangaratta's 3NE.
It's a huge turnaround, after the pair were told in May they were being shunted to afternoons and 2AY listeners would hear a breakfast program from Warrnambool.
Incidentally, Poulton and King will replace Kate Meade and Sean Cullen on 3NE, the team who were set to takeover their 2AY slot before a Border backlash.
"To have them (managers) hear the concern of the community and them then appreciate the value of what we're doing, that gave them a real life example of how important it is what we do and obviously perhaps a new lens to appreciate the product that they have," Poulton said.
"For me personally you wear it as a badge of pride that your work is good enough to be duplicated."
King said the coronavirus and the traumatic closure of NSW to Victorians from July to November underlined the value of having a show knitting together cross border concerns.
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"It's very much shown the power of radio, you sort of underestimate the association people have with trusted news and information until there is a crisis," King said.
"You're trying to convey the states of fear and frustration with the border closure and then celebrating the businesses pivoting and the resilience of the community.
"It reminded me of what a privilege it is to be that conduit."
The Wodonga mayor and motor racing journalist will be heard from Monday January 11 on 3NE, which came under the same ownership as 2AY in 2017.
More immediately, they will be saluting nine decades of broadcasting on Thursday, with December 17, 1930 the date Albury's first radio station hit the airwaves.
The station has had various studios around the city since that time, with a former takeaway chicken shop in Hume Street having been 2AY's home since 2008.
Although this year from March to November, because of COVID concerns, King was broadcasting from her home, while Poulton was in the studio.
In the lead-up to Thursday, news announcer and former breakfast host Andy Walker has been interviewing past announcers and listeners have been reminiscing.
Of all staff, newsreader Paul McSwiney who overcame lymphoma in 2019-20 after treatment at the Albury-Wodonga cancer centre, is the most enduring.
He has been there for more than 40 years, having called Ovens and Murray football in 1983 when Gary Ablett senior spent a season with Myrtleford.
