WTHN - A History
WTHN-AM 930 Haines City – Starting out in 1960 as WHAN, Haines City’s Oldies station WFXI was sold to the Law family in 1984 and the call letters switched to WTHN (WinTerHaveN). The station continued to program an Oldies format and operate only during daytime hours with 500 watts of power from studios on SR 544 east of US 27. Al Brady, who managed the operation during the WFXI years, stayed on through the ownership change to run things.
This reason for the call letter change, and this set of calls specifically, was probably because the new owners wanted to more closely align the station with the city of Winter Haven for revenue purposes. An auxiliary studio was established at the Chain O’ Lakes complex there, although the station remained licensed to Haines City.
In 1986 after it had gone silent, a member of Haines City’s Landmark Baptist Church bought WTHN and donated it to the church. As expected, the music format was dumped and the call letters switched to Southern Gospel WLVF (We’re Landmark’s Voice of Faith). For a few years the operation was a stand-alone AM but a sister station was added in 1990, WLVF-FM 90.3.
In the mid 1990’s the church acquired and began renovating downtown Haines City’s historic Polk Hotel on Hinson Avenue (known as the Palm Crest in the 1950’s when it was home to WGTO). In 1997 after the work was completed, the AM & FM along with the church-owned Landmark Baptist College moved in and made the building their new headquarters.
Station History
1984 - 1986 Other Polk County Stations (History)
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