The Talent Show That Could Have Been Great

Around 1981, a company named Special Promotions, Inc. started a country music talent contest called Country Star Search. That first year it was actually called Ray Price's Country Star Search - adding the country star's name to the credibility of the contest. The second year it was re-branded the Country Showdown and offered a national recording contract and a big cash prize to the national winner. Radio stations nationwide held talent contests over several weeks in their communities under guidelines specified by SPI. We were there from the beginning, helping to build the Country Showdown into a major attraction for radio station listeners and country star wannabes. The success of the showdown was made possible by small and large stations across the United States.

The first year the local contest was held at the Attic Lounge located at the Villa Motel. Almost all of the station staff was there - in addition to about 10 contestants and their fans, plus the sponsors we had joined with locally. A few minutes before the contest was set to begin I asked the GM who was going to emcee the contest?  He said, "You are!"  And that was the first time I appeared in front of a crowd representing the radio station. I was terrified, but by the end of the evening it was actually going well. The final night of competition was held at the Liberty Theater before a packed house. It was a fun event to be a part of.

We recorded most of the local contests and played them back on the air on Sunday afternoon. Winners of the local contests advanced on to the state contests - which were held at Silver Dollar City and the State Fair in Sedalia among other locations.

But then the head of SPI, Dean Unkefer, allowed Jerrel Shepherd's group of stations to participate and most of them were located near other stations. So the other stations, including us, protested to SPI that the contest was no longer "exclusive" to our stations. Keep in mind this was after the showdown had continued to build for several years.

The following year, Dean Unkefer chose to sign ONLY with the Shepherd stations, cutting off the very stations that had helped to build the contest. Kirksville, Eldon, Sedalia and Mexico were all cut off from the contest. Dean Unkefer told me he had never had a pain in the ass like the Missouri radio stations before. And the following year,  the Shepherd stations were no longer interested in the contest.  Guess what?  The original showdown stations were no longer interested in dealing with Dean either.

Although it's been around for 30 years and is still going on - you don't hear about the showdown contests like you did back in the early 80s in Missouri because of Dean Unkefer.  He owns SPI and is probably a very rich man by now. But some of the stations he pissed off 25 years ago still want no part of his contest.

So it goes.