The Hepps were honoured this year as the rural family of the year at the Olds Agricultural Society's sixth annual Chautauqua.
Brian, Melanie and daughters Cassandra, Kyla, Amanda and Brittany moved to Olds in 2003 where CKFM was founded a year later. Four years later, the Hepps launched Rock 104. Among the many community organizations the Hepps have helped over the years include the Olds and Disttrict Chamber of Commerce, the Terry Fox Run, the centennial celebration in 2005, Christmas Angels Society, the OAS, among others.
In accepting the award, Brian said the relationship that has been forged between the OAS and his family through the radio stations has been a good one.
“We certainly plan to continue with that,” he said.
One of the main ways the two organizations work together is by bringing annual concerts to town in the summer. Plans are currently being finalized for this year's edition, and the announcement of the July 25 date will be forthcoming later this month.
“We work with the ag. society on those (concerts). They have the venue … and a lot of the infrastructure in place to help us out and really make it nice. We probably wouldn't be able to do those sort of things without having a venue that works as well,” Hepp said.
Hepp said because agriculture is so big in the area, he feels it's important to help out the OAS whenever the radio stations can.
Hepp began his broadcasting career in the early 1980s and after several different moves — including Drumheller in 1997 — the family moved to Olds in 2003.
“We'd been in broadcasting (for 20 years) … and we decided one day it would be nice to do this for ourself somewhere and so we started looking around and the more we looked into Olds at that time we certainly liked what we were seeing. The feeling we got from people here was friendly. We thought that would be a good place to set up a radio station,” he said.
