Drewry Communications
| Private | |
| Industry | Media |
| Fate | Acquired by Raycom |
| Successor | Raycom Media |
| Founded | 1941 |
| Founder | Ransom H. Drewry |
| Defunct | December 1, 2015 |
| Headquarters | Lawton, Oklahoma, United States |
|
Area served
|
Oklahoma Texas |
|
Key people
|
Robert Drewry (President) Bill Drewry (CEO) Larry Patton (General Manager) |
| Products |
Broadcast television radio |
| Website | drewrybroadcasting |
The Drewry Communications Group was a media company based in Lawton, Oklahoma, wholly owned and operated by the Drewry family. The company was run by Robert Drewry (as the company's president), Bill Drewry (as its chief executive officer), and Larry Patton (as general manager). Robert and Bill are the sons of late patriarch Ransom H. Drewry.
Drewry Communications' broadcasting properties consisted of 13 radio and television stations in Oklahoma and Texas, largely concentrated in western and central Texas.
Ransom H. Drewry founded radio station KSWO (1380 AM, now KKRX) in Lawton, Oklahoma in 1941. Six years later in 1947, Drewry started his second radio station, KRHD (1350 AM, now KPNS) in Duncan (the KRHD call letters, derived from Drewry's initials, were later assigned to a television station in Bryan, Texas, that serves as a translator of the company's ABC affiliate in Waco, KXXV-TV). Drewry entered television broadcasting in 1953, when he and a group that included J.R. Montgomery, T.R. Warkentin, Robert P. Scott, and G.G. Downing founded KSWO-TV (channel 7) in Lawton as the city's ABC affiliate, which signed on the air on March 8 of that year.
Over the years, the Drewry family gradually acquired other stations in the northern half of Texas. Drewry, in partnership with Ray Herndon (majority owner of KMID-TV in Midland, Texas), acquired CBS affiliate KFDA-TV (channel 10) in Amarillo, Texas, in 1976 through their company, Amarillo Telecasters.
Sons Robert and Bill Drewry took over the company following the elder Drewry's death. The company expanded by acquiring, among other stations: KWES-TV in Midland, Texas and Big Spring satellite KWAB-TV (both in 1991); KXXV-TV in Waco (in 1994); K60EE (now KTLE-LP) in Odessa (in 2001); KSCM-LP in Bryan (in 2006), and KEYU in Amarillo (in 2009).
...
Wikipedia