1 image Mark Sterkel|Odessa American Robert Hallmark, left, and Kurt Verlei have been doing The Morning Drive radio talk show together on KCRS 550 radio since 2001. The two will do their last program together on Jan. 4.

Dec 25, 2016

Every weekday morning, Robert Hallmark and Kurt Verlei took to the airwaves to discuss the news of the day and their political takes. Much of those three-hour sessions involved the back-and-forth with West Texans who called into the show.

The hosts of the news talk show “Morning Drive” on KCRS plan to retire after more than a decade on the air together. Hallmark plans to move to Fort Worth to live closer to family. Verlei will stick around, teaching marketing full-time at the University of Texas of the Permian Basin.

Their final show will be Jan. 4. And then, the live show will continue with new hosts who have yet to be announced.

“I looked at it always as we were providing an outlet that people can talk to and kind of spout off what their opinions were and what their thoughts were,” Hallmark said. “And at the same time, we were trying to bring something to the Permian Basin that you don’t get.”

The callers controlled the program, Verlei said.

“They are really the morning drive, not us,” he said.

Hallmark joined the show first, at the outset 16 years ago. Then it was all discussion, and he would scramble to find guests. Adding the call-ins made the show more manageable but also more popular. After rotating through a few co-hosts during the first two years, Hallmark’s longtime friend Verlei joined him. And a partnership grew.

Basically, they assembled the entire show by themselves each weekday morning.

Verlei would present the news that he would assemble pre-dawn after sifting through reports of the Odessa American, CBS 7 News and the various news wires while Hallmark assembled sound clips.

Then, the “yuck yuck” Verlei described would begin. They’d analyze and argue, and unscreened callers would weigh in too. Often, the pair would interview someone live, including two Texas governors, local politicians like Congressman Mike Conaway or State Rep. Brooks Landgraf.

Then there were the more eclectic guests like Alice DuBois, the basis for the TV show “Medium.” Country musician and sausage baron Jimmy Dean was a favorite (“such a sweet man,” Hallmark said.)

The “Morning Drive” broadcasts would blend national news with the local issues that could be some of the most heated, especially when it came to public spending plans like bond initiatives.

And about 30,000 people each week listen on average, per their weekly cumulative number determined by their ratings company Eastland. “Morning Drive” held onto its status for years in the Top 5 rated programs among programs in the market, and it perennially dominated the demographic aged 35 and older.

Besides the 550 AM station, the show simulcasts on two FM stations, the MY 16 cable channel and it streams on the internet.

“On every topic of community importance, there are two sides,” General Manager Barry Marks said. “One of the hardest things to do is give both sides equal voice, so that the voters or that the stakeholders have an opportunity to get educated about what the initiative is and make their own decisions about how they want to respond to it. And the give and take that this radio show provided, along with an audience of its size, has a great deal of influence in the public discourse and analysis. ... To me, that’s what makes this program so important locally.”

This year, through a divisive presidential election, the radio hosts faced a new challenge. People would call in and seethe at the hosts without any larger point than an insult, Verlei and Hallmark said.

“I’ve never had a political campaign like this one, never,” Verlei said. “It was just so divisive, and the voices, no matter how uninformed, were extraordinarily loud. They didn’t really have anything good to say, but brother could they scream it from the rooftops.”

Hallmark and Verlei found it exhausting and helped cement a decision to step away that had been building in recent years. Last week, they were still contemplating on-air goodbyes they expected would last for days.

“I want to retire, and I want to go out with some class and some style,” Hallmark said. “But it’s very bittersweet because I enjoy it.”

“It will be sweet waking up when the sun wakes up,” Verlei added. “But it will be bitter because for the last 14 years I’ve been going to work at 3:30 at a job I love.”