In April 2002,
Tyler, Texas, based Community Broadcast Group Inc., through its MRS Ventures subsidiary, purchased four Pine Bluff radio stations from SeArk Radio and Delta Radio of Pine Bluff. Delta Radio, owned by W.M. "Buddy" and Helen Deane, sold AM station
KOTN. SeArk Radio, owned by their daughter Dawn Deane, sold FM stations KPBQ-FM and
KZYP plus AM station
KCLA. KOTN sold for a reported $350,000 and the other three sold for a combined $1.05 million. Buddy Deane bought his first radio station, KOTN, in 1960 and moved from
Baltimore, Maryland, where he had hosted a dance-show known as
The Buddy Deane Show, in 1964. (This show was parodied as the
Corny Collins Show by
John Waters in the film
Hairspray.) Deane retired from broadcasting in May 2003 after completing the sale of his family's radio stations. He died in July 2003. In June 2006, the station's owner, Jerry D. Russell, suffered a stroke. The station was being operated by another broadcaster, Hodges Broadcasting LLC, under a
local marketing agreement but that operator was unable to obtain the financing to purchase the station. With Hodges gone and Russell unable to operate the station himself, KPBQ-FM went
off the air for good in early 2007. In a February 2011 letter to the FCC, the owner indicated that he was surrendering the station's broadcast license as well as the licenses for ten
sister stations in similar dire circumstances. On May 2, 2011, the station's license was cancelled and the KPBQ-FM call sign assignment was deleted permanently from the FCC database. ==References==