Waldorf Lutheran College Association decided to sell its institute of higher education, Waldorf College, under terms memorialized in a contract dated 5/9/09. For-profit Mayes Education Inc. was the buyer, and now more than two years later, an application has shown up to transfer KZOW-FM, sited with the College in Forest City IA.
Mayes is headed by Robert G. Mayes Jr. His company also owns Columbia Sourthern University in Orange Beach AL.
The application to transfer the station was filed on a Form 315, which is the one used for a transfer of stock. Although the form itself has the station’s pertinent information, the contract attached to it didn’t make any mention of it whatsoever (unless we just missed it – we’re sure that if there are any dedicated contract-reading error scavengers out there we’ll find out about it soon enough).
The entire college was valued at $8M. There was no price breakout for KZOW, but we would guess that its value is but a small fraction of the total deal. For starters, while the students at Waldorf no doubt place far greater value on an A than a C, the value attached to A and C in the radio engineering world is quite the opposite. And this station is weak even for a Class A. Its 91.9 MHz signal packs only 100 Watts off a 95’ stick.
The nearest Arbitron-rated territory is Mason City IA, located southeast of Forest City, but it is a very small Arbitron market and KZOW’s signal is too small to make it that far anyway.
