Dr. Ben and Mona Parker and KBOP Radio

Mona Parker's engineering began years before KBOP. She passed the exam for her FCC first-class radiotelephone license in Dallas on March 10, 1937, and a San Antonio radio historian counts her as the first woman in the country to do so. In San Antonio she helped rebuild KABC, reassembling a 50,000-watt transmitter bought from XENT in Nuevo Laredo, which the FCC approved in May 1946. She then worked on KCOR, billed as the nation's first full-time Spanish-language station. When the Parkers set out to build KBOP in 1949, she built the transmitter largely on her own.

What the plaque says

Dr. Ben and Mona Parker and KBOP Radio Following World War II, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) lifted its freeze on new radio stations. In 1949, chiropractor, preacher and rancher Ben Parker and his wife, Mona Parker, each veteran broadcasters, helped form the Atascosa Broadcasting Co. to address the situation locally. On May 8, 1951, the FCC granted a permit for a station in Pleasanton, having previously issued the company's requested call sign, KBOP, inspired by the term "bop" associated with what would become rock & roll. KBOP offered a variety of news, music and entertainment, and tailored its programming to serve a predominately rural south Texas listenership. KBOP first broadcast daily from a studio at the transmitter site on the Parkers' ranch northwest of town, later from studios in Pleasanton. KBOP primarily served listeners in the surrounding area, including Atascosa, Wilson, McMullen and Bexar counties. It provided an important venue for country music, alternating with Spanish-language programming largely ignored by other stations. The Parkers hired and mentored a large number of announcers and musicians. In 1976, they sold their radio station, which later moved to San Antonio with new call letters and formats. The tower and transmitter built by Mona Parker, the first woman in the U.S. to earn an FCC first class engineering license, still operates at its original location. The control board used for KBOP's on-air programming was later displayed in the Longhorn Museum founded by the Parkers. Although their station has been off the air for many years, the mere mention of its call letters evokes a flood of memories and stories from former listeners. (2017)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Longhorn Museum — steps away
  Atascosa County in one roadside museum: longhorn-and-mustang ranching, a moved railroad depot and caboose, a horse-drawn hearse and the town that calls itself the birthplace of the cowboy.
• Atascosa County Courthouse — 6.1 mi
  The only surviving Mission Revival courthouse in Texas, built in 1912-13 on Jourdanton's town circle after a county seat vote that some residents still call a theft.
• Mission Espada and the Espada Aqueduct — 24 mi
  The southernmost San Antonio mission and the oldest Spanish aqueduct in the United States, still carrying river water over Sixmile Creek to the fields after nearly three centuries.
• Mission San Juan — 25 mi
  The mission near the river bend where the San Antonio got its name in 1691, with an unfinished church foundation and farm fields still watered by an eighteenth-century acequia.

More markers nearby

• North Pleasanton — 0.7 mi
• San Antonio, Uvalde and Gulf Railroad — 0.7 mi
• Capt. Peter F. Tumlinson — 1.0 mi
• Old Rock Schoolhouse — 1.4 mi