When Howard joined WKMT in Kings Mountain, North Carolina in 1992, he had spent more than 30 years in radio.
Howard grew up in Shelby, North Carolina ,with Don Gibson, the country music performer best known for "Oh Lonesome Me" and the writer of "I Can't Stop Loving You".
He and Gibson went to country music concerts at the National Guard armory, and when he heard Red Foley sing "Peace in the Valley", Howard cried.
At 15, Howard saw an ad in Billboard for a guitarist and singer for "a small-time traveling tent show", and he went to Greeneville, Tennessee, and asked for the job.
At Louisiana Hayride with Faron Young and Webb Pierce, Howard met Hank Williams Sr. and Elvis Presley.
While he was at WKBX, Howard told his friend Roger Stockton, who worked for WSJS radio, that WSJS-FM should switch to country music.
Four months after leaving WCGC, Howard was back on the air as morning host at WKMT in Kings Mountain, run by his old friend Jonas Bridges, who had worked with him in the early 1950s on a Shelby radio station.