Hodges to serve as Arkadelphia Rotary guest speaker, June 20

The Arkadelphia Rotary Club will meet Friday, June 20, 2014, at Western Sizzlin, 106 WP Malone Drive, for its weekly meeting. Andy Hodges of  Arkadelphia Radio has been invited to serve as guest speaker. Rotarians and guests are invited to attend. For more information on the guest speaker, please read his brief biography below. 

Andy Hodges is the general manager for Southwest Arkansas Media, based in Arkadelphia and owning and operating radio stations there, in Hot Springs, Malvern and Benton. A native of Warren, Ark., he is making his first appearance at a Rotary function since 1975 where, as a Junior Rotarian, he was banned from returning to future Rotary functions due to the amount of food consumed at the buffet and the length of his talks (although he promises this one will be much, much shorter).

Hodges began his media career in 1969 at the local radio station in Warren and first covered Arkansas Razorback games in 1971, where he became a regular in the press boxes and sidelines at sports events across the state. He has worked the Arkansas Gazette, the Benton County Daily Democrat in addition to being sports editor briefly in Malvern before going to Dallas in 1981. In Dallas he was a sports columnist with The Dallas Times Herald, hosted radio shows and television shows for various media outlets. He has covered over 30 Super Bowls, 18 NBA Finals, 23 Final Fours, 26 World Series and too many big college football games to count.

In 1991 he founded an internet company based in Dallas, ATJ Media, Inc., that grew rapidly into hosting over 4,000 websites in addition to bandwidth allocation across the western United States, merging with UUnet and StarWave, companies primarily owned by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. In 1993, he was part of an investment group that included Skip Bayless and Mark Cuban that started The Ticket, which was the third all-sports radio station in the country. Hodges sold his internet investments in 1998 in an ill-fated attempt to improve his golf handicap and attempt retirement. All of that failed within three months and he was back writing for various publications, including USA Today and Sports Illustrated in addition to doing radio and television work across the South along with various hosting for nationally syndicated radio networks like ESPN and Sporting News Radio, primarily overnights as his strong southern accent was found to be a little overwhelming for listeners outside of the South.

He was a key in founding the National Radio Group, that syndicated national talk and sports programming such as Dr. Laura, Dave Ramsey and others before getting back into radio station ownership in 2004, taking over 14 stations in Mississippi, Arkansas and Texas. Before coming to Arkadelphia in July 2013, he was editor of Hog Country Online, an online and print publication covering Arkansas sports. With SWARK Media's purchase of three radio stations in Arkadelphia and Malvern from Noalmark, Hodges has been involved in a total makeover and rebuilding of all of the stations in addition to building a new station, ESPN WPS, covering Hot Springs and Central Arkansas.

He and his wife, Wendy, have a total of five children, and live in Arkadelphia.