Stokes' radio station off the air

Kalispell radio station KGEZ was shut down around 1:30 p.m. or 2 p.m. Thursday.

Station owner John Stokes on Monday officially lost his bid to have his Chapter 11 bankruptcy dismissed and was forced into Chapter 7, in which his assets could be liquidated.

The radio station was not broadcasting over its usual 600-AM channel by Thursday mid-afternoon.

Kalispell City Attorney Charles Harball said he received a call alerting him to the shut-down early in the afternoon.

"I heard they were served with papers and they were shut down immediately. There were a number of cars there," he said, including sheriff's deputies' cars and perhaps engineers to carry out the work of disabling the broadcasting powers of the station.

Kalispell Fire Chief Dan Diehl also told Harball that an ambulance had been sent to the radio station property as back-up to the other officers on the scene.

A reader of the Daily Inter Lake said he was listening to Stokes' radio broadcast sometime before 2 p.m., when Stokes abruptly said goodbye and thanked his listeners before the station went dead.

Harball said that, as an emergency broadcast system radio station, KGEZ's premises contained government-supplied equipment that would have to be removed from the station.

See the Friday Inter Lake for more details.