For the last time, but not for you:

Make sure you read to the bottom of today's STTA. If you don't you are likely to get the wrong idea.

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Hello, for one more time this is STTA. I'm Howard Merrell.

I figure it is likely that this week's STTAs have started some rumors.

"Howard must be leaving."

Well mostly no, but a little bit yes. I'm not moving away, I don't have a terminal ailment, and I haven't turned in my notice at Covington Bible Church. I will, however, no longer be doing these daily one minute broadcasts on WIQO. I will continue to provide Something to Think About in this email form, and at some point we might even put an audio version online, or get back on the radio. I used to have two regular listeners, but since my Mom moved away, my audience has been cut in half. To my other listener, thanks.

I don't figure that my departure will be as memorable as Enoch's, or Moses', or Elijah's but I hope that I have left you with STTA.



A bit of history and a look ahead:

STTA began as a one minute radio spot on WKEY AM in Covington.
I had been doing a once a week fifteen minute program and decided to do the one minute spots because I figured that it wasn't worth while for someone to turn their radio off or change the channel if they knew I would be off in less than a minute.
At first the broadcast was called Happiness Is. I used a theme-song by that name recorded by Bill Pierce. Early on we found out that title was already taken, so the name became Something To Think About.
From the beginning my goal was not to tell people what to think, but to challenge them to think, and prod them in the right direction. "The words of wise men are like goads." (Ecc. 12:11)
When my older son went to college in 1993 I began sending the scripts of STTA to him, as a point of contact. The list grew from there to the point of it's present number of 272. STTA is read in Russia, Ecuador, Guam, Honduras, Bolivia, Brazil, Korea, Chile, Scotland, Cambodia, Haiti, Bahamas, New Zealand, and Mexico, and in this country from Alaska to Florida, and Arizona to New Hampshire.
A short time ago I started posting STTA at http://sttaspots.blogspot.com/. I have no idea whether anybody reads it there or not.

Our decision to stop doing the radio version of STTA was partly a matter of the allocation of finances, but there are other considerations. When I started doing STTA, just about everyone in our community listened to the local AM station. Later when the FM station became the Country Western (that's right, both kinds of music) standard bearer most people listened to it. It was where people got the weather, news about school closings, and other local news. I used to often go into people's homes where one of the local stations played all day. I had the great privilege of having Paul Harvey as my opening act. Paul Harvey said "Good Day." going to a better day. Folk's listening habits have gone to ipod & Sirius; most check a website for school closing and weather. We decided that our limited funds could do more good invested elsewhere.