Broadcaster Max Armstrong to sign books in Waterman

Nationally known farm broadcaster Max Armstrong came to DeKalb with his co-producer Orion Samuelson last weekend to film a segment for the RFD-TV Christmas special they broadcast every year on DirecTV.

While in town, he talked about his just-released book “Stories from the Heartland” and the book-signing to be held from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday at Barshinger’s Barn, 11585 Waterman Road, across from the Waterman Winery.

The book is a collection of highlights from his 40 years of broadcasting, mostly on WGN, where he did the morning farm program with his longtime friend Samuelson. Some of the stories are local to DeKalb County, including Fay’s Pork Chop Bar-B-Que, the Sandwich Fair and many farm friends from around the area.

He said he wrote the book after the publishers of Samuelson’s book “You Can’t Dream Big Enough” approached him to write about his career. Much of the material he provided them came from his past broadcasts, some Facebook postings, and even notes he wrote while on his many plane trips around the country.

In the book, Armstrong tells about his primitive start in radio when, at the age of 11, he strung an antenna wire from a bedroom window of his parents’ Indiana farm to a pole behind the chicken coop. He had built the transmitter from a kit he got by mail order and began his amateur broadcasts under the call sign of WMAX. It only had a quarter-mile broadcast radius so he wonders if anyone ever heard it, but broadcasting got into his blood and, “I have been at it ever since,” he said.

His dream of working for a major broadcast company came true at age 24 when he signed on with WGN in Chicago. He mentions many of the great personalities he has interviewed or met over the years, including President George H.W. Bush. British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Edmund Muskie, Joan Rivers, Jack Brickhouse, Wally Phillips, Ray Rayner and Bob Collins of WGN.

His first chapter is devoted to farmers and what they mean to America; then he delves into the lives of his parents Jim and Stella Fay Armstrong. His mother died in 2005 and his father in 2008. He writes fondly about his mentor and broadcast partner “Big O” Samuelson. They started their own network show called “This Week in Agribusiness” 10 years ago and it has been syndicated nationwide on hundreds of stations through the DirecTV satellite network.

Armstrong was in DeKalb for the weekend to produce their annual Christmas show and interviewed two officers of the DeKalb Area Agricultural Heritage Association, President Larry Mix and Vice President Norm Larson. They were taped in front of the recently relocated Winged Ear state historical marker, now standing in the park at Fourth Street and Lincoln Highway.

The program, which includes a performance by the First Methodist Church of DeKalb choir, will air on DirecTV network’s Channel 345 at 7 a.m. Saturday and 5 a.m. and 5 p.m. Sunday.