‘Outlaw’ Tommy Smith Rides Again, in Heber

Four-decade on-air star Tommy Smith is back from retirement. “I got hungry to get back on the radio,” he told Arkansas Business this month. (Provided)

Arkansas’ “outlaw” radio star, Tommy Smith, is back on the airwaves, back on the wagon and back on the road.

Smith came out of retirement Jan. 6 after three years of silence, joining Ali King Sugg’s Heber Springs station, KSUG-FM,101.9, known as The Lake.

“Awesome, absolutely awesome,” Smith said, describing being back on the air.

Smith had retired at the end of 2021 from The Buzz, 103.7 FM in Little Rock. He was tired, burned out and robbed of his robust voice by myasthenia gravis.

Now he’s rejuvenated, more than four months sober and responding well to a new treatment. MG, the chronic autoimmune disease that caused him muscle weakness, couldn’t keep Smith’s mouth shut.

“They finally got me on a good medication,” he said. “When I left The Buzz, I’d never heard of [myasthenia gravis] and I was scared of it. I couldn’t talk, and I had to get out. I had been driving from Cabot to Little Rock at 4:30 or 5 in the morning for years.”

Ironically, now he’s back on the road, driving from Cabot to Heber Springs. But at least it’s not an early-morning commute. His two-hour show, at least for now, starts at 2 p.m.

Smith did one of his first KSUG shows with Karen, his wife of four decades.

They met at Magic 105, where Smith’s antic stunts first made him a star in the 1980s. But after an ownership change, the station fired him for a bawdy remark about Janet Jackson’s Super Bowl “wardrobe malfunction” in 2004.

“Philip Jonsson took me on and the rest is history,” Smith said when he retired. Jonsson, the founder of Signal Media, which owns The Buzz, died in 2020.

Smith eventually grew weary of retirement.

“I got hungry to get back on the radio,” he said. “Ali has been great, and I always loved Heber Springs. It’s nice and comfy. There’s no pressure. We’re going to play some great music and have fun talking about sports. We’re off to a good start in bringing some fun and excitement to the folks out there.”

KSUG’s classic hits format takes Smith back to his days at Magic 105; sports talk was his staple in 17 years alongside former Arkansas Razorback star David Bazzel on The Buzz.

In his first week on KSUG, Smith had his old 105 sidekick Danny-Joe Crofford as a guest. “I’m trying to get Bazzel on, but I don’t know if they’ll let him come on my show. But I would be tickled to have him on because he’s such a fireball. He’s been a dear, dear friend to me through all of this.”

Smith said he did miss one aspect of retirement, adventuring overland with Karen.

“Yellowstone, Montana, Mount Rushmore, Pike’s Peak, Niagara Falls,” he said. “We traveled and traveled, but eventually you have to come home and settle in. And you can only watch so many ‘Gunsmoke’ reruns, man.”

Smith had a moment of unease when Karen met Sugg this month, he said. “They disappeared behind closed doors for about 10 minutes, and I said, uh oh.”

Sugg, the daughter of Clinton radio station owner Sid King and sister to Little Rock broadcaster Ashley King, was unfamiliar with one of Smith’s most outrageous Magic 105 routines, “She asked me about ‘Flash Me Fridays,’” Smith said. “I told her she didn’t want to know.”