New Country 96.3 Dallas/Fort Worth’s morning show, “Hawkeye In The Morning,” is the longest-running morning show in the Metroplex. It is hosted by Mark “Hawkeye” Louis and Michelle Rodriguez.
Hawkeye is a 2020 Country Radio Hall of Fame inductee and was recently presented with the Tom Rivers Humanitarian Award at the Country Radio Seminar. He is known for his charity work in the metroplex, including auctioning his lifelong collection of 17,000 baseball cards, which raised funds for charity.
Michelle has joined Hawkeye in raising millions of dollars in support of Cook Children’s Hospital and supporting veterans with their Pet For A Vet campaign.
Hawkeye joined the station, working alongside a market and radio legend.
“It started in ’88 with Terry Dorsey. I was brought on to be his sidekick, so it’s been a continuation of that story where Terry left. It’s very hard to replace Terry Dorsey. He taught me everything I needed to know, and we tried a couple of different things. Finally, they asked me who would you like to try the show. And I said Michelle, who did middays at the time, and I are friends, and we have a lot of chemistry because she would help out during vacation time.”
Initially, Michelle was not entirely on board with the idea. “Can you believe that? Waking up at 3:30 in the morning did not sound appealing to me. It’s been so much fun joining Mark. It’s like he says, we’re friends off the air, and we’re neighbors too.”
Country radio is a big tent party, and Hawkeye and Michelle keep the show family-friendly and understand that their listeners are the show’s stars.
“I’ve learned from Mark over the years that the listener is the star. The listener comes in with a comment and makes the segment what it is. We’re just there to navigate the situation.”
“You tailor all that to what your audience expects from you. Our show is for adults, but it’s a show that you can listen to with your kids and not ever feel like you need to turn the radio off. That’s the personality of our show, so everything we do goes through that filter. We love it when kids participate in the show, and often they do. But it’s a show for adults, and it’s really for the whole family, but our humor is through that filter for adults,” said Hawkeye.
Michelle added, “They are like an extension of our family, so when they comment or talk about things on the air, sometimes we forget if we had the conversation on the air or off the air. That’s how transparent we are with our life. We’re like, did we have that discussion on or off the air? But it’s what the people expect. They have become part of our family, and they know our personality, and that’s like Hawkeye said: we want to welcome everyone.”
“Can I piggyback something Michelle said? Because we talk throughout the day, if someone sees something like an idea or something, we’ll send it to each other, texting along with our producer. Then the next morning, this happens so often, I’ll tell Michelle, hey, someone was telling me this, and Michelle will go, yeah, that was me yesterday. I told you that. That happens all the time.”
I asked Michelle about the key to working with Hawkeye and what she had learned over the years.
“Just letting him do his thing, I can bring up an idea, and he takes it. It could be a story that everyone’s talking about, but Mark takes it to a different level, and it’s the creativity and, of course, the experience of having done this for so many years. We find the different angles together, and it turns into something so much bigger. He could go on for an hour or two hours out of something that was not even that big of a story.
“He has this creativity and just this angle of getting a story and making it grow. It’s something very unique to him, and it’s missed when he’s on vacation.”
And for Hawkeye, working with Michelle?
“One thing I like about working with Michelle is, so often, I’ll have an idea, and I think, hey, what about this, and then with Michelle, it’s almost like an improv thing. What if we did it this way? Then, that was where somebody would go, and then we did this, and then she’ll take it back. By the time we’ve hashed it, it’s grown from a simple idea to something much bigger. It was very complimentary what she said about my ideas, but she takes it to another level. I don’t think she recognizes that it’s both of us working together, and we take something to another level.”
The show is known for taking something in the news and seizing the moment, like its recent egg giveaway.
Michelle said, “We did the egg giveaway, we did a diaper drive, where we collected diapers, and we also gave away trees—this kind of stuff. Even today, Mark says, ‘ What else are we going to do? ‘ We’re always trying to think about what else there is a need for in the community that we can step in and help out.
The duo has a reputation in the industry for giving back to the Dallas/Fort Worth area.
Hawkeye said, “We’re glad we have that reputation. I would say we’re lucky to have management that not only encourages it but also supports it. When we came up with an idea last year. I said, hey, you know what? Because I’m a passionate supporter of trees and planting trees, I’d like to give away kind of trees on Arbor Day,
I worked on that for about three or four months to coordinate with the Arbor Day Foundation and get everything scheduled, and everyone was on board with that. Then, the year before that, Michelle did something with a group called Feed the City; she came and said, ‘This group’s amazing; we should really see if we can help them out.”‘
“With our platform, we’re always looking for ways to help the community and people who are already doing something so we can take it to the next level because we have this gigantic blowtorch. I would say that every community probably has something, and radio stations are a great opportunity to use your storytelling powers to help that organization; it’s a win-win for everybody,” said Hawkeye.
I asked what advice the team would offer to morning teams in the early stages of their careers.
“I guess the answer to your question is to listen to different programs, and you can find anybody online now and see what they would do. Then don’t steal from them; take what they do and tailor it to fit you. If you’re in a smaller market, there’s not much of a farm system anymore. If you can do well in your market and improve your act and show, you can move up pretty quickly because there are not many people doing local shows anymore.”
I asked if there was anything else they would like to mention.
Michelle joked, “I want to mention that Hawkeye’s a humanitarian. We should all acknowledge that.”
Hawkeye explained, “That’s the biggest joke. My wife makes a joke about this because after the CRS Humanitarian Award, whenever anything goes awry at the house, she goes, oh, great, the humanitarian scores.”
Michelle said, He really is. He does a lot of good for our community and continues to do so.”
Hawkeye added, “It’s a station-wide effort here, So even that award, as I said, is a team effort. Everything we do is a real team effort here, so we’re very lucky that we have support from management and we’ve got a good support staff.
Barrett Media produces daily content on the music, news, and sports media industries. To stay updated, sign up for our newsletters and get the latest information delivered straight to your inbox.
Jeff Lynn serves as Editor of Barrett Media’s Music Radio coverage. Prior to joining Barrett Media, Jeff spent time programming in Milwaukee, Omaha, Cleveland, Des Moines, and Madison for multiple radio groups, including iHeartMedia, Townsquare Media, NRG Media, and Entercom (now Audacy). He also worked as a Country Format Editor for All Access until the outlet shut down in August 2023.
To get in touch with Jeff by email, reach him at Jeff@BarrettMedia.com.
