Happy Thanksgiving!

WKMS begins its seasonal broadcast of "Company for the Holidays" programming on Thursday, November 23, Thanksgiving Day. "Company for the Holidays" is a blend of holiday program specials airing weekly through New Year's Day 2007. This weekend's features include The Arkansas Traveler with the internationally acclaimed actress Cherry Jones, whose parents are Mr. and Mrs. Jack Jones of Paris, Tennessee, about which more follows below.

Giving Thanks: A Celebration of Fall, Food, and Gratitude airs at 11 a.m. on Thanksgiving Day. Join host John Birge as he combines classical music and stories in this thoughtful, contemporary reflection on the meaning of Thanksgiving. Guests include best-selling author and humorist Anne Lamott, Pulitzer Prize winning poet Gary Snyder, and American journalist and commentator Bill Moyers.

We Gather Together with Garrison Keillor airs at noon on Thanksgiving Day. The renowned host of A Prairie Home Companion celebrates the holiday through music and spoken-word featuring Prudence Johnson, and the VocalEssence Ensemble Singers.

The Arkansas Traveler: Music and Tales from Little House on the Prairie airs at noon on Friday, November 24, and again at noon on Sunday, November 26. NPR's Noah Adams hosts a celebration of pioneer America that includes selected readings by Paris, Tennessee's very own Cherry Jones, and musical performances by A Prairie Home Companion regulars Riders in the Sky and other Nashville artists.

America Sings airs Sunday, November 26 at 11 a.m. Tune in and savor a kaleidoscopic history of American choral music with choral master Philip Brunelle, his VocalEssence Ensemble Singers, and members of seventeen different Washington, DC ensembles. The performance features colonial anthems of William Billings, African-American choral tradition personified by Harry Burleigh, and the works of Leonard Bernstein.

Programming support for next week's "Company for the Holidays" program specials comes from contributing listeners and corporate underwriters including Johanna Fox CPA Incorporated in Mayfield, James Sanders Nursery in Paducah, Murray Calloway County Hospital, and Roof Brothers Wine & Spirits in Paducah.

Be sure to check out the next issue of WIRED for additional upcoming
"Company for the Holidays" specials!

To see the entire WKMS schedule, click here.

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WKMS Feature Jazz Program
The House That Trane Built
Thursday, November 23 at 9 p.m.

Josh Jackson of NPR affiliate station WBGO in New Jersey and host and poet Saul Williams explore the history of the major jazz label Impulse Records in this unique audio documentary. Journey inside Impulse and hear of the exceptional combination of luck, inspiration and money that launched the company and set it apart from modern day rivals. Tune in and jazz up your Thanksgiving evening!

Come see Playhouse in the Park's presentation of William Shakespeare's
Much Ado About Nothing, November 16-19. We salute Katie Villanueva, WKMS on-air announcer and host of Midnight Sun., in her role as Beatrice. Show times are Thursday at 7 p.m., Friday at 7:30 p.m., Saturday at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m., and Sunday, at 2 p.m.

Tickets prices: $10 adults, $9 seniors, $8 students, and $7 children
For more information, call 800-651-1603 or visit www.playhouseinthepark.net.

The Pumpkin
By J. G. Whittier

Ah! On Thanksgiving Day, when from East and from West,
From North and from South come the pilgrim and guest,
When the gray-haired New Englander sees round his board
The old broken links of affection restored,
When the care-wearied man seeks his mother once more,
And the worn matron smiles where the girl smiled before,
What moistens the lip, and what brightens the eye?
What calls back the past, like the rich pumpkin pie?

O, fruit loved of boyhood!  the old days recalling;
When wood-grapes were purpling and brown nuts were falling!
When wild, ugly faces were carved in its skin,
Glaring out through the dark with a candle within!
When we laughed round the corn heap, with hearts all in tune,
Our chair a broad pumpkin, our lantern the moon,
Telling tales of the fairy who traveled like steam
In a pumpkin-shell coach, with two rats for her team!

Then, thanks for thy present! - none sweeter or better
E'er smoked from an oven or circled a platter!
Fairer hands never wrought at a pastry more fine,
Brighter eyes never watched o'er its baking than thine!
And the prayer, which my mouth is too full to express,
Swells my heart that thy shadow may never be less,
That the days of thy lot may be lengthened below,
And the fame of thy worth like a pumpkin-vine grow,
And thy life be as sweet, and its last sunset sky
Gold-tinted and fair as thine own pumpkin-pie!