Editor’s note: Dennis Chastain passed away Nov. 21, 2025 at his home near Table Rock. This was the final column he wrote for the Greenville Journal. It appears in the Nov. 28, 2025 edition.

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The flightless domestic turkey was the star attraction in a classic episode of the popular 1970s sitcom about fictitious radio station WKRP.

Station manager Arthur Carlson conceived the idea of a turkey drop at the Pinedale Shopping Center as a publicity stunt to promote the station during the Thanksgiving season. The plan was to drop 40 live turkeys from a helicopter above the parking lot. Things go awry from the start.

Les Nessman, the normally mild-mannered, soft-spoken farm reporter, frantically shouted over the airways that the turkeys were hitting the ground “like sacks of wet cement.” One

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