Dude Numbers are given out to listeners who consider themselves to have opinions and a sense of humor as sick and twisted as mine is. The story of the Dude Number begins in March of 1999 when I started my gig at Huntsville’s 770 WVNN. Sean Hannity had filled the same gig only four years prior to my arrival and I wanted to set myself apart. I had become a huge fan of South Park and the Big Lebowsky and must have sensed the word “dude” was soon to replace “man” in our vernacular. On my first day on the air there 3 March, 1999,a caller tried to makes his point with me by saying “…man, you don’t know what you’re talking about”. I responded “first of all it’s ‘dude’ not ‘man’…”.

DUDEDOM WAS BORN.

The rest of my stay at ‘VNN I was always addressed as “Dude” which I’m sure royally pissed off the local KKKlansman who contemplated many a protest of the show. After moving the show to 1110 WBT in Charlotte NC later that Fall “Dudedom” was a regular part of the program. One night in December of that same year a caller informed me that I was much more than just a “Dude” I was the “King Dude” his suggestion was seconded by many callers after that. This explains the “named and proclaimed by you as the KingDude” part of every show open because…shocker! it REALLY happened.

What happened next is still unclear. Back then I kept a composition book with notes from the show in it (I still do today but the frequency of entries has been greatly reduced). The first recorded entry mentioning ANYTHING about the word “Dude” is from 11, January 2000. It’s a funny entry because I, like millions of others, had not become accustomed to writing out the year 2000, it just didn’t click, kind of like P Diddy’s popularity. So on the page dated 1-11-99 are the words “EVERYONE’S A DUDE”. The next entry is dated 1-24-99 (actually 24 january 2000) and there’s a recording of #73, #74 & #74A. Then producer “Wild Bill” was keeping track of the numbers and I have no clue what happened to HIS notebook.

Sometime in the next year the words “now serving Dude #…” started being used. By the time I reached Real Radio 97.9 in October of  2001 “Dude Numbers” were part of the show. I wish I could fill more of this in and someday when somebody takes the time to suffer through listening to the miles of cassette tapes that contain the shows between 11 January 2000 and June of 2002 the rest of the story will be written. It’s amazing to think that since the beginning over 1400 have CALLED and chosen to identify themselves as “Dudes”, may God have mercy on us all.

Mike Church – 17 June 2005

P.S. We traced the first “Dude Number T-Shirts back to August, of 2006! There were 2 different versions of that design. In February of 2009 the last and greatest of all Dude Number T-shirt designs was released and we continued with that design until the program was phased out during the transition from Satellite Radio to The Crusade Channel. In all, we believe, we issued a total of over 8,000 Dude Numbers. Yes, you read that right, there are over EIGHT THOUSAND official members of the Red White And Dude Nation!