Also in 1947, station KNHF, operated by the Denton Police Department, signed on.

In June, 1948, KDNT-FM signs on the air at 106.3 mc.  The format was easy listening; broadcasting 5AM-12AM as did the AM side.  The same year, KDNT took on a network affiliation with Gordon McLendon's Liberty Broadcasting System.

By the early 1950s, KDNT-AM became the most listened to station in the area, capturing 52% of the listening audience.  Shepard, a licensed pilot, occasionally broadcasted from the air.

Woodward also recalled some of the finer technical aspects of the station:  "Each announcer was issued a certificate that made you some fifth-grade engineer so that you could write down two meter readings every hour or so.  I have no idea what they showed, but if they dropped down, you were off the air and a bell rang!  At that point, you were supposed to call the (real) engineer and he would go in and kick something." (Courtesy tulsatvmemories.com)

Woody continued:  "Pat would come down to the studio on Saturdays sometimes and sing on an afternoon live show that we did.  It was also populated by many of the jazz musicians from the 'NTSC Lab Band' (known later as the 'One O'Clock Lab Band.')  Sometimes Willie Nelson would run the board (or I would set the board and just go out and sing, and come back when I was done.)  Many of these guys went on to play with the Stan Kenton Band and well as others.  The only two whose names I remember were a bass player named Val Kollar and the pianist, Joe Dabney.  Those studio gigs were super-informal, as you might imagine, and open to about anything.  My jazz singing might be followed by a country group.  I know on the cut of 'Blue Moon' I sang, a girl that was in the studio delighted me by dropping her bottle of Coke!  On the recording, it sounded like I was being shot!  It was a great learning experience, and sitting in with great jazz players was a trip.  Over the years, I have run into many musicians from NTSC who did gigs at KDNT, or were there when I was."

In 1955, Harwell Shepard sold off his interest in the Shepard Funeral Home to Floyd and Hamlett, who, through various name and partnership changes, still operates the home today.  Shepard had inherited the funeral home upon his parents' deaths, but decided to devote his efforts into the radio station fulltime instead.

DJ Richard Pitzinger had a radio show at the station in the mid-1950s.  He approached a rockabilly band, "Sid King and the Five Strings," and had them appear on his show in 1954.  Pitzinger's show already had its own band, "The Western Melody Makers," and eventually Sid took over the band.  Separately, Sid and the "Strings" went on to national popularity, and even played alongside Elvis Presley.  A compilation CD, "Rockin' On the Radio," was released in 1996.  The group disbanded in 1958.  King and his brother continued to play thereafter, although Sid spends his days cutting hair as a barber in Richardson, TX.  Another "Strings" member, Davie Lee, worked as a disc jockey at KDNT, and had a fine career in broadcasting thereafter, eventually working for Dallas' KBOX and WIL-AM in St. Louis.

Listener Daryl Stephens recalls some of the station's weekend programming in the 1950s and beyond:  "Another claim for KDNT is that they broadcast the Sunday morning services of First United Methodist Church (of Denton) for over 50 years, until the station sold and went to a Spanish format (in 1993.)  I was told that this was the longest continuously-running religious radio program in the country."

In 1958, Harwell Shepard applied for a TV license for Channel 2.  The Channel 2 designation had been assigned to Denton in the early 1950s, and it was only logical that the town's radio station make the move into television.  But the FCC didn't agree:  Dallas apparently didn't want the competition, so KRLD-TV (4) and WFAA-TV (8) told the FCC that they would supply all the equipment for an educational station to start up at Channel 2 instead, if the FCC would protect the channel as such.  Also, a competing applicant from east Texas wanted a slice of the pie as well; he wanted Channel 2 reallocated to the Longview market, and asked that a potential Denton-based education station be allocated to Channel 71 instead.  In light of the proposed changes, Shepard suggested that an education outlet be established at Channel 17, and asked the FCC to clear the way for commercial station KDNT-Channel 2 to build.  The FCC sided with the Dallas stations, denied Shepard's application on 6/6/1958, and permanently designated 2 as a future Denton-based educational station.  However, it wasn't until 1977 that a serious game plan was established to turn on Channel 2, then another 11 years passed before it came on the air as a partner with Dallas-based KERA-Channel 13.

In 1959, Ken Rench began his eight-year stay at the stations as morning personality.  The same year, North Texas State football and basketball game broadcasts began on KDNT, with play-by-play done by DFW broadcasting legend Bill Mercer.  By the 1970s, KDNT was simulcasting NTSU football to WFAA-AM in Dallas, and by 1990, KDNT was the flagship station of the Mean Green Radio Network

Frank Haley, a longtime fixture in North Texas radio, started his career at KDNT:  "I was a freshman at NTSU in 1960.  A friend of mine said I should audition for a DJ job there, so, with no experience, I went in to talk to the owner/manager, Harwell Shepard.  He needed someone to do the Con West show, a two-hour country-and-western music show from 1-3PM Monday through Friday.  Mr. Shepard took me into a production room, handed me a worn stack of wire copy (he must have used the same audition copy everytime someone applied,) and said, 'Here, read this, I'll be right back.'  I guess he went to another room to listen, because, in a few minutes, he came back and said, 'Can you start tomorrow?'  I did, at a dollar an hour.  We worked seven days a week, with no days off.  The guy I replaced trained me for three days, how to run the board, read the commercials, and play the recorded spots...they were on reel-to-reel, and played on a group of three Roberts recorders behind the DJ.

"Mr. Shepard would drive around listening to us, and, if we messed up a spot, he'd holler at us over his two-way radio," Haley continued.  "The two-way's speakers were behind us, up high on a rack, and I didn't know that he was in his car...I thought he was talking to me from his office."

Hal Whatley began a 33-year career as chief engineer in August, 1960, and also hosted the Saturday night music program, "Saturday Night Hoedown."  Whatley told employees at the station that he would never get fired, because the schematic for the wiring of the entire station and transmitter was all in his head, and wired so that he could only make sense of it!

In 1962, the FM side changed frequencies from 106.3 to 106.1.  Also, the towers were relocated from Hwy 24 to Teasley Lane in south Denton (later addressed as "1440 Wheeler Drive.")  Also built at the same location was an all-concrete building that was constructed and paid for by FEMA to be the official "Fallout Shelter" for the city of Denton.  The thought was that officials who were holed up in the building during a nuclear attack could make use of the station's transmitter as a communications device.  The KDNT studios will join the towers there at Teasley in February, 1981.

Patrick Woods' sense of humor cost him his job at the end of 1963:  "I usually did the late show of what we now call rock and roll.  I was having a good go of it, too!  When I introduced records, I imitated the voice of Elvis or Jerry Lee Lewis or Frank Sinatra or Wolfman Jack.  Late one afternoon on a Saturday, I was subbing for someone and was having a bit of fun.  I was doing the news and announcing sides in what I thought was a pretty good imitation of John F. Kennedy's Boston accent.  I got carried away with my own inventiveness and I sort of had the late president announcing the different songs and reading the news direct from the grave.  I was having a good laugh to myself and feeling easy because the boss wasn't there!  So what's my story?  I got a call from Mr. Shepard, who was up in his airplane somewhere, listening to the station, and him telling me in no uncertain terms I was fired!"