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BOB KELLEHER: It's the kind of station you could only get away with in a small town. The morning crew is silly. The music is all over the place, and then there's the personal messages, officially considered emergency messages for people in the wilderness, but often just funny bits and greetings.

BILL ROLOFF: We are very eclectic. There's something for everyone.

BOB KELLEHER: Bill Roloff is WELY's general manager. He's talking about a station that mixes polka, folk, and rock music, with shows targeting kids or the local Finns. It's a station that welcomes the public, literally, with a cozy front porch right downtown and on air crew just inside the front window.

BILL ROLOFF: When we moved the station downtown a couple of years ago, we became entrenched with the community, and everybody-- a lot of people took it and said, this is our radio station. They have a certain ownership of it, and people will wander off the street all day long. And they want to come on the air and say hi, or they want to tell us how their trip was in the Boundary Waters. We welcome that.

BOB KELLEHER: On a recent morning, personalities Joni and Mike, shared the studio with live poultry.

SPEAKER 1: Paul Harvey brought to us by-- Joni is chasing a duck around the studio. There's something you don't see every day.

BOB KELLEHER: Then, it's an ongoing feature called Rock Lyrics with Margaret, a good-natured Ely resident who reads the poetry of rock and roll to a classical music background.

SPEAKER 2: Walking in the park just the other day, baby, what do you think I saw? Crowds of people sitting on the grass with flowers in their hair said, hey boy, you want to score?

BOB KELLEHER: Those were, in case you didn't catch it immediately, the words of Led Zeppelin. WELY was already eclectic, when retired CBS broadcaster Charles Kuralt bought it in 1995. He pumped in badly needed money but tragically, Kuralt died suddenly, two years later. Next, it was picked up by Janice Erickson, a local transplant from the Twin Cities with no broadcasting experience at all.

JANICE ERICKSON: And I never wanted to be a radio station owner, but all of a sudden, I was.

BOB KELLEHER: Erickson moved the station downtown and put some money into long neglected equipment. The station is more efficient, she says, and on the track to profitability, although, it hasn't quite arrived there yet.

JANICE ERICKSON: The radio station is doing the best that it has ever done. It is bringing in a lot of advertising. The equipment is as up to date as it can be. There is some debt that needs to be paid off, but it's doing well.

BOB KELLEHER: Apparently, it's doing well enough to look attractive to the Bois Forte band. They're the region's Ojibwe Indians and owners of Fortune Bay Casino, a few miles down the road. They see the station as a tool to broaden their economic interests. According to Bois Forte Chairman, Kevin Leecy, the key to WELY's success will be keeping the station pretty much as it is.

KEVIN LEECY: But more importantly, we also see this as an opportunity to reach a wider audience with our message about voice, Bois Forte culture, history, and current events. Many of the listeners to WELY are interested in the Native American perspective, and this is our opportunity to bring a native voice to the mainstream media.

BOB KELLEHER: The package includes WELY AM and FM in Ely and the station's internet presence, with the ability to stream the station anywhere. Even outsiders say the new ownership just might work out. Ken Buehler of Duluth has owned several radio stations. He considered buying WELY several times, but Buehler says he could never figure out how to make a go of it.

KEN BUEHLER: If you could make a cash purchase and have no debt, then the station made some sense economically. And that's why the Bois Forte proposal, I assume, with their bank account, be able to pull it off. And I think they'll be very successful in the broadcasting business. It's a great little radio station.

BOB KELLEHER: The sale agreement was announced in late January. It will require approval from the Federal Communications Commission, and that could take a couple of months. Bob Kelleher, Minnesota Public Radio, Ely.