Gary Zupancic, the host of the KWVH program At the Hitchin’ Post, loves a good story. He’s so fond of shooting the breeze that he put an actual hitching post in his front yard so that visitors feel comfortable sitting on his porch and swapping a few tales. If visitors come up empty, Gary will supply a story or two of his own. He’s got a lot of them.
When we met a couple of weeks ago, he told me a story that he’d been holding on to for fifty years. Somehow in 1974 at his college in Defiance, Ohio, he was elected Homecoming Queen. Mind you, there was no slot available for Homecoming King, which made getting the crown just that much trickier. In 1974, gender equality and political correctness was at the forefront of many a Political Science Major’s conversations. A Poly Sci guy himself, he wanted to make the point that perhaps the title should be “Homecoming Person.” Eight of his buddies joined the campaign to get him elected and surprisingly, they prevailed, landing him in the parade with his girlfriend riding alongside him.
This rolling stone, who says he bores easily, has turned his hand to a number of endeavors. By the 1980s, he found himself at Channel 8 in Houston, America’s first public television station, producing, directing and writing. From there, he went to work for NASA on their educational tool called Stellacom where he wrote and directed many of its segments. After earning a Masters in Communications, he landed a position at the NBC-TV affiliate in Austin. For twelve years he taught journalism in the Wimberley Independent School District and then wrote for our own Wimberley View until 2021. Five years later he joined KWVH and launched his show. It would not be untruthful to say that Gary knows, or at least has talked to, just about everyone in town. His approach to others is fun-loving and enthusiastic which puts them, and everyone else for that matter, at ease.
A maven of Texas history, Gary is also working on a book about the Devil’s Backbone. Ask him about it. He’s gathered a few stories that might make the hair stand up on your neck. If you miss a Hitchin’ Post huddle on Tuesdays at 1 p.m., you can also find him on the Lonestar Podcast Network, along with Chris Doelle, contributing a nice dose of Wimberley Valley chatter.
