SEQUIM — This Friday brings a big bash, in honor of a big personality.
It’s the “Hail to the Chief Bob-R-Q,” to start at lunch and keep on keeping on through suppertime Friday night, in the KSQM radio station parking lot at 577 W. Washington St., just west of the Fifth Avenue intersection.
The event celebrates Bob Spinks, who’s leaving his post as Sequim chief of police on Friday — but staying on as long as possible as host of “The Five-O Show” on KSQM 91.5 FM.
Spinks, one of the many volunteers playing music of the 1940s, ’50s and early ’60s on the nonprofit station, has been a disc jockey since December 2008, when KSQM first went on the air.
“The Five-O Radio Show,” whose name is a nod to the ’60s-vintage television show “Hawaii Five-O” about a fictional state police unit, airs Thursdays and Fridays from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. on KSQM.
And when the chief goes on the air, “the phones ring off the hook with requests,” said Jeff Bankston, the station’s community news director.
“He talks a lot, and he has a lot of fans,” added KSQM publicist Diane Reaves.
Those fans are invited to KSQM on Friday from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. and from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m., when KSQM volunteers will serve hot dogs, baked beans, chips and beverages, all for donations to the nonprofit radio station.
The party will go on rain or shine, Reaves promised.
“A special law enforcement dessert will also be available,” she added, though she declined to specify exactly what the dessert is.
KSQM volunteer Tama Bankston, Jeff’s wife, is among those girding for the Bob-R-Q.
“These boys,” she said of Jeff and Spinks.
“How many hot dogs do I need to have here? A couple hundred?”
Spinks, for his part, said he’ll hand out the last of the “rare and much-sought-after Chief Spinks collector trading cards, until they run out.”
And yes, he really does have trading cards.
“I dug out a used box that I got a couple years ago,” he said, adding, “Matter of fact, we’ll be unveiling the new KSQM trading card,” featuring Spinks and Clallam County Fire Lt. Bob Rhoads, his cohost on “The Five-O Show.”
The chief is leaving the Sequim Police Department — which happens to be about a block away from KSQM, in the J.C. Penney shopping center — since, he said, Sequim City Manager Steve Burkett asked him to “look for greener pastures” back in March.
Spinks has said he hopes to find work on the North Olympic Peninsula, but has also sought positions this spring at the Lebanon, Ore., Pullman and West Richland police departments.
None of those panned out, and he’s been mum about his search since.
About the radio program, however, Spinks overflows.
“I encourage folks to call or e-mail their requests and dedications in to the station. I also pick up some additional requests from folks at the grocery store, gas station etc.
“In addition to the requests, I tend to dive more into the ’50s and ’60s,” he wrote in an e-mail to the Peninsula Daily News.
“But the selling point is the electrifying level of high energy that permeates the airwaves, which is what makes the Five-O, the FIVE-O SHOW!”
For information about that show and the rest of the programming on KSQM, visit www.KSQMfm.com or phone 360-681-0000.
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Reporter Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com.
