By CURTIS ROCKWELL/Sports Director

Veteran sports broadcaster Noah Britt is celebrating a milestone behind the microphone this year.
Britt is now enjoying his Silver anniversary, 25th year calling the action of all types of games in South Mississippi. His station, WPMO (1580 AM) “The Game” will celebrate this massive achievement by carrying over 40 prep baseball games this season.
“Believe it or not, it’s 25 years of calling games for me this year,” Britt, General Manager of WPMO said. You can catch all of the excitement this year on the radio dial as well as at wpmoradio.com. Their Facebook Page has recently been providing live video feeds of the games as well.
“There was a little AM station in Pascagoula known as WZZJ many years ago,” Britt said. “A 13-year-old boy just wanted to be a part of a radio station. Since it was a nonprofit Christian station, my mother would drive me from Ocean Springs to volunteer on Saturdays only.”
And that’s how things got started for Britt and over the past two and a half decades the station has blossomed into a prep sports tradition in the “Southern Six”.

“Back then, they allowed me to vacuum the radio station and pull the past top 40 hit charts from 10, 20 and 30 years before so the DJs could have the charts for reference,” Britt continued. “Now the vacuum boy owns the radio station and has multiple stations. It’s the American dream coming to reality in Jackson County.”
Once he began to rise in the ranks, he soon indicated to those in charge a vision he had for what was a real passion of his, prep sports.
“I called my first game on the PA (Public Address system) at Ocean Springs in the late 90’s and my first radio play-by-play was a coast wide basketball game of the week in 2001” Britt added. “I have called over 1,000 games and have won the Mississippi Association of Broadcasters Radio play-by-play award several times. I have also received accolades for my coverage of Baldwin County high school sports on the radio stations that I own there.”
Britt did then and has continued to fill a need and a void that was left on the airwaves as other media outlets fell by the way side over the past 20 years.
“Because we are the only radio station in the three coastal counties that covers high school baseball, over 90 percent of our listeners are in Jackson County and we are focusing on our local schools here.” Britt continued. “We are also doing seven games for Biloxi since the school requested the coverage and our signal goes to Biloxi. Jackson County in our minds is the baseball capital of the state. No other county can say that they have two out of the six state champions for the past two seasons.”

The station was there to cover both Resurrection and East Central in those state title-winning series’ last year, and the coverage has continued into this season but on a larger and more expanded scale. This year’s slate of broadcasts began two weeks ago when the current campaign started.
Britt will carry the St. Martin-Baker (Ala.) High game Monday night and then will be in Vancleave for the George Conty-VHS contest Tuesday night.
He says that WPMO has had different call letters over the years but has been on 1580-AM since 1951 and in the same building since then. He also said that people can listen online at wpmoradio.com with no app needed which is always free.
He stated that some of his most memorable calls over the years came at prep baseball games.
“In 2008 when Ocean Springs won the state championship over a Tupelo team that was ranked number one in America in USA Today at the time,” he said. “All three games in the series went into extra innings.”
“There was also 2009, when West Jones went to Hurley and lost in extra innings to send East Central to state.”

Britt was behind the mic for most of the Jackson County action in the state championships as well.
“I’ll never forget in 2012 when Pascagoula beat Long Beach in the South State championship,” he added. “Tracy Hadley hit a walk-off home run on to win it 3-2 in the bottom of the seventh in game three. Also, in 2018 when Vancleave won the state championship. I don’t think I have ever seen a bigger, home crowd from the coast, up to watch them win.”

Britt also acknowledged a former friend/mentor who was instrumental in his success.
“I couldn’t have done it without my old and dear friend the late, great Walther “Waldo” Thornton Britt added. “He was a massive part of what we were when he was alive. We miss him dearly. I realized that he had the same vision that I had for our local games. No one loved Pascagoula and Jackson County sports more than he did.”
Britt also recognized another pioneer in the South Mississippi radio business.
“Talking with Waldo one night was the home run that I needed to ask Larry Shirley to buy WPMP and make me the manager,” Britt concluded. “Larry bought it in 2011 and hired both of us. I bought it from Larry in January of 2013. I wouldn’t have it if it wasn’t for Larry. He was very gracious to me.”
Check back frequently for updates on broadcast coverage of games throughout the rest of the regular season as well as the playoffs on the WPMO Facebook page.