KYYS came on air in 1927 as Lawrence, Kansas-based WREN, named not only for the city of Lawrence but for Jenny Wren flour. It operated at 1090 kHz for its first months and then used to 1180 kHz, shared with KFKU, the radio station of the University of Kansas; radio reallocations in 1928 and 1940 moved both stations at the same time. KFKU, which shared time with WREN between 1927 and 1987, used its transmission facilities as well. WREN's transmitter was located in the storage room of the Bowersock Mills and Power Company, with the microphone sitting atop empty flour sacks. In 1947, WREN moved to Topeka and placed its transmitter a mile east of Grantville, Kansas, on US Highway 24. The station also created the world's largest wren, today installed in the median of a Topeka street, that topped the station's studios. In 1952, former Governor Alf Landon and his family bought WREN, owning it until a 1982 sale to the Kassebaum Radio Group. December 21, 1987, saw WREN go silent as the station fell on hard financial times, thanks to unpaid salaries, wire service bills, income and Social Security taxes, and other lawsuits. Additionally, KFKU, which had no transmitter of its own, fell silent for good. It would not be until December 9, 1991, after nearly four years without broadcasting, that WREN would return to the air with a satellite-fed gospel music format.
In Kansas City
In 1995, WREN applied with the FCC to move into Kansas City, exchanging its 5,000-watt Topeka facility for 15,000 watts day and 3,700 watts night from a new transmitter in Kansas City, Missouri. This move was approved in January 1997 and was followed by a sale to the Mortenson Broadcasting Company of Canton, a Christian broadcaster in 1997. Entercom acquired WREN the next year, and in 1999, ditched the heritage WREN callsign for KKGM to complement a sports format, "1250 the Game". This began a run of four callsign changes in four consecutive years, as the station became KXTR in 2000 with classical music, KWSJ in 2001, and KKHK in 2002. It was under the latter two callsigns that 1250 began broadcasting in Spanish for the first time, initially under the moniker "La Súper X". KYYS was the longtime call-sign for a rock format station, first located at 102.1 MHz and, until January 2008, at 99.7 MHz. The calls were transferred to retain presence within the media market, yet has no ties to either of its predecessors.
