Some listeners likely nod their heads in agreement or take a second to answer the daily poll. Others may rant at the radio while stuck in morning traffic at the self-described conservative voice on the other end.

But whether they agree or ditsagree doesn’t really matter. Love or hate Jim Lago—they are still tuned in.

“His job is to entertain and inform not necessarily to educate although that happens,” said John Richards, general manager for Clear Channel Broadcasting in Corpus Christi.

Lago, 54, has called the Clear Channel Radio Ranch home since 2004. As host to Lago in the Morning on 1360 KKTX Talk Radio he researches issues, presents the public with information and with any luck, makes them think.

“Hopefully the ideas (listeners) hear make them curious enough to work their Google engines,” he said. “And even if they don’t think like I do they come away knowing a little more than they did before. It’s a conversation.”

Conversations that are a far cry away from where Lago started in 1978 when program directors yelled if he talked too much and played music too little. Radio hadn’t been a straight shot for him. It was more like luck of the draw.

“I was working in the oil fields in East Texas managing a crew for a company out of Kilgore when one of my guys heard about an opening at a radio station in Longview,” he said.

The man insisted that Lago, who kept co-workers entertained with cartoon voices and characters, should apply at pop music station KLUE. The whole crew was so adamant about the possibility that they filled two trucks of supporters and drove him there themselves.

The receptionist was so intimidated by the mob covered in mud and dust, Lago said, that he was ushered to a back studio to read copy and commercials. He came out with a weekend job where he spun old R&B records from Motown’s heyday. Three months later he was asked to host the morning show.

His hair has gone a little whiter and his format has changed but mornings—for the most part— have been Lago’s home ever since. Along the way he’s learned a great deal from people like old program director Gordon Baxter whom he credits with explaining the difference between being a disc jockey versus a radio personality.

“It’s the difference between talking at someone and talking with them,” Lago said.

The Corpus Christi transplant, who first began to call the city home in the mid-1980s, made the full-time switch to talk radio in 1997. He was the first to notice the white hair and jeans size.

“I just couldn’t see an old, overweight guy pumping out the hits,” he said. “Don’t get me wrong … I love music. I used to do chores listening to Bob Wills on my granddad’s AM radio. But it was time to talk to adults.”

Lago spends about five hours a day reading up on issues—most with local ties before producer Krystle Lee flips the switch each morning and broadcasts him to thousands. And people turn to him, not just to listen in, but to spread the word.

“What (Jim) has developed here in the past five or six years is that people know if they want to get word out or connect with the business people and leaders in our community there is only one place to do that, and that would be his radio show,” Richards said.

These people include State Rep. Todd Hunter who tries to call in weekly to give legislative updates and reach out to local constituents. Hunter has known Lago for more than a decade and trusts that no matter where he sits on an issue he will work hard to ensure his listening audience is informed.

“I always get a good response from his show,” said Hunter.

That doesn’t mean that everyone who contacts Hunter agrees with Lago’s position. But it does indicate that people are listening and paying attention, he said.

Lago tries not to think about whether or not people will hit the scan button on their radios when they hear his voice in the morning. “Do you want me to have nightmares or something?” he says with a semi-forced face of horror and dismay.

In the radio world “tune out” is the equivalent of death. But he knows the conversation he starts at 5:30 a.m. may be the conversation that trickles down to the water cooler at 8 a.m. and even the dinner table at 6 p.m.

So every weekday he makes the drive to the station, pulls up a chair, cracks open a Mountain Dew and presents the issue of the day, sometimes in cartoon voices or followed by a joke – but always with character.