In Episode 54, Samuel sits down with Chase Locke — El Dorado native, former CEO of One Country, and the kind of guy who has somehow managed to weave together radio, nonprofits, local government, Nashville, and a Reba McEntire Corvette campaign into one career that makes no sense until it does. This is a long one, and it earns it. Chase grew up on a ranch in Butler County, credits a Garth Brooks concert at age 8 or 9 with giving him his first real taste of what a crowd in a room can feel like, and stumbled into his first industry experience at 17 when a community volunteer committee handed him $20,000 and told him to book talent. He reached out to William Morris. They didn't know he was a teenager. He still has the contract. That early push led to an internship at Clear Channel's KZSN in Wichita, which led to a spot on the morning show - earned by taking the mic at a CMA Awards broadcast in Nashville when a co-host was making things difficult. A month later, he had the job. From there, Chase became music director, which put him at the table with record labels, artists, and management teams earlier than most people get close to that world. That's where a lot of the relationships started - including a memorable day when he invited a photographer friend named Hailey to shoot a Taylor Swift visit to the station, not telling her who was coming. Taylor ended up asking to get a photo with Hailey. Scott Borchetta took the picture. Chase later watched Hailey hold up that photo 20 feet from Taylor Swift at the Eras Tour from row 6 on the floor. After iHeart, Chase went to work for Numana, the nonprofit meal-packaging organization, where he leveraged his music industry relationships to raise $250,000, pull in artists and labels as sponsors, and break a Guinness World Record for meals packaged in a single event - shipping everything to an orphanage in Haiti. He also ran for county commission in his early 20s, served on the SBA Foundation board at Anthony Memorial, and eventually made the move to Nashville with a small LLC called Buck, helping people like Bobby Bones co-host Amy Brown grow her brand and launch a podcast network. The One Country chapter is where it gets really interesting. What started as a country music blog spun out of Country Outfitter - a Western wear e-commerce site that later sold to Boot Barn - became a full media company with an app, a membership product, a radio station, podcast content with artists, and an elaborate sweepstakes operation. Chase eventually became CEO, and what followed was a series of creative campaigns that show how he actually thinks: a Walker Hayes Suburban giveaway with a charitable twist, a custom Reba-red Corvette packed with her product line, and a Jefferson White cold outreach through Cameo that somehow became a TV commercial. He left One Country last June over disagreements about direction - the company was moving toward gaming, and that wasn't where he wanted to put his energy. He's back to working with artists and brands directly, which sounds like where he does his best work anyway. Learn more at https://killergrowth.com
