HONOLULU - "Never fear, The Posse is here!" Fans of the longtime Perry & Price Show on 92.3 KSSK-FM will recognize that familiar refrain as something the show hosts always said. The Posse refers to the listeners who became an informal Neighborhood Watch, known for helping catch criminals, though the concept evolved over time to mean any community service. Now, The Posse finds itself in the Hawaiʻi State Archives, a division of the Department of Accounting and General Services.

The Perry & Price Show aired six days a week for 33 years. During the week, it was in studio. On Saturdays, it traveled to a restaurant in the community. That's what organizers recorded for posterity: the Perry & Price Saturday Morning Show, a live breakfast broadcast that aired from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. HST on most Saturdays.

Parent company iHeartMedia recently donated 447 audio tapes to the Archives for digitization and safekeeping as a recording of modern local culture. The tapes start in 1990 and end in 2009. (This show ran longer than that timeframe.)

"The show is iconic, and it's an honor to receive this slice of Hawaiʻi history," says DAGS Director and Comptroller Keith Regan. "I listen to it. My in-laws listen to it. For decades, you couldn't hear 'Perry' without thinking of 'Price.' It was a wonderful combination of information, entertainment and spontaneity, all wrapped up in a very local package. It embodied Hawaiʻi."

Michael W. Perry and "Coach" Larry Price were the hosts, with their trusty sidekick and show producer Sweetie Pacarro roving around with a microphone, ready to interview audience members. Price retired in 2016; the weekday show continues as Perry & The Posse. The Saturday morning shows are currently only offered on special occasions like Mother's Day.

"Because KSSK is an emergency broadcasting station, generations of listeners grew up hearing the voice of Perry, Price, or both during disasters. People turned to them for the information they needed and they were on air for hours at a time. They brought calm to our community during power outages, tsunamis, hurricanes and more," recalls Hawaiʻi State Archives Administrator Adam Jansen, Ph.D.

"We had so much history and wanted to share it with the broader community," iHeartMedia President Scott Hogle adds. "If you listen to a show it'll give you a cross section of what was happening in our islands at any given time. We had every state Governor and most county Mayors, local celebrities and many national stars like Oprah, Kenny Loggins, James Ingram, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Kristi Yamaguchi and so many more."

KSSK donated other related artifacts, like some show notes of local morning radio legend Hal "Aku" Lewis, aka J. Akuhead Pupule, the predecessor to the Perry & Price Show.

Aku himself had top ratings and after he died, KSSK President and General Manager Earl McDaniel (now deceased) decided to pair Perry and Price; he felt they brought two distinct and complementary qualities to radio.

Perry was a highly successful, top-rated afternoon radio personality on KSSK, as well as a TV show host and sought-after commercial spokesperson, who also served on the board of a local rehabilitation hospital for many years.

Price, a beloved former player and coach for University of Hawaiʻi Football who spent time in the NFL, joined the station as its Vice President of Public Relations, then went on to TV news, earned a Ph.D. from the University of California at Los Angeles, became an educator at Chaminade University in Honolulu, and wrote a weekly newspaper column, all while doing the radio show.

Both are veterans; Perry served with the U.S. Navy and Price, the U.S. Air Force. The two dominated Honolulu's Arbitron ratings for decades.

The Archives is now digitizing the shows and, upon completion, will make them available for the public on its website. It needs about a dozen volunteers to monitor each three-hour program in real time as it's digitizing, to listen for tape dropouts and notate who the guests are. If you'd like to be part of taking The "Coconut Wireless," as the personalities called their show, into digital posterity, go to https://ags.hawaii.gov/archives/volunteer-at-the-archives/ for more details.