Who's Who at WPLA

Steve Sparkman

Steve Sparkman didn’t make a career out of his broadcasting experience. Starting part-time in the summer of 1963 at Plant City’s WPLA, he left after high school graduation in 1965 for Florida State University in Tallahassee. He maintained his close ties with the station, though, and returned to work there over summer vacation the next several years. In the summer of 1967 he also picked up some hours at WONN in Lakeland using the on-air name Steven L.

In 1969, Steve graduated from FSU with a major in government and a minor in broadcast communications; however, that was about it for his radio career because now it was on to law school. When he returned to Plant City after graduation in 1972, he worked for a year as a judicial research aid to Judge Woodie Liles at the Second District Court of Appeal headquartered in Lakeland, then almost two years as an Assistant Hillsborough County Attorney. He spent the next 25 years, beginning in August of 1975,  at the Tampa law firm of Carlton, Fields, Ward, Emmanuel, Smith and Cutler. Finally, in February 2001, he opened his own law office in downtown Plant City.

Steve and his wife, Terry, make their home in Plant City where they raised a daughter, Joanna, and a son, Kevin. Joanna is Manager of Media Relations and Marketing for the Georgia State Golf Association, and Kevin is a drummer in the Christian rock band, Tinman Jones.

Station History