CROWLEY, LA- On September 9, 2025, at his home in Crowley, Louisiana, Barry David Thompson, Sr., age 87, finished his race and stepped into the presence of the Savior he loved. Family, friends, co-workers, pastors, and listeners gathered on September 13th at Northside Assembly of God to celebrate a man whose life’s work—KAJN Radio and Family Vision TV—became a living parable of the gospel itself.
A life tuned to one frequency
In the language he loved, Thompson was a transmitter—the heart of a strong broadcast chain. A transmitter takes program material—music, sermons, testimonies, commercials—and turns it into a signal that can travel through the air and be picked up by radios. That is what Thompson was for the gospel in Acadiana: a faithful heart that took the message and made sure it carried—parish road to city block, business office to kitchen table, stadium parking lot to hospital room.
He did not pretend to be a church; he insisted he stood alongside the churches. He simply kept the signal clear.
“We have a mandate to declare the gospel,” Thompson once said as KAJN’s President and General Manager. “While we are not a church and don’t propose to be, we have come alongside the church to help. The miracles over the years are endless—from seeing people saved to seeing marriages restored and hundreds upon thousands of prayers answered.”
From “in church” to “in Christ”
Before he was “Brother Barry,” he was, as daughter Karen Thompson Walker said, “Barry the Great”—a gifted, driven, football-loving broadcaster who could run a board and work a deal. He helped build secular stations, co-owned KSMB, and chased a million-dollar dream. But the Lord interrupted him. The transformation his family witnessed was not from irreligion to religion; it was from being in church to being in Christ.
Walker remembered the shift:
“He had a dream of becoming a millionaire… But after encountering Christ, Reinhard Bonnke’s line became his own: ‘I don’t want to be a dollar millionaire; I want to be a souls millionaire.’ The man who loved to be seen learned to hope people would see past him—to Jesus.”
That conversion touched everything—how he prayed (anywhere, with anyone), how he parented (open-armed and joyful), how he worked (Bible-open before deals), and even how he welcomed a future son-in-law whose race didn’t matter to him in the least. “From the time he was very young,” Walker said, “he never saw color. He longed for the body of Christ to be united across denominational and racial lines.”
His sons saw it, too. Craig Thompson recalled the truth that slowly took the throne of his father’s heart:
“He went from looking right to being right in Christ… He didn’t want to sell ads to questionable businesses just to make money anymore. People would introduce him, ‘This is Barry Thompson, owner of KAJN,’ and he’d immediately answer, ‘No—God is the owner.’”
David Thompson framed his father’s story inside Scripture:
“When I read Hebrews 11, the Hall of Faith, I expect to see his name. Like Abraham, he trusted God’s promises; like Moses, he chose faith over comfort. When KAJN was going on the air in the ’70s, the tallest building in Crowley blocked the line-of-sight from the studio to the transmitter. He took Matthew 18:19 seriously and prayed.” Inexplicably to the station’s engineers, the interference stopped. “I can’t explain that. He lived that way—quiet steps of obedience that grew into a life of grace, humility, and unwavering devotion.” said David.
KAJN: a signal built to serve
KAJN began broadcasting in 1977, owned and operated by Agape Broadcasters, Inc., with studios and main offices in Crowley. The program signal originates at the Crowley studios and, for decades, was transmitted from the TV-3 Tall Tower in Kaplan. At one time, its antenna was 1,600 feet up and its 100,000-watt Class-C signal, KAJN reached nearly two million people across Lake Charles, Alexandria, Lafayette, and toward Baton Rouge. Through it all, KAJN served—and still serves—as Acadiana’s Christian bulletin board: local news, community announcements, prayer needs, job postings, and a clearinghouse for church events and Christian business advertising.
Musically, KAJN was a living timeline of Christian music—from early country-gospel staples like Teddy Huffam & the Gems and The Hinsons, to the harmonies of 4HIM and Avalon, to modern worship. Its format remained deliberately “both/and”: teaching programs part of the day, music the remainder—an uncommon balance in an era of niche programming. Beginning in 1996, the phone lines to the “Upper Room” prayer ministry stayed open above the studio at 110 W. 3rd Street in Crowley receiving at one time an average of thirty prayer calls a day.
The station was never merely a job site. It was a place where the walls remember words of encouragement, wisdom and prayer.
Tiffany Richard (“Sister Tiffany” to KAJN’s afternoon listeners) called Barry her “spiritual father”:
“Coming from secular radio, I still had a lot of the world on me—but he looked right into my soul and would ask, ‘Are you behaving?’ He was a leader and a servant. If someone in the office was sick, he gathered us to pray and heaven came down. I’d introduce guests as ‘President of KAJN,’ and he’d add, ‘and also the janitor,’ because that’s the kind of humble man he was.”
Long-time engineer Tony Evans—“the guy they called when it went off”—said Thompson changed the whole direction of his life:
“I met Brother Barry when KAJN needed a full-time engineer. At first I said no. Then the oilfield job ended. I called him and asked, ‘Is that job still available?’ He said yes. That day began decades of calling. He was more than a boss—he was a mentor and a father figure. People tried to buy KAJN; I heard him say, ‘This station is not for sale—for any price.’”
When the tower fell, the testimony stood
Steve Cook, news director, remembered Thompson’s steadiness when the unimaginable struck.On August 31, 2018, a small plane hit the old TV-3 tower KAJN had used for decades. Two precious lives were lost; the structure collapsed; the station’s broadcast footprint shrank overnight. Six months later, Barry wrote a public update—clear-eyed about the setback, stubborn in hope, and steady in faith. Permits were slow. Temporary heights were denied—three times. New studies and new expenses piled up. But he never yielded to panic. “Nothing seemed to shake him,” Steve said. “His attitude was that God was in control and He’d take care of us. Rejoice in the Lord always—again I say, rejoice. That was Barry.” Today, KAJN continues raising funds to restore a full-power presence to match its calling—a multi-million-dollar effort toward a long-term tower solution. A donation link to this construction is located on its website.
The station he built—and what it still is
- KAJN Radio (1977–present). Owned and operated by Agape Broadcasters, Inc., headquartered in Crowley. Program originates at Crowley studios. Format: teaching and music—both, on purpose. Community role: local news, announcements, a clearinghouse for church events, an outlet where Christian businesses can reach listeners who share their values.
- Family Vision TV (KAJN-CD). UHF Channel 19, Lafayette—a companion voice reinforcing the same heartbeat in pictures.
- The Upper Room Prayer Ministry (since 1996). Upstairs from the studio at 110 W. 3rd St., volunteer prayer partners answer calls, write inmates, mail discipleship sheets, and connect local churches to people in need. Today, KAJN seeks volunteers to call 337-783-2000 to help continue the prayer ministry.
Thompson’s stewardship of these ministries was not proprietorship but trust. He truly believed God owned them; Thompson simply kept them humming, tended, on-frequency, and well-grounded. Moreover, he followed the biblical model in leaving his children and grandchildren an inheritance in the family business to carry forward the legacy.
How he loved
Thompson adored his wife Annette and cared for her tenderly through years of illness. Karen Walker remembered watching her once-impatient, always-on-the-move father slow down to serve her mother—“laying down his life for her.” When his hearing failed late in life, he still attended church—just to be in the presence of the Lord with His people. Riding in the car, he would “think out loud,” and his children discovered what he’d been doing quietly for years: praying for every church they passed, every neighbor, every friend.
He made children feel seen. Craig Thompson told of the jeans he kept at the office so he could rush home and jump on the trampoline with grandkids—and how, on more than one occasion, nearby kids had to be told, “That’s my grandpa!” He made strangers feel like friends—and friends feel like they were “the most important person in the room.”
Thompson’s son-in-law, Darryl Walker, remembered the first handshake:
“He rounded the island in the kitchen—strong grip, eyes straight into mine: ‘I’m Barry Thompson. Welcome to my home… and, I believe, to my family.’ Over the years I started calling him ‘General’—because he led by walking with God. He charged us at our wedding with Micah 6:8: ‘Do justly, love mercy, walk humbly.’ He lived it.”
He loved the Word and loved to make deep things simple. He was a Gideon for twenty-six years; the camp will miss the way churches asked for him back after hearing him share. He sang down the hallway—off-key on earth, perfect pitch now.
Above all, he prayed. Before deals. Before programming. Before decisions. Before microphones. He “snuggled up to Jesus”—his mentor R. S. King’s admonition—and God made a hero out of him, not with headlines but with a thousand unseen mercies.
The survivors and the psalm
Thompson is survived by three children—Barry “David” Thompson, Jr. (Tammy), Karen Thompson Walker (Darryl), and Craig Thompson (Janet); nine grandchildren—Brandon Dartez (Lauren), Joshua Bailey (Kristina), Brittany Dartez (Jason), Jason Bailey, Brooke Thompson Boxx (Aubrey), Ryan Thompson, Destin Bailey, Jonathan Thompson, and Destiny Thompson; and nine great-grandchildren—Jaylee Dartez, Mikelle Perkins, Lyra Dartez, Kamden Dozier, Brooklyn Dozier, Collins Thompson, Ryker Kemp, Ezra Boxx, and Beckett Bailey. He was preceded in death by his beloved wife, Annette Gray Thompson; parents John Marion and Ruth Martin Thompson; sister Kathleen McClanahan (James); brother Marion Thompson (Nancy); and great-grandchild Connor Kemp.
To the end, he kept the apostle’s cadence: “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith” (2 Tim. 4:7). Craig quoted Psalm 37: “Commit your way to the LORD… and He will make your righteous reward shine like the dawn.” That dawn has broken for Thompson.
A pastor’s benediction
Pastor Johnny Ray Fontenot, Northside Assembly of God, called him “a pillar of the faith”—a board member whose fingerprints are “forever etched on this campus.” He told the story every board veteran knew: in almost every meeting, Brother Barry made the motion to adjourn—so at his last board meeting, they let him adjourn one more time. At the funeral, the pastor returned the favor:
“To my friend, Barry Thompson: I make a motion to adjourn the meeting. I’ll see you in heaven.”
What remains—and what carries
KAJN’s story is still being written—by his children, grandchildren, by staff he discipled, by prayer partners upstairs, by pastors and business owners he encouraged, by listeners who found a song when the night was long, by the Gideons who will hand someone a copy of John’s Gospel this week because Thompson once handed one to them.
And in a way that would make him smile, the metaphor holds. Towers can fall. Antennas can be re-sited. Power can dip and rise. But as long as the gospel transmitter, the heart of the broadcast chain is beating, the message will carry.
Today, in churches and kitchens, pickup trucks and hospital hallways, in Crowley and Kaplan to Lafayette and across Acadiana, someone is hearing a word of hope because Thompson taught a generation to keep the transmitter warm, the lines clear, the prayer constant, and the gospel central.
Pastor Fontenot made the motion to adjourn; heaven recorded the second. But the meeting isn’t over. Acadiana has work to do—souls to love, churches to serve, prayers to pray, songs to sing, Bibles to hand out, towers to raise, legacies to leave.
The founder of KAJN has signed off on earth.
And the rest of the story is glory.
J. Christian Lewis/AI assisted