VALDOSTA — Fans of the popular local radio talk show host have been asking: Where is Scott James?

Not to worry. James will be back on the air by mid-December on a brand new radio station that he and two partners purchased from former Wild Adventures owner Kent Buescher.

James and local attorneys Trent Coggins and Sam Greneker purchased the former Wild Adventures information radio station, which has transmitter and studio facilities on Highway 76 in Adel, from Buescher and his wife. The Bueschers owned the station outright, separate of their Wild Adventures holdings. They have had the station on the market for about two years, James said.

“Trent and Sam are my partners. They invested in radio and they invested in me,” he said.

Talk 92.1 should be up and running by Dec. 17. Weekday broadcasts will feature mostly local talk shows, including the Scott James Show, and syndicated conservative programming and some local shows on the weekends, James said.

“I’ve been getting up every morning for 20 years to do this,” James said. “It’s a whole new reason for doing it every morning when you’re doing it for yourself. I’ve always dreamed of owning my own station. So this definitely is a dream come true for me.”

The Dec. 17 launch date is just three days before he had planned to leave his former post with Black Crow Media-owned News Talk 105.9, where he built up a local following for The Scott James Show. The show would have celebrated its fourth anniversary at the former station on Feb. 2.

Rumors that James was fired from his former job are just that, James said. He parted ways with News Talk 105.9 management on Nov. 7 in what he termed as “mutual terms,” and said he had planned to leave his former station on Dec. 14 anyway.

James and partners are negotiating to buy a building in central Downtown Valdosta to set up shop for Talk 92.1. They could close on an undisclosed location as early as this week. They’ll also place the station on a Web site at www.talk921.com, where visitors will find a Web cam to watch streaming video of the broadcasts and streaming audio to listen in.

“They’re saying they’ll be done with the Web site by Dec. 14, but I may not be ready right away on Dec. 17 to have streaming video up and running,” James said. “I might just put up a cardboard caricature of Jeff Gordon or something.”

James still owns and operates two radio stations in Quitman, 1490 AM and 97.7 FM, both of which “are joined at the hip for life,” James quipped. “They both play the same format of adult standards from Sinatra to Streisand.”

The Quitman offices will be moved into Talk 92.1 offices in Downtown Valdosta at some point, he said.

“I really want to be very involved in downtown and have a consistent presence here,” James said. “Downtown Valdosta is just great. The people here are great and they’ve been very supportive. I’ve been selling advertising for the new station and not one person has said no.”

Coggins and Greneker work in the same law firm of, you guessed it, Coggins and Greneker.

“We just want everyone to know we’re still keeping our days jobs,” Greneker joked. “With six kids, you don’t run off and join the circus.”

James noted that his 40-day disappearance from the airwaves following his sudden departure from News Talk 105.9 represents “the longest time I’ve been out of work since I was a teenager.

“I did the election results on Nov. 6, came back on to do my morning show on Nov. 7, and then disappeared,” James said. “People have been asking: Where is Scott James? Well, he is coming downtown. I can’t wait to get back on the air and serve the community again. I miss it.”

It was a long and winding road that James has navigated through his 20 years in local radio.

He started with Rock 108 FM from the ground up in 1993 with the help of Al Brooks. Black Crow Media bought Brooks’ interest in the station in 2001. James soon started News Talk radio on the 1450 AM band. The popularity grew to an extent that the News Talk format was switched to the 105.9 FM band eight months later.

James said he hooked Coggins and Greneker on radio in previous attempts to get their support for his local radio endeavors.

“We approached Trent several years ago about helping us buy a radio station. He didn’t buy the station, but he got the radio bug,” James said. “We invited Sam to sit down on Tuesday nights at News Talk 105.9 to do a law show from 6 to 7 p.m. He realized the power of radio after people stopped him everywhere he went to ask him about the show.”

Greneker will fill in for James “when I have a cold or a day off,” and Coggins may also find time on the air. But for James, the approaching launch date of his own radio station has him brimming.

“It’s a simple dream,” James said. “I just wanted to do it for myself.”

Now James is in charge of programming, with input from his partners. He’s arranged a solid lineup for Talk 92.1 broadcasts. On weekdays, listeners can tune into:

• First Light, 5-6 a.m., a news capsule.

• The Scott James Show, 6-9 a.m.

• Laura Ingraham, 9 a.m.-noon. Ingraham is a nationally known attorney, based in Washington, D.C., and is a conservative who is a regular contributor to Fox News.

• Bill O’Reilly, 12-2 p.m. “We wanted someone without any controversy,” joked Greneker.

• Morning Rewind, 2-3 p.m., a one-hour segment highlighting the best of the Scott James Show from the morning broadcast. “Some people don’t get up that early,” James joked. (His show starts at 6 a.m.)

• Jerry Doyle, 3-6 p.m. Doyle is a nationally syndicated radio talker who is the former star of “Babylon Five,” a science-fiction show on cable TV.

• Live and Local, 6-7 p.m., with local hosts and local topics, from business to racing to the great outdoors and more.

• Lars Larson, 7-10 p.m. Get this: Larson is a syndicated conservative talk show host based in Seattle. “That’s right … a conservative in Seattle,” Coggins joked. “He must be the only one.”

• Dennis Miller, 10 p.m.-1 a.m. Miller, a former star of “Saturday Night Live,” is a syndicated conservative talk show host.

The weekends will be filled with a “hodge podge of stuff, a variety of weekend programs, many syndicated, but we will broker anything anyone wants to do locally,” James said. “I’m sure some local churches will want some time on Sunday mornings.”