Rhoads had been consulting radio stations and took on a client in Provo, Utah with the promise that his consulting company would also get to program a new FM being put on the air in Salt Lake. When the owners neared the launch of the station they told Rhoads that they were not going to have him program it, in spite of the success he had brought to their AM station. In a meeting to save the business Rhoads told the owners he was so confident he could make the station successful that he offered to buy it. The owners called his bluff. Suddenly Rhoads had to raise over a million dollars. Rhoads was 25 years old at the time.
About two years earlier Rhoads had learned of an FM license, which was available in New Orleans. When he began the legal process to acquire the license from the FCC he learned that many others had tried and failed to get the license. He later learned that the politics in the small city of license south of New Orleans had involved alleged threats to suitors trying to get the property. Rhoads personally experienced threats from individuals who had a track record of alleged murder and intimidation. In spite of these threats and being tailed by local police authorities from this town, whose city officials owned the competitive radio station, Rhoads continued until his attorney advised him to walk away from an impossible situation. Rhoads then told his FCC attorney that he wanted to solicit the FCC Chairman to waive the strict rules required to get a license. He was told it was not possible and had never been done. At his assistance the attorney presented a letter from Rhoads outlining his case and the FCC waived the rules for the first time in history. Rhoads was granted the license for the station, which was a class C FM (the highest possible signal) in New Orleans. Rhoads then put the station on the air about the same time he took control of the radio stations in Utah.
Rhoads operated the radio stations and sold the entire operation at a substantial profit in 1986. Rhoads was 31 when he sold the stations.