By Melissa Vessels

UK Athletics has turned a conventional means of advertising into an unconventional contest for Cats fans.

Billboards throughout the state will now “sing” to you through your car’s radio by tuning it to 1630 AM in Lexington and 1640 AM in Louisville. These stations will be playing “On, On U of K,” UK’s fight song, around the clock. With a radio transmitter placed on the boards, the song can be heard up to a mile away.

The melodic advertisements can be found in 12 areas of the Bluegrass State — Lexington, Louisville, Richmond, Frankfort, Nicholasville, Bowling Green, London, Somerset, Danville, Pike County, Bell County and Floyd County.

“We’ve created a statewide football campaign before,” said UK’s Assistant Athletics Director Jason Schlafer in a news release. “And it was time to do something more than a high-impact visual. So we recorded ‘On, On U of K’ with our cheerleaders and gave our fans something to pump them up when they drive around town.”

If you snap a picture of the billboards containing the fight song lyrics and have the complete song documented, you can upload the shots to Flickr, a picture-sharing Web site. Fans then e-mail their photos’ link to [email protected] and will be entered to win various prizes.

The entire advertising campaign, along with more information, can be found at www.UKfightsong.com. The campaign will run until UK’s opening game against Louisville.

“I hope our fans love it — and I think they will,” Schlafer said. “Especially out in the state. There’s only one board that has the song’s closing line — Bring Home The Victory — and I can’t say where our fans can find it. But trust me, they will.”