Thanks, Jay F! Every time I see your posts I think of Jay Ford, who used to do middays and was PD of KFM-102 when it was album rock. Jay hired me to do mornings to replace Doug Shane back in the summer of 1979. Russ Ryan did afternoons, Rick Diego evenings, and Steve Pirosh overnights. That turned out to be the shortest radio gig of my career, I think my run lasted about two months. In the days before non-competes, after two months I went back to work at KENO-FM.
I grew up idolizing all the "Boss Jocks" on KENO, Jeff Colson was one of my favorites with his "Hullabaloo Horn." I was in awe to see them appear at the Huntridge theatre for one of the movies they sponsored. Radio not only sounded but was bigger than life back then. If you listen carefully you'll hear the reverb they had in the audio chain. I ended up working with Jeff during the 90s when Doug Shane hired him as production director of Hit Kickin' Country Y-93, he was a such a trip! On his aircheck there's the tail end of a report on high school and UNLV sports, "Howard Hill's KENO Sports Closeup." In the fall of 1969 I got to hear myself on the radio for the very first time when Howard had me on his show, as sports editor of our high school newspaper--the Desert Breeze @ LVHS--I gave a rundown of our basketball team and picked the winners for the week's games. It took most of the year before Howard pronounced my last name correctly.
The Moby Grape! That was a frequent location for KITT-96.3 station remotes--of course, back then we just phoned in our breaks. As to when "this mention sponsored by Fairway Chevrolet" ended, I can't remember--I'll have to find some more old airchecks, but I think it was still being used in the early 1990s when I worked at "The Key".
You've got me thinking now about when Lotus went back to rock and changed the calls to KOMP. The FCC database has the date of filing March 8, 1982. But you're correct in the actual format change came before then, in response to KFM's flip to Country....which happened New Years' day 1981.
Steve Goddard produced "Little Saint Nick" for us both years- 1986 and 1987, thanks for the correction--the one on my website is the 1987 version. Scott Campbell came on board from KLUC that year and we moved the studios from 1555 to 2880 East Flamingo. I don't know what Bob Brooks is up to, last time I heard from him he was into telemarketing-and that was years ago. His little daughter is all grown up now, he used to bring her into the station when he worked and she loved banging on all the station typewriters! Another former Klassy 100 air talent also got into telemarketing- Stan "The Man" Harris, who also did the PA for the Stars for a few years.
The truck giveaway went without a hitch--that year we learned (the hard way!) to also try the key in the ignition after the contestant tried it...for it was the previous year that we gave away a Pat Clark Pontiac Grand Prix-- that was the one where NONE of the keys started the car. I still remember that giveway...when we got to the 93rd key we started to get nervous. We had to bring all the people back and do it over, and some of the contestants got their lawayers involved...it was a mess!
Glad you like the site, I have a lot of work to do but it's fun to gather up all this information...and tell a bunch of old radio stories too....and I welcome the corrections.
