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KBRZ Freeport

B

brandon_sossamon

Guest
I know a lot of you Houston area legends have KBRZ in your list of former stations. I was hoping to take advantage of this and see if any of you have photographs of the station (inside or out) when you were there. I know it's a shot in the dark but I have always had a hunger for history, especially at a place I was employed. I started my short-lived on air career there in the mid 90's at the tender age of 16. I did the overnight shift on the weekends. That station taught me a ton being "primitive" by today's standards. They were still on carts, reels and records when I was there. Everyone else was coming off of CDs and moving into hard drive and automation. Steve Lee (Thompson) was the guy that catapulted me into the hot seat. Anyone know of his whereabouts? Last I saw he was dismissed from KIKK in the late 90's.
At any rate, just thought I'd drop in and see what I can dig up. For all of you that worked at KILT and KIKK between 97 & 99, I need to say hello. While attending Alvin Community College, I got my foot in the door with the KILT promotions team and quickly migrated to a part time gig in the engineering dept. Most of my engineering work was done on the remotes, particularly the 610 Sports remotes. For some reason, the rest of the promo staff couldn't grasp the concept of the Comrex and how IFB worked. It was fun and I cherish my time there. It has lead me to an interesting life that actually took a turn into live music production.
 
Hi Brandon,

Chuck Dunaway was at KBRZ in the early years, and may have some of what you are looking for. The PD there for many years was Tommy Ward who (I think) still lives in Lake Jackson. When KBRZ was sold off he went to work at the Lake Theater with Bobby Reed, but I think that venue may be closed now. Another person who worked there many moons ago that is still in radio I believe is Tex Brashear. I believe he is still in the production biz and you should be able to Google him to send him an email. I still have some old local contacts, so I'll see if I can dig something up for you.

poops
 
Thanks for the info. I remember Tommy well. He was actually the station manager when I was there as well as morning co host with the station owner, Jim Payne. Jim is related to Danny Boze who also spent time behind the mic at KBRZ. The PD was Kelly Mann while I was there. After the station sold, he was the DJ at the local dance hall. I'm sure this was temporary. Haven't seen or heard from him in years.
Funny tid bit about the station. They had 2 remote vehicles. One was a full size van with a Marti transmitter in it. It had a small 4 ch. mixer and only had voice capabilities. The other was an old 60's era RV trailer with some windows cut in it. It had full service capabilities; Marti transmitter, 2 turntables, reel to reel deck, cart machine, CD, Tape...I mean the works! Every year they'd drag that thing to Angleton for the county fair and broadcast from there. This included spinning the music on site. The day they were supposed to take it to the Mosquito Festival in Clute, the station truck broke down. I happened to be picking up my paycheck that day and saw Tommy under the hood. Since I was the only one in the lot with a truck, I was quickly nominated to take it out there. That was my crash course in setting the thing up. What a trip. I'd love to know what Aleyuya Radio has done with all of the old gear. All of it was vintage and could very well be collectors items.
 
You're correct on Tommy being the station manager (I had a bought with "Mental Pause" for a moment). Tommy and I graduated in the same class at Brazoswood, and if memory serves me correctly, he started with K-Breeze shortly after graduation. I do remember Jim, he always called my youth group to help out at the Jerry Lewis Telethon that they held at the studios in Freeport. That was a pretty big promotion for them each year.
I remember the remote van and trailer. I remember seeing that camper at most all their remotes from waaaaayyyyy back. Man, I wish that I'd known that Jim was selling the station before Alleluya bought it. For the price I heard it was sold for, I think I could have gotten the backing to buy it (of course.... I'm pretty sure there would've been a great deal of repairs needed).
I drive by the tower and transmitter pretty regularly, it still has power, and someone still mows around it, but I'm not sure what Alleluya is going to do with it.
 
I drove by there this past weekend just to see what it looked like out there. It's weird not to see the trailer next to the building or Jim's old bar out front. It's even more weird to see the new building they built in front of the old one. So much history out there. Driving by is what got my curiosity running rampant.
On the subject of buying it, I'm kinda surprised Dow didn't step in since KBRZ was their CAER community outlet. That played a pretty important role in the Brazosport area.
 
That didn't make sense to me as well. The reason that KBRZ went 24 hrs. (from the accounts I've heard over the years) was because the CAER organization wanted to ensure that the word got out in a chemical emergency, therfore they subsidized the station. Remembering the local news headlines when the story broke about the sale, it almost sounded like DOW & CAER was unaware that the station was on the market. After KBRZ was sold, they made an agreement with Classic Country 101.7 (?) to be the official station for CAER messages, but half the time, you couldn't get their signal in your vehicle, much less on a radio inside the house without an external antenna. The final straw with that deal was Lieberman buying the station and switching to a hispanic format. At that point, CAER licensed a low power station on 1610 AM to broadcast emergency info. Of course... unless you are within a couple miles, you can't hear it either. So.... the Brazosport area has the shell of a pretty decent mom-pop AM station sitting there, with no way to reactivate it since Alleluya moved the COL to Missouri City.
 
When I got home last night I realized I have some pics I can share from KBRZ in the mid 90's. After looking at the photos I realized I forgot about the background of the trailer they used for remotes. Someone will have to confirm this but I was told that the trailer once belonged to KIKK and was sold to KBRZ sometime in the 80's. In the gallery, you'll see a red console in, what was then, the production studio. Supposedly that was the console that was in the trailer when KBRZ acquired it. I do remember that the interior of the trailer was lined with red carpet. This makes sense seeing as how KIKK's colors were red and white when they were a country station.

At any rate, enjoy the photos. I even included one of me on the air rockin' the mullett!

http://www.imagebam.com/gallery/dda4e6de82169edc954ca55e67d91ecc/
 
It probably did come from KIKK thru Richard Dobbyn. Richard came from KIKK in 73 and stayed at KBRZ until 75 - 76 ish.
 
Hey Brandon,

I was told to ask you if you remembered who provided the sound system for an FFA Greenhorn lock in when you were one of the officers?

poops
 
Ha. I was never an officer (actually never a member of the FFA) but I was very involved in my high school's chapter. Wow...who do you know? ...or should I say, who are you?!?
---brandon
 
Well.... my daughters, Jenny and Lisa, and my son Steven Joe were all in that lock in. I remembered your name from their high school days, but had fogotten about the lock in. I was doing mobile DJ'ing back then for non-profits groups, and was asked to provide the sound system and music for that event. The kids reminded me that we have a video of that somewhere, and as I recall it was pretty funny.

poops
 
That's awesome. I was doing mobile DJ work then as well. I know I did one of the lock ins but heaven knows what year it was. Small world!
 
I didn't have anything elaborate, but I was able to help out a bunch of non profit and youth groups with it. Yes it is a very small world!
 
Oh wow....
I worked there doing the same shift as you in 1993. That job started me off on a broadcasting career that took me all the way to NYC.
Thanks for posting the pics. I remember doing a shift through a tropical storm, and I used to go out back to kick the old news satellite out of alignment so I could sleep a few hours. Tommy thought I was a complete waste of space.... I have some pics somewhere...
 
blahblahblah said:
Oh wow....
I worked there doing the same shift as you in 1993. That job started me off on a broadcasting career that took me all the way to NYC.
Thanks for posting the pics. I remember doing a shift through a tropical storm, and I used to go out back to kick the old news satellite out of alignment so I could sleep a few hours. Tommy thought I was a complete waste of space.... I have some pics somewhere...
Click to expand...


What did you go by on the air? I'm sure I'll recognize the name.
 
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