Once upon a time in the Arizona desert there was a radio station (now it's Spanish...what isn't?) called KTKT. It was in Tucson, and when I worked there we had 35% of the men, 36% of the women 18-34 and 66% of the teens! At one time, on Sunday morning we had 99% of the audience on 990 AM! This station was unreal. The first time I heard it I was stationed at the Army post Ft. Huachuca
(wa-chew-ka) 70 miles south of Tucson, and I swear the station was alive! This place breathed. When I got back from Vietnam, after a stint at KHYT (K-HIT) and KIKX (Kicks..."The Great 58"), I spent 4 1/2 years at KTKT. These were some of the most fun times I had in radio. KTKT is where I started using my middle name "Mack", I had been John M. Flanagan til then (I liked it, it sounded like a lawyer!). I don't know if you know this but I hated (!) my full name. Why couldn't I get one like Bobby Ocean? My name was so, "ugh!", when I came to San Francisco they wanted to give me a fake name and I said, "Please do!", they were going to call me Z.Z. Boozer, kind of a rip-off of Z.Z.Top because I fancied myself as a New Mexico (I'm from Roswell...) gunfighter. But since they had Dr. Don Rose, Beau Weaver, Kevin McCarthy and Citizen Bill Carpenter they decided I should use my real name (darn!) so Dave Sholin and I became two of the first radio people on the West Coast to use our real radio names. John Mack Flanagan. Chuck Sims who has been around Tucson radio for more than 30 years is doing an oral history of KTKT. I'll see if I can get him to post it here. It is hypnotising! You can't stop listening! Promise me you'll listen when it's posted. -John-
(wa-chew-ka) 70 miles south of Tucson, and I swear the station was alive! This place breathed. When I got back from Vietnam, after a stint at KHYT (K-HIT) and KIKX (Kicks..."The Great 58"), I spent 4 1/2 years at KTKT. These were some of the most fun times I had in radio. KTKT is where I started using my middle name "Mack", I had been John M. Flanagan til then (I liked it, it sounded like a lawyer!). I don't know if you know this but I hated (!) my full name. Why couldn't I get one like Bobby Ocean? My name was so, "ugh!", when I came to San Francisco they wanted to give me a fake name and I said, "Please do!", they were going to call me Z.Z. Boozer, kind of a rip-off of Z.Z.Top because I fancied myself as a New Mexico (I'm from Roswell...) gunfighter. But since they had Dr. Don Rose, Beau Weaver, Kevin McCarthy and Citizen Bill Carpenter they decided I should use my real name (darn!) so Dave Sholin and I became two of the first radio people on the West Coast to use our real radio names. John Mack Flanagan. Chuck Sims who has been around Tucson radio for more than 30 years is doing an oral history of KTKT. I'll see if I can get him to post it here. It is hypnotising! You can't stop listening! Promise me you'll listen when it's posted. -John-
