Good memory. I actually listened to this station through various renditions. Some of the jocks included Steve Jackson, Johnny Lane, Barry Shannon, Whistle Mason, CJ Walker, Boogie Man, Tony Scott, Benjamin Caine, John Rhode, Greg Fisher, and Ed Volkman. The music was very mainstream. It was rather tough and noteworthy. Straight pop tunes. The playlist consisted of a pop rock variety in the late 70's and started leaning more adult in the early 80's. The Zoo shifted to Z103 (Easy Rock 103) which later became KJYO which played middle road for a couple of years until 1983. At that time KJ103 was born. KJ103 redefined CHR as we know it.
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KZUE "The Zoo" 1977-1979
- Thread starter BobbyTbone
- Start date
Makes me wonder how many jocks used the last name "Gates" or "Harris."
I had some airchecks from CJ Walker and Lindy Cole at one time. Walker was afternoon drive host. Lindy Cole was very talented and usually worked middays. She had a bit called "Dateline: Soapland." I recall having another tape of Linda Powell from Z103. Unfortunately, these airchecks finally bit the dust and were fed to Mother Earth.
Jungle-Jim said:
I remember a few of those names. I did know one guy who worked at KZUE, not long though I think, and then worked at KLEO in Wichita in 1979 or so. It wasn't our Oklahoma connections though that allowed us to meet, we were at a Kansas Broadcasters dinner while I worked at KEYN. I actually drove from Shawnee to Wichita to do two shifts on the weekends at KEYN. I eventually moved to Wichita, worked there full time and did a late Friday high school sports show on television for a few months. This was all bigtime for a boy from Shawnee, my hometown and first radio job. Anyway, I met Michael Dunovan at that dinner and we talked every now and then. He ended up back in Oklahoma City at Magic 104 in the nineties. It's probably been 20 years since I talked to him. A mutual acquaintance in Raleigh who once worked with me at KEYN told me a few years back that Dunovan got into some totally unrelated business and made some serious money and traveled between homes in San Diego and Oklahoma City. I also knew CJ Walker whose real name was Tony something. He was a funny guy in an understated way. He was in Topeka and strangely enough I met him at a KAB function as well. Kansas radio was good to me for a lot of years before moving back to Oklahoma.
It's very cool to be able to talk to you, Jungle Jim, here because I would listen to you after I got off in Shawnee. That was big city radio and I had my eyes on bigger stations. I've been everywhere since those days, have a wife and 3 children, and a dog named Boo. Yes, from the song, everybody asks! I practice law and still dabble in radio.
stacker said:
It was sold as a kit. And if put together properly, just ran and ran. Still a few on the air today.
michaeldean said:
The "KAFG" call letters were for "American Fidelity Guardian", an insurance company in OKC sometime back in the day. KAFG ran Drake Chenault's "Hit Parade" format when I worked there (1977, about 6 months or so before they went live as "The Zue". The PD's name was Jay Perkey, and the GM at the time was none other than "Mr. Dub Richardson Ford", Woody Woodard. I think Perkey later went to work for WKY and was there for many years, but don't know what he's doing now, if he's even still alive by now. I still see Woody doing TV spots from time to time whenever I visit the Sooner State.
Perk is still hanging out in the "WKY" building that Renda now occupies as one of their engineers. I didn't realize that Woody was the GM of KAFG at one time. Very interesting! I remember him more from the KOMA Country days of 1520.
OKCRadioGuy said:
I know Woody very, very well. I worked for him at KOMA when I was a weekend jock, then went into engineering (under the late Ray Klotz). Woody was doing the Dub Richardson Ford spots on radio and tv (always thought he did a very good job on those). I remember one year he got roped into doing pledge work for OETA, that took up almost two weeks of his time at night. He was not happy about it once he realized the time commitment. And Woody was the GM, and I was the second to last guy to play "rock" music on KOMA when it changed to country under Gregg Lindhall. What a crazy day.
Wow I bet. The day the music died.
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