• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

LRock Top 40 station 1978

I have the honor of being the first "live" DJ on KKYK. We went live on December 12, 1976, and I was the first all-night jock. Jason O'Neil (Jeff Hoyt), Brent Walker and I all came down from Oklahoma to sign the station on, along with other people whose names escape me now.

I was 22, it was my first time away from home on my own, and I had a blast, although I was very poor. The people in Little Rock were very friendly to us, and I remember being treated nicer there than a disk jockey was treated in Tulsa.

I was only there 10 months, but my memories are very solid. I remember doing the late night shift and getting home at 2:00 a.m. and playing scrabble with my next door neighbors till 4 in the morning, listening to "Beaker Street" on KAAY.

Jason O'Neil was over at KLAZ then and didn't join the KKYK team until Jeff left the morning slot, sometime in 1979, as I recall.
 
Sorry, got that wrong. Craig was a sales guy by the time I got to KKYK, for Snyder. Since I was from Tulsa, I didn't know him from Adam, but folks told me he was a former morning guy. I remember when I was introduced to him, the first thing he said to me was "have you got any pot?". He was a hoot, for sure.

Jeff Hoyt is still a good friend of mind (spoke with him today). But he didn't have the personality of someone like Craig on the radio. Jeff was smart to get off the air and do what he's doing. It took me a few years to realize I didn't belong on the air, either, but you get that radio stuff in your blood. :)
 
Michael,
I was there. It was actually January 10th or 11th 1977. I have the air check of the first live show. It was snowing and one of the worst snow storms in LR in years. Ken Dennis was PD. ...for about two months...lol. Cal Arnold was GM. It was a mushy Adult CHR format....pretty tired. KLAZ wiped their shoes on that format. But...lots of excellent talent brought in. Jeff Hoyt as you say....he left the air and joined us on the sales staff before leaving to buy Alpha Productions from Ted Snider and changing it to Hoyt Walker....along with Brent Walker, our mid-day guy. Lord, those two could crank out awesome spots. Bill Hilton was the afternoon drive guy. Looked like George Carlin...but did great impersonations. Lost track of him. Rob Johnson did nights. Snider just couldn't get the format right until they brought consultant Ron White in from Michigan in 81. Ron was full time PD, but had 13 station clients while there. Ron & Craig turned KKYK into a revenue machine.
 
kudzooter said:
Interesting personnel note: in 1954 one of their staffers was Bud Connell. By 1955, he'd gone to KXLR which was then on 1150, programming it to strong ratings before doing the same for stations like WNOE, New Orleans; WFUN, Miami; and one in St. Louis whose CLs don't light up any memory chips.
Click to expand...

Was it KWK (1380)? I know they were Top 40 around 1960. More likely KXOK (630)--that was one of the "original" Top 40 stations owned by Storz--along with WNOE & WFUN... & OKC's KOMA, KC's WHB, the Twin Cities' WDGY, and the very first Top 40 station, Omaha's 660/KOWH.
 
Redneck, seems likely it was KXOK. Bud, so I've heard, tried to get on with Storz's WTIX but couldn't; so went to James A. Noe's WNOE and programmed them so well that Todd Storz and George Armstrong took him to St. Louis. Or maybe, he went up against Storz's WQAM with WFUN, and those results got him to St. Louis. (I've read way too many of those little 3x5 liner cards, for my own memory to have much functionality left, ;D.)
 
KLAZ was owned by Ron Curtis. I had the misfortune of working for him after he bought KWEN in Tulsa. This would be the early 80's. It's too bad. His radio stations actually sounded pretty good. He just had a hard time making payroll.
 
Other than Craig O'Neill at KTHV, Jeff Walker (still somewhere in LR), and Jeff Hoyt in the Northwest (Seattle/Portland?), what happened to other KKYK alum? Isn't Jim Grant still in LR?
 
Cal Arnold is retired. Grant has been the GM at VTN in Little Rock since mid 90's. Dennis Harrington is in Denver most recently with Dial Global. Mark McCain is D-Day from Animal House....whereabouts unknown. Ron White is with CC in Sarasota.Dr. Brock is in Echo Canyon with his brother, Keimosabi
 
Too funny--Dr. Brock! Good times in our building at 10th and Spring--then in the new building at the Pine/Cedar exit, when they were just starting construction on UAMS hospital across Wilbur Mills Freeway!
 
I just remembered another great name from this era--Joe James from KAAY! He did afternoons. Didn't he leave LR for Memphis or Cleveland?
 
Ramblin said:
Yeah, Jim Cassidy. He could read the phone book and sound great. You're right...when Craig O'Neal came over from KLAZ, KKYK mopped up for quite awhile. With "Sherman Bonner" doing weather, and "Candid Radio", the mornings were great. Whatever happened to Craig anyway...? I heard he was doing TV of all things...! Surely not, with that face and those lips...! (lol)
Click to expand...

Jim Cassidy is my Dad. I remember hanging out at both of those radio stations during the summers and vacations. My Dad passed away in December 2006. Your comments are treasured. Thank you!
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom