August 22, 2007

Good Times
and Great Oldies

Seemingly the official mantra of oldies radio coast to coast, this slogan was on the money for country station alumni Saturday night. 

Judy Gibson and Kelsey Sharpe gathered many of the findable folks who made KEKB-FM Colorado West’s dominant radio station a decade ago. 

Working at KEKB-FM in the eighties and nineties was as much fun as you can have with your pants on.  We put anyone and everyone on the air.  Then Governor Romer was a regular visitor.  Up With People rehearsing at Junction High?  We’d have cast members wander down the street for an interview.  Our favorites were the kids from Russia.  We’d get them to say, “Boris watch out for moose and squirrel”, like Natasha on Rocky and Bullwinkle.  The Russians stared wide-eyed at Heller and I hysterical with laughter, they hadn’t a clue as to what was so funny.  

The night before country concert tickets went on sale, fans would sleep in the parking lot to be first in line for the choicest of seats.  Come early morning, coffee was brewed, Jan would bake breakfast pastries and we’d feed and interview those lining the parking lot to buy tickets for Toby Keith, Diamond Rio, The Nitty Gritty’s or whomever was booked into the Avalon or Two Rivers. 

There were rhubarb pie contests, lost pet announcements, and a Breakfast Flakes specialty, birthday greetings for people having no desire to hear their exact age “on the air, everywhere”. 

When it came to dumb, who could top  “Canadian or Dead”? The Breakfast Flakes announced a name and to win a killer prize on the order of a free hot dog from Der Wienerschnitzel, the listener had to tell us whether the name in question was a Canadian or dead.  If, or when, it started to drag, Heller volunteered, “Lorne Greene”.  The late star of Bonanza was, of course, both Canadian and dead. 

Attending the reunion were Michael Flewelling, KEKB’s original employee who joined before the station signed on in ’84, plus Ed Chandler and Tom Sheldon also behind the mike in the Fruita days.  Others still working in Grand Junction radio and swapping stories Saturday night were Marie Petefish and Mitch Micheau while Martiey Miller was in town from her job with CBS in Minneapolis. 

Scott Davis is today the music guru at Mt. Garfield middle school as well as front man for Exit 42.  Kelsey Sharpe’s a real estate titan.  Annick Pruitt heads up the Rifle Chamber and Todd Ankeman’s also in Rifle working at the airport. Judy Gibson is a principal in the Gibson RV empire.  Randy Hampton is seen almost daily on local TV.  He’s the official “where the bear was spotted this time” guy for the DOW. Priscilla Mangnall our promotion director extraordinaire is now employed as the driving force behind Mesa County’s MS Society.