Radio

Memory Page Two

From Gary Vance

 I  was the first voice to be heard on the FM when we went Country that first morning (Outside of the simulcast).  Ron Norwood said just before we separated from the simulcast, "OK Gary LeRoy, this station has been dark for two weeks so when you go on it will be the first, so make it good."  What was there to say to make it good?  So I just opened the mike and said, "This is KMPS FM with Country Music in STEREO!" 
 
 I felt that I was an integral part of that staff.  I had more tenure in the market than any of the people mentioned in the PSRBA article about the transformation from KOL to KMPS.
 
  I was part of the KAYO team that was described as in, "Getting rid of the hillbillies."  KAYO was nationally recognized as Seattle's Country Giant, at least to Billboard Magazine and all of the major record companies and recording artists.  There never were any hillbillies over there and I left on my own accord after their new program director fired most of the other guys.  Buck Ritchey had died and Bobby Wooten retired and moved back to Arkansas.  Our loyal audience stuck with the station even though they were deeply annoyed at the firings of the few guys that were left.  All of a sudden the listeners had two new stations in town and they were angry at KAYO for dropping the more traditional sound.  It was neck and neck until KEUT became KMPS FM and the listeners, for the first time ever in the Seattle, Tacoma, Everett market, had Country Music in stereo!   I was a longtime familiar voice in the market that the Country audience knew very well.   Manning Slater, the owner, came into the control room a day or two after we kicked it off.  He called me by my first name although we had never met and he asked me how I liked the FM.  I said I loved it and he said, "Good!  Have fun with it!"
 
  KMPS FM was an instant hit and still is a live and vibrant part of the Seattle market.  KAYO tried to sue KMPS and myself but backed off when our attorney's threatened them with a counter suit.  I felt very much like what it must be to be a Major League  baseball player who wants to beat his old team after being traded.

 

From Ron Norwood

An Interesting Story

This was well into the tenure of Jay Lawrence as KMPS AM/FM morning personality. Jay came to me and told me that the program director job at KLAC in Los Angeles was open and that I ought to apply. He was quite clear that if I got the job, he wanted me to take him with me – which at the time would have been O.K. with me. I sent a resume to KLAC with a cover letter of interest in the PD position. After that I frankly forgot all about it. About a week later, Jim Mc Govern calls me into his office and asks me if I am leaving the station for Los Angeles. I honestly and innocently tell him no. Several days later Charlye Parker tells me that a friend of hers on the sales staff at KLAC told her that they had hired Ron Norwood as their new PD. Don Langford later related to Lee Rogers and myself that KLAC had decided to hire me. The interesting part? I never interviewed. I never accepted the position. I never spoke to one person at KLAC. Shortly thereafter Metromedia (KLAC’s Owner) went on a different path, so it never happened.

Another Interesting Story

In 1984, John Winkle was convinced that KRPM was going to beat KMPS if we didn’t change our ways and our sound. At that time, we were running tested music, and the morning show on both stations. We were doing quite well. During this time "12 in a row" was coming out and John wanted to adopt the format. I disagreed for many reasons. First of all we were not a machine that was broken. Secondly, the format was a double-edged sword in that in the last quarter of the hour you dumped all the ads and promos. Listeners knew that they were going to be dumped on and left for another station. Also, most importantly, we sent a message that commercials were bad and that we had a little ghetto in our last quarter hour where everybody got dumped. If I were an astute advertiser, I would not want my spot dumped into the middle of a 5-6 minute stop set. This was screwing the people that paid our salary and then going on the air and saying that ads were bad! I guess the fact that I grew up with a father who was a radio sales manager; I was always concerned about how the station did for the clients. Here’s a little secret about radio that most people on the talent side ignore. Radio is an advertising medium.

Here’s the bottom line. If you are not concerned about how your clients (advertisers) are doing and how the station works for them, you are not doing your job.

Our first book into the new "12 in a row" was a disaster. We had like a 4.5 that set us back about 7-8 years. I was fired. I was not fired for the bad book, I was fired because I was tired and burned out. I had no idea what to do about the book. I’m sure that if I had come up with a new game plan, they would have gone with it. The problem was that I was clinically burned out and didn’t know it. You can’t spend eight years at the same station in a major market and not experience some burnout.

The same situation happened to me at KGA in Spokane. Had a bad book. I fired half the staff, redid the format and we bounced back to a 15.9 share persons 12+ and number 1 in the market. Remember Big Ed? Anyway, I’ve wanted that story out for some time. Whew! Yer Pee Dee, Ron.

 

From Bill Wolfenbarger

On the subject of the passing of Manning Slater.  I had thought of him often over the years, especially since I got back in this business five years ago, but never checked to see how he was doing. When Manning bought KOL, he offered Hercules stock to me and Susan.  First he offered $10,000 worth.  We had no money.  He then offered $5,000 worth.  We had no money.  Then he offered to sell us $5k with half down and half a loan from the Hercules Profit-Sharing Trust.  So we scraped up the $2,500 and bought in.  Much to our surprise, Manning sold the station a few years later and we were RICH... we made $45,000...!!! 

It was that $$ plus the profit from our Seattle house sale that later got us into the uniform rental business... which I managed to milk for about ten years...  Manning came across as a gruff person but he was a pussycat.  I also remember when he rented a luxury apt on Lake Washington for some terribly large amount of money like maybe $500 or more a month!!

 

From Colleen Robbins:

I was hired by Ron Norwood as a part-timer in 1982, I was 22 years old.  (a naive, snot-nosed kid - scared to death!)  Fresh out of college at WSU, having worked at the college station (all 16 watts), I was damn brave.  I was hired on full time evenings in February 1983 on KMPS-FM, "Stereo 94", where we played "3 in a row".  I moved to middays and music director in 1985, KMPS-FM went to "12 in a row", then I was shown the door in 1987 when EZ Communications bought the company.

I remember all the wonderful, experienced radio co-workers who taught me a thing or two...Ed Dunaway and Jim Williams, both of whom DJ'ed the music at my wedding, Jaye Albright- the BEST program director I EVER worked with- Phil Harper and Ichabod Caine...a couple of the most relateable and humorous morning guys I've heard, and Don Riggs-newsperson extraordinaire.  Lisa Brooks!  I miss you and think you're great!  Susan Falconer!  One of my best friends in radio back in the 80's, a compassionate gal who would do anything for you. Becky Brenner!  The hardest working woman in the radio biz!  I met my husband, Michael Cook, at KMPS when he was part-timing...we're still together and have a wonderful son.

Here's a funny story that will go down in history at KMPS, and one that's never been outdone in my 18 years of broadcasting:

APRIL FOOLS DAY...Ed Dunaway and Jim Williams decide to play a joke on Jack Allen.  They carefully peel off the cart label of "Rueben James", by Kenny Rogers (on Jack's play list that night) and attach it to another cart.  On this new cart they record burp and fart noises.  OK, funny enough to think of Jack Allen airing that on KMPS-AM.  But, NO...Jack doesn't play it, he gives it to BECKY BRENNER over on KMPS-FM and SHE plays it on the air!!  A firing offense these days, but a GREAT LAUGH back in 1983 or '84, whenever...  I still have fits over that one.

And I still miss all you guys!

From Lee Rogers:

Well as one of the people who birthed KMPS in August of 1975,  I have many memories of the 8 years I spent doing afternoon drive at both Harbor Island and the Pike Place Market studios.   Some of them might be a little old for many of you to remember but here goes.

I remember ..

1.    Phil Harper never wore shoes to work.   I'll never forget the morning it snowed and when I came to work that morning there were bare foot prints in the snow leading from Phil's car to the front door.
2.    Roger Dale .. the original KMPS over-night host.  (one of the few KOL hold-overs)     Anyone remember his Bob Wills museum in the kitchen?   Roger was a huge practical joker .. always pulling pranks on every one.   So we rigged a cart machine up in the ceiling that was set on a timer to fire off 20 seconds after he turned off the mic.  It contained all these really spooky sounds and would come from a different speaker each time.  It scared the hell out of him.  He was carrying a butcher knife around with him when we came to work the next morning.
3.   I remember the first time we kicked KAYO's ass.
4.   4 of the most enjoyable years of my life teaming up with Don Riggs in the afternoons.   We were essentially doing a morning show from 3-7pm.
5.    I remember when Gary Vance & I volunteered to switch from the AM station to do country music in stereo on that FM signal.  Little did we know!!!!!
6.    Art Lind .. the original mid-day personality.   Later died of heart disease.
7.    The year they gave us all TVs and really cool stuff for Christmas bonuses ??
8.    All the nights at the Riverside Inn with Stampede Pass.  (my band)
9.    Opening The Longhorn Bar & Grill with my partner Gerry Andal.
10.  Jim Mcgovern.   One of the best GM's ever.
11.  Rick Stewart .. the original KMPS Program Director.
12.  Bob Kelly who almost made a career of being a KMPS part timer.  He is currently the all night personality at KUPL here in Portland.
13.  How Kay Spilker could get just about anything she wanted by crying ..
14.  How the night ratings went through the roof when Charlye Parker took over.
15.  The first years of the KMPS picnic in Silverdale.  The stage was a flat bed trailer.
16.   My band playing for a KMPS remote at Southcenter Mall where we introduced a pimply faced kid who played fiddle.   Mark O'connor !!!
17.   Gary Vance's bad hand !!!!!  (ask him about it)


From Jack Allen (KMPS AM 7pm – mid.  1979 – 1984)

There were a lot of old rock n’ roll spirits hovering about the (formerly KOL) KMPS building on Harbor Island when I was hired in ’79 after a five year stint at KVI. I hadn’t been in that building since 1968. When I walked in there was country music blaring from the lobby speakers but the images of Lan Roberts, Dick Curtis, Robin Mitchell, B.R. Bradbury, Jeff Boeing, Bill Taylor, Bobby Simon and a bunch of other kegger rock n’ rollers were oozing from the walls. Wow. DejaVu.

Six months later the studios were relocated adjacent to the famous Pike Place Market. Lots of memories there. Among my favorites is this one:

The “on duty operators”  were required to log remote control transmitter readings hourly for the AM and the FM. I was on AM  and Miss Charley Parker was on FM. My intercom blared with a distressed Charlye shouting, “my meters have gone down”, meaning that FM could possibly be off the air. I replied, “do you have audio?”. She said, “yes”. I replied, “don’t worry about it Charlye, I have a First Class Operators Permit, I can fix anything.”  After a pregnant pause she replied, “yeah, right.” So I retrieved my license from the wall, walked down the hall, opened the FM control room door and waved my license in the air near the meters. At that very moment the meters came back up. Charlye looked at the meters, looked at me and  said, “Holy smoke!” Though I could hardly believe it myself I simply stated, “If you have any more problems, let me know” and I quietly closed the door and wandered back to the AM control room.  As I’m hanging my license back on the wall the intercom blares, “How did you do that?” I pushed the talk button and said, “Don’t bother me Charlye, I’m trying to do a talk show here”.

 

From Brady Wright:

I remember coming on board in the summer of '79, fresh from a rock and jazz gig at another local station.  I told Ron Norwood when he hired me for the all night gig on weekends, "I don't know a damn thing about country music."  He said, "I don't care.  The gig isn't about the music, it's about making the listener feel at home and having a good time."  I figured I could do that, no matter what tunes were playing in between, and I ended up staying there for six years.
 
I did all the shifts eventually, and was the second to last person to work in that rat-infested shack on the Duwamish.  Phil, Don and Patti were doing their morning show from two mobile homes in the parking lot when we "turned the key" to the new studios, and I was signing off as they signed on with the new antenna from the Pike Place Market studios.  Talk about your nice new digs!  Two floors up from the best Italian gelato place in the country, Procopio's. 
 
I remember playing on the company softball team for three or four years, and having a great time tossing shots at the other stations teams as we regularly killed them.  I can still see Holly Conley's husband Clif going yard at the plate.  The guy had a terrific swing. 
 
When the morning show went separate signals, Jay Lawrence was doing the simulcast.  Ron gave me the FM morning show and had Jay stay on the AM, with Don and Patti.  The idea was to do the talk and joke thing on AM and give the FM listeners 3-song sets and a more streamlined show.  I was the first top-ten, all night personality in Seattle to be promoted directly to mornings.  Jay was mightily torqued because I got the big signal and he was stuck on the 5K AM.  It eventually all worked out.  About a year and a half later, Jay left and they decided to re-simulcast the mornings with Ichabod Caine.  I moved to 7-midnight on the FM side, where I stayed.  What great times!
 
My most amusing memories are probably based on the millions of remotes I did, especially at the Puyallup Fair.  A lot of people get nervous when they have to do a show in front of 'real people' but it was always the most fun for me.  Jack Allen, Jim Williams, Charlye Parker, Jay Hamilton, Ed Dunaway and I all used to 'do the Puyallup' every year.  I loved it when folks would come by the booth fresh from other stations' and try to heckle a bit.  You could do at least two or three breaks on the "kind of folks from those OTHER radio stations" and still get the plugs and other bits in!  Plus, we had the best location at the Fair....right next to the Barbecue Pete's.
 
The vast experiences I had at KMPS were probably the genesis of the techniques I shared at the broadcast school I ran at the time, as well as the many communications consulting gigs I held in the following years, all of which led me the career as a sales, marketing, and customer service trainer which I'm pursuing today.  I can honestly say I never had a bad day in radio.  (I had a lot of bad SHOWS, mind you, just enjoyed the hell out of having them!)

 

From Jim Williams (KMPS-AM, 10A-3P):

I came to KMPS-AM from WDVH in Gainesville, FL in the late 70's.  Ron Norwood hired me to do  the overnight air-talent slot at "Compass" for more money that I had been making as PD in Gainesville.  I thought I had died and gone to heaven...large market and better pay!  It didn't take long for me to realize that it costs a LOT more to live in Seattle than in Gainesville.

The station was operating at the AM transmitter site on Harbor Island at the time.  The FM had just switched from automated "beautiful music" to country.  FM radio was in the process of grabbing AM radio's audience and KMPS was the first FM to adopt the country format in the market.  Phil Harper simulcast on AM and FM in the morning and we separated programming the rest of the day.  I did the overnight for about three months before the mid-day guy (Art Lind) suffered a stroke.  Ron put me in that day-part on a temporary basis and made it permanent a few months  later.  That's where I stayed for five years.

I remember when Charlye Parker and I were on the air one night and a female "admirer" of hers took a cab to the station to talk to her.  Charlye didn't want anything to do with the woman who wouldn't take NO for an answer.  The woman sent the cab away and started banging on the front door.  When she figured out that we weren't going to let her in she proceeded to kick the glass out of the door.  Charlye called the police but I seem to remember that the "admirer" was gone by the time they arrived.

In 1980 we moved to new digs on Western Avenue behind the Pike Place Market.  Wow!  All new studios and equipment, what a treat!  We even treated ourselves to a "demolish the old studios" party once we were all moved.  The Port of Seattle wanted the land for parking, so they were just going to tear the old building down anyway.

We used to do scads of remotes, mostly at car dealerships.  I loved to do them because of the talent fees. One of the draws was free Hormel Wrangler Franks.  I used to eat more than my share of them and even took the leftovers home from time to time.  No wonder I'm fat and have a cholesterol count in the millions!  At one point I must have had a few dozen packages of those things in my freezer.  Haven't touched one in years, but they were darn good!

Ron bought his first computer and wrote a program to track music playlists.  Eventually the station bought a PC and a program for that task.  Before that happened we all got stacks of index cards before each air-shift, one for each song we had on our playlist for the day.  I was Music Director and was dragged kicking and screaming into the digital age so I could print the daily playlists.  Now I support networked PC's for a living.  Thanks for getting me started in my current profession Ron!

 

Here's a brief bio on Charlye:

Charlye Parker was one of the pioneers for women in Radio.   In 1977, when KMPS was a brand new country station, the Program Director took a big risk by making her the first woman on the air in Seattle.  A few years later, the first woman in a drive-time position.  To this day, he credits Charlye with being instrumental in making KMPS the power station that it was to become.

Charlye spent 11 years in Seattle.  She left the Pacific Northwest in 1988 to try her hand at programming KGHL/KIDX in Billings, Montana.  However, her lifelong dream had been Southern California radio and when the door to KHAY opened in 1990, she packed her bags.

Teamed with her idol, Jon Cowsill,  mornings on KHAY are Arbitron Rated at an all time high.  As Charlye puts it,  “I work with a guy I love working with.  He’s always  easy going with a positive outlook on  life.  He loves people.  He loves radio.  Jon is an adventure.  I never know from day to day what road he is going to take us down.  Most mornings I can’t stop laughing at his goofy antics.  We meet the world’s most wonderful people.  Then at the end of the week somebody hands me a paycheck and says, ‘Here’s a bunch of money for having a whole lot of fun this week.’  Go figure!”

Charlye is an accomplished stage actress and published songwriter.  She is single and lives on a small farm just outside of Ventura with three birds, 2 horses,  one dog and a partridge in a pear tree.

 

News from Jaye Albright:
May 29, 2001

Sacramento radio pioneer Manning P. Slater, the "MPS" of KMPS, died last week at age 83.  Tom Taylor, M Street Daily editor, reports:  "In 1959 Slater bought then-Stockton-licensed KGDM (1140) and convinced the FCC to let him move the towers halfway to Sacramento and re-license it to the state capitol as KRAK.  He made it the market's first all-country station.  Most country stations that played any country at all in the early 60's played it only in blocks."

He later purchased the frequencies that became KMPS AM & FM and during that time, KMPS PD Ron Norwood was named national PD for "Hercules Broadcasting."

In 1978, Slater sold his stations in Sacramento, Seattle and Hawaii to the Boston Globe, Affiliated Publications.

As someone who was working for KUZZ, Bakersfield, CA., in the early 70's .. Manning Slater, Jay Hoffer (the original KRAK PD), Don Langford and Ron Norwood were my heroes and I very much admired their great radio stations. 

It was an amazing development and a personal thrill that I ended up succeeding Ron at KMPS and had the opportunity to work with Don during that time.

 

From Lisa Brooks:

I joined the staff of KMPS in September of 1983, and I remember saying "Thank You" out loud every morning as I drove on the upper deck of the Alaskan Way Viaduct headed to work.  I couldn't believe I got to talk to this beautiful city every day!!!

Some of my favorite memories include reaping the fringe benefits of having to tape Longacres stretch race calls every weekend when we had weekend news.  I got to know the names of the winning jockeys and horses so well, that I cleaned up at the track on several occasions!  --never bet more than $3 though.  ("and down the lane they come....) Who can forget that scratchy voice???

The KMPS Newsroom was located between the AM and FM air studios, and we could push a button on the control board to speak to the DJ's in each room.  Ed Dunaway LOVED to push the button in his studio to sing along with the music into the newsroom on unexpected occasions.  I can't tell you how many typos he was responsible for!  Jim Williams had a penchant for sitting on the floor of his studio, so I couldn't see him, and SLOWWLLY peering over his control board into the newsroom.  Jim!  Sometimes it was funny...but other times, it was scary...especially when I was trying to concentrate on writing news copy.

Remember how Bob Beran loved to lean against the door jamb of the newsroom, scratching his back like a bear against a tree?

And how could any KMPS female employee live without Don Riggs' hugs?  In this era of sexual harassment, it's not politically correct to have fond memories of them...but I couldn't wait to get a hug from Don every day!

And, while we're on the subject of Don Riggs...nobody was the master of the 2 line news story like Don.  Information, commentary and humor in 15 words!

When I got to spend about a year on the morning show with Ichabod and Don, we took the show to the Bellevue McDonald's to celebrate Don's 50th birthday.  What a party!  And, remember the time we went to a mall to give away a trip to Hawaii?   The catch was that the listener had to be ready to pack and leave that morning!  We had tons of people waiting to get out of town.

Becky Brenner had so much energy!  She did everything at the station from promotions to air work to softball to remote broadcasts...and did everything well.  I always wished I was more like her.

How many years did they run that "Dan Fast Muffler Man" spot..."Do you know the muffler man...the muffler man..."

Finally...fond remembrances of Abbi Kaplan, one of the hardest working, smartest news women I have had the privilege of working with and our long friendship.  I learned so much about interviewing and street reporting from her.  And I continue to learn life lessons from her example.


 


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