PRESERVING RADIO HISTORY ACROSS COLORADO

Archives: People

  • Penny Mitchell

    Penny Mitchell is a country radio veteran who got her start at Colorado stations in the early 1980s and later programmed and promoted country music on a national level. If you listened to country in Pueblo, Vail, Grand Junction or Denver back then, her name may ring a bell.

    Where she is now

    Stoney Creek Records, part of BBR Music Group, hired her in November 2015 as director of regional promotions for the Northeast. She reports to Chris Loss, vice president of promotion, who credited her with a big role in helping launch new artists and build their careers over 30-plus years in country radio.

    Career

    She joined Jones Radio Networks in 1992, where she was program director for both Mainstream and Hot Country, assistant program director and music director of Mainstream Country, and also worked on the air.

    Before that, she chose radio over nursing school, leaving her studies in 1982. Her Colorado stops included Denver’s KHOW-FM, KSTR-FM in Grand Junction, KEYQ-FM in Vail and KCCY-FM in Pueblo, though the sources don’t spell out her roles or dates at any of them.

    In the archive

    A Penny Mitchell is pictured at the Denver Radio Ladies Party on March 21, 2025.

    Sources

  • Melinda Connolly

    If you listen to KOSI, you’ve likely come across Melinda Connolly. She’s been on the KOSI 101.1 team in Denver since 1996, and Colorado has been her home since 1980.

    Career

    A University of Colorado Boulder graduate with a degree in broadcast journalism, Connolly landed her first radio job as soon as she finished school, according to her station bio. Since then she’s moved between radio and cable television work, sometimes doing both. KOSI came calling in 1996.

    In the archive

    A March 21, 2025 photo shows Connolly with other Denver-area radio women at the Denver Radio Ladies Party.

    Sources

  • Kelly Ford

    Kelly Ford is a voice plenty of Denver country fans grew up with. If KYGO was a regular presence in your car or kitchen over the last couple of decades, you know her, and these days she’s doing much the same for listeners in Washington and Baltimore.

    The current gig

    As of October 2026, Kelly is music director and afternoon host at two stations at once: 98.7 WMZQ in Washington, DC, and 93.1 WPOC in Baltimore. She’s on the air weekdays from 3 to 7 p.m. In those jobs she is stepping in for WMZQ’s Ty Bailey and WPOC’s Jeff St. Pierre.

    Denver roots

    The biggest piece of her résumé is twenty years in Denver at KYGO. She also spent time in New York working on the morning show at WNSH.

    Other stops along the way

    Her most recent job before the move was out on Long Island, at 103.1 The Wolf (WWWF) in Bay Shore, New York, a Connoisseur Media station, where she handled the music and the afternoon show. Go back further and you’ll find her doing nights at KUPL in Portland and KBAY in San Jose, plus afternoons at WFLS in Fredericksburg.

    This is a short page built from contributor information. If you worked with Kelly or have more to add, we’d love to hear from you.

    Sources

  • Brian McFayden

    Brian McFayden is a name you might know from national media, and for a few months he was the guy waking up Denver on 98.5 KYGO. That is not a typical resume for a country morning host.

    The resume before Denver

    The job right before KYGO was sports anchor on HLN’s Morning Express with Robin Meade. Before that he was both host and producer at Al Gore’s Current TV, and earlier still he hosted MTV’s TRL and anchored MTV News. His radio roots are at 93.7 The Edge in Minneapolis and 92.3 K-Rock in New York.

    Mornings on KYGO

    His first day was Monday, December 7, 2020, when he teamed up with Tracy Dixon for KYGO Morning Show with Tracy & Brian. He told listeners he was excited to be running mornings at a station whose call letters carry so much history, and program director Brian Michel said he was happy to have him aboard. The run was brief: Brian left KYGO in March 2021, less than four months after starting.

    This is a short page built from trade-press reports. If you worked with Brian or have more to add, we’d love to hear from you.

    Sources

  • Tracy Dixon

    Tracy Dixon is the longtime voice on Denver’s KYGO mornings. If you’ve had 98.5 on while getting ready for work in the last decade or so, you’ve probably heard him.

    Before settling in at KYGO in 2013 for mornings, Tracy did stints in Rochester, Minnesota, and Madison, Wisconsin. Along the way he’s shared the mic with Guy David, who departed in June 2020, and then with Brian McFayden, who began in December 2020, which is when the show became KYGO Morning Show with Tracy & Brian. When he welcomed Brian, Tracy praised him as an unusually rare and gifted broadcaster. After Brian left in March 2021, Tracy stayed on in the morning slot.

    This is a short page built from trade-press reports. If you worked with Tracy or have more to add, we’d love to hear from you.

    Sources

  • Guy David

    Guy David, who was born in Australia, is a morning voice that many Denver country fans woke up to on KYGO in the late 2010s. In March 2017 he joined the morning show alongside Tracy Dixon.

    Earlier he hosted mornings at WFON in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, known as 107.1 The Bull, and before that he worked for an online radio company in Los Angeles. In June 2020, a little more than three years into his KYGO run, he departed. Tracy stayed on, and the station began searching for a new co-host.

    This is a short page built from trade-press reports. If you worked with Guy or have more to add, we’d love to hear from you.

    Sources

  • Jerry Schemmel

    Jerry Schemmel is the voice many Colorado fans picture when they think of summer nights and Rockies baseball on KOA. Right now he shares the Rockies broadcast booth with Jack Corrigan, trading off between play-by-play and color commentary, while Jesse Thomas handles production.

    His road there has some twists. Long before baseball, he spent 18 years calling Denver Nuggets games. He called Rockies action on KOA from 2010 through 2019, then left iHeartMedia’s 850/94.1 KOA in January 2020. The break didn’t last: on April 8, 2022 he came back to the KOA Colorado Rockies Radio Network right away, taking the chair Mike Rice had held for two seasons.

    This is a short page built from trade-press reports. If you have more to add about Jerry’s career, we’d love to hear from you.

    Sources

  • Mason Stanfield

    Mason Stanfield is a country morning guy who grew up in the Denver area, and his career eventually brought him back to Colorado to run Cat Country 95.1 (KATC) in Colorado Springs. Remember Cat Country 95.1 Morning with Wendy & Mason? That was him.

    Cat Country and what came next

    Mason stayed on as KATC’s PD and morning host through December 2024. In August 2026 he moved to Reno, where he was named operations manager for the Cumulus cluster and also PD and morning host of Country 98.1 K-Bull.

    How he got to Colorado Springs

    The Cat Country job was announced in June 2023. When it was, Mason said he was excited to be joining a station he described as amazing, while the market manager pointed to his intense love of country music. The résumé he brought was long. He had put in about three and a half years of mornings at KRMD in Shreveport, and served as PD and morning host in Las Cruces, New Mexico, and in Rochester, Minnesota. He’s also hosted mornings in Austin, Minnesota, and in Salida, Colorado, and has pitched in as a fill-in at Bonneville’s KYGO in Denver.

    This is a short page built from trade-press reports. If you worked with Mason or have more to add, we’d love to hear from you.

    Sources

  • Jeana Gondek

    Jeana Gondek is the voice you may have caught on your morning commute with Marty Lenz on KOA‘s Colorado’s Morning News.

    How she got to Denver

    Her radio life started at WOOD (1300 AM), a news-talk outlet in Grand Rapids, Michigan. From there she went on to WOKV, another news-talk station, this one in Jacksonville. Then came Colorado: she joined KOA in December 2022 and was on the air right away.

    What was said at the welcome

    Gondek described KOA as a station with a great history that she had long wanted to be part of, and said she was happy to be calling Denver home at last. For his part, KOA program director Dave Tepper felt her personality, experience and passion for news would bring something fresh to the morning show.

    This is a short page built from trade-press reports. If you worked with Jeana or have more to add, we’d love to hear from you.

    Sources

  • Carly Evans

    Carly Evans is a radio programmer who relocated to Colorado Springs in 2018 and wound up in charge of alternative X103.9 KRXP. If you tuned in to X103.9 in the early 2020s, her programming is what you were hearing.

    At X103.9

    In May 2023 Carly was named program director and afternoon talent at KRXP, succeeding Shawn Lucero, who had left for Colorado Public Radio. Operations manager Ross Ford said the field included a number of strong candidates, but Carly came across as an unusually versatile pick. She left KRXP in July 2025, a little more than two years later, and Ford took over the programming duties.

    Before KRXP

    Carly has been in broadcasting for more than 20 years, 13 of them running programming at KKQY in Hayes, Kansas, KXBZ in Manhattan, Kansas and KORA in Bryan, Texas. After the move to Colorado she programmed KQSC, a country station in Colorado Springs, and then in 2022 joined the KRXP team part-time.

    Where is Carly Evans now?

    We don’t yet know where she landed after KRXP. If you do, we’d love to hear from you.

    This profile is a short stub, and more detail is welcome.

    Sources