PRESERVING RADIO HISTORY ACROSS COLORADO

Archives: People

  • Ricardo Salazar

    Ricardo Salazar staked everything on a struggling Greeley AM station in 1997 and built it into “El Tigre,” one of Northern Colorado’s best-known Spanish-language stations.

    Career

    Salazar had been working as a Los Angeles-based radio consultant, and he was also the Raiders’ Spanish-language voice. In 1997 he paid $150,000 for KGRE 1450, which was on the air just 10 hours a day and losing money. Paying for it took his entire life savings, plus seven credit cards that he maxed out. He turned it into regional Mexican “El Tigre,” and it was in the black before the year was over. Revenue climbed past $600,000 a year by 2006, with growth running between 20 and 30 percent each year.

    Later he added KGRE-FM 102.1 and KFCS in Colorado Springs. He died in 2018 at 67. His daughter, Lindsay Salazar, still runs the station.

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  • Florence Hernández-Ramos

    Florence Hernández-Ramos is the reason Denver has KUVO. Hugo Morales had an idea for a Hispanic public radio station, and she carried it through until the station signed on in 1985.

    How KUVO got built

    Hernández-Ramos graduated from the University of Colorado Boulder and had legal training in civil rights. In 1982 her day job was paralegal work for the Colorado attorney general, and that is when she met Morales of Radio Bilingüe. From there she took on the groundwork: research, grant money, equipment purchases, a board of directors and training programs.

    KUVO went on the air August 29, 1985. Since 1994 it has operated out of the Five Points Media Center on Welton Street.

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  • Steve Leigh

    Steve Leigh has woken up the Vail Valley on KZYR since 1992, and in 2021 he bought the station.

    Career

    Leigh became morning host in 1992 at the Avon station then on 103.1, which turned into modern rock “The Mountain” in 1994 and moved to 97.7 as “The Zephyr” in 2001. After Rocky Mountain Radio Group bought KZYR in 2017, Leigh purchased it in 2021 through his company, KNS Broadcasting, and kept doing mornings as the owner. KNS also owns KKVM 104.7, “The Mile,” which started in 1975 as KVMT, Vail’s first radio station.

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  • Jim Bedford (B.F. Deal)

    Jim Bedford, who wrote as “B.F. Deal,” was one of the Telluride locals behind KOTO signing on in 1975. In 2009 he put the station’s story on the page for Telluride Inside, by which time KOTO had been broadcasting for 34 years and over 200 volunteer DJs had spent time at the mic.

    KOTO

    Picture Telluride in 1974, where getting a decent radio signal was nearly hopeless. Bedford joined a loose crew of locals (his own description of the group) who formed a nonprofit, landed an FCC construction permit for a 10-watt FM station, and talked the Town Council into $10,000 for equipment, paid out over two years. The station was legally established on October 3, 1975, and was on the air less than six months after the permit arrived.

    Once it was up, Bedford and a partner, Greene, drove a pickup truck around Telluride to test how well the signal reached.

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  • Stu Haskell

    Stu Haskell put in 45 years in radio, starting with programming the alternative sound of KTCL and ending up in charge of iHeartMedia’s stations across southern Wyoming and northern Colorado.

    Career

    Radio ran in the family: Haskell’s father, George, helped start KNEB, in Scottsbluff, Nebraska. Once in Colorado, Stu was part of building the modern rock and alternative format at KTCL 93.3 and played a role in the launch of 96.1 KISS FM in Greeley. He was program director at a number of stations before going into management, and eventually became market president for iHeartMedia in southern Wyoming and northern Colorado. People who worked with him recalled that few managers grasped both programming and sales the way he did.

    Stu died on October 18, 2020, a day after celebrating his 71st birthday, and he was named to the CBA Hall of Fame class of 2026.

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  • Dick Maynard

    Richard G. “Dick” Maynard has put in more than 60 years in radio, and he built Jan-Di Broadcasting into one of Grand Junction’s best-known station groups.

    Jan-Di Broadcasting

    In 1984, in the middle of an economic slump on the Western Slope, Maynard co-founded Jan-Di Broadcasting and signed on KEKB-FM. The station set a record with a 48 share among adults 25–54. Jan-Di brought in KBKL-FM, known as KOOL 107.9, in 1996, and two years later, in 1998, it bought KMXY-FM (Mix 104.3).

    On the air

    Mornings belonged to his show, Heller and Maynard: The Breakfast Flakes. CBA Station of the Year honors came its way several times, and the Country Music Association took notice too.

    Honors and industry roles

    Maynard’s term on the board of the National Association of Broadcasters ran from 1995 through 1998. Over at the CBA he was president in 1995, then interim director four years later in 1999.

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  • Murphy Huston

    Murphy Huston was a familiar voice to Denver listeners for nearly four decades, spending time on KHOW and then over 25 years on KOSI.

    From Wisconsin to Denver

    His radio path began in 1968 at WBIZ in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, followed by a step up to WISN in Milwaukee. In 1986 he arrived at Denver’s KHOW, and it did not take long for people around town to know that voice. He switched to KOSI in 1997 and remained there through his retirement in 2024. For about ten years he also hosted programming for the Colorado Lottery on TV.

    Honors and charity

    Away from the microphone, Murphy co-founded Golfers Against Cancer, an effort that has brought in over $25 million toward cancer research.

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  • Ron Mitchell

    Ron Mitchell put in a decade on Denver radio news, then spent 25 years at Channel 9.

    Radio years

    His start came in 1960 at KICN, the 710 AM station in Denver that is now KNUS. After that he worked at KOSI AM, then at KXXI, KMOR and KBTR. KBTR was on the same 710 frequency, renamed in 1961.

    Channel 9

    Mitchell left KBTR radio for KBTV Channel 9 (later KUSA) in 1971 and stayed at 9News for 25 years. Over that time he reported from the field, worked as an assignment editor and filled in as an anchor. In 1973 he produced coverage of the building of the Eisenhower Tunnel: a five-part series plus a half-hour documentary.

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  • Arch Andrews

    If you followed Colorado’s outdoors on TV or radio, you probably knew Arch Andrews. Before that, in the early 1960s, he worked in Denver radio news and programming.

    Path to Denver

    Arch was a Minneapolis native and a Marine Corps veteran of the Korean War. His radio jobs took him through North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa and Omaha, and he landed in Denver in 1959. Between 1959 and 1965 he put in time at KICN (710 AM, today’s KNUS), at KTLN, where he doubled as host and newsman while also serving as program director, and at KGMC (1150 AM, later KWBZ), where he served as news director.

    Voice of the outdoors

    Wildlife Reports ran on KBTV/KUSA 9News for 17 years with Arch as host, and the station promoted it as the longest-running program in Denver television. His day job as public affairs director with the Colorado Division of Wildlife fed that TV work. Over the radio, his Colorado Outdoors Report was carried by over 60 stations, and he lent his voice to close to 20 nature films. He died in 2016 at 87, and the Broadcast Pioneers of Colorado Hall of Fame inducted him in 2018.

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  • Hal Kennedy

    Hal Kennedy began on Colorado Springs radio after World War II, playing records and reading the news, and he ended up as the longest-running TV anchor in the country.

    Early life and radio

    Born in North Dakota on May 23, 1924, Kennedy served in the 29th Infantry’s Signal Corps, landing at Omaha Beach and fighting through France and into Central Europe. Colorado Springs became his home after the fighting ended, and KVOR radio is where he spun records and read the news.

    Thirty-three years at KKTV

    His title when he arrived at KKTV Channel 11 was “sales services director,” though the news anchor chair soon became his. From 1956 to 1989, 33 years in all, he anchored KKTV News, and he was news director for most of those years. By the time he retired, no one at any U.S. TV station had anchored longer. Kennedy died in 2006 at 82, and the Broadcast Pioneers of Colorado Hall of Fame inducted him in 2019.

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