PRESERVING RADIO HISTORY ACROSS COLORADO

Archives: People

  • Starr Yelland

    Starr Yelland hosted Party Line on KOA, a show the Broadcast Pioneers of Colorado call the first radio talk show. Over his career he interviewed more than 5,000 people. If your family listened to Denver radio from the 1940s into the 60s, his was a familiar voice.

    From Iowa to KOA

    Starr started at WMT in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and joined KOA in Denver in 1940. He served in the South Pacific during World War II, including at Iwo Jima. He stayed with KOA until 1954. Future station owner Bill Stewart got his start writing news for him at KOA.

    KLZ and television

    In 1954 Starr moved to KLZ. On KLZ-TV Channel 7 he was a sports anchor and hosted Starr’s Matinee and Dialing for Dollars.

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  • Jim Hawthorne

    Jim Hawthorne, born in Victor, Colorado, was behind the microphone the moment KMYR signed on, on April 21, 1941. If you’ve ever wondered who opened that station, that’s him. He grew into one of radio’s great comic innovators.

    Hollywood years

    Jim relocated to Los Angeles in the 1940s, and his “nutty” shows were carried by ABC, NBC, CBS and Mutual. Three of Steve Allen’s books described the on-air inventions he came up with. In the 1960s he turned to television in Los Angeles, and from 1965 he spent four years in Hawaii, where he created the children’s show Checkers and Pogo.

    Back in Colorado

    In 1974 Jim returned home to KOA, taking the jobs of promotion manager and program director.

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  • Ed “Weatherman” Bowman

    Ed “Weatherman” Bowman (died July 4, 1994) drew his weather maps by hand, live on the air, and was Denver’s pioneer broadcast weatherman. If your family checked the forecast on Channel 4 in the 50s, that Midwestern drawl and those hand-drawn maps probably ring a bell.

    From Iowa to Denver

    Ed came from Iowa City, Iowa, and his early stops included Des Moines station WHO. He reached Denver and KOA on January 1, 1950. He was the original weatherman once KOA-TV Channel 4 signed on, and he held that spot a dozen years. Straightforward and plain-spoken, he became a Denver media icon.

    Later years

    Later on, he did forecasts for a Kansas network from a studio in his house.

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  • Bette Bailly

    Bette Bailly (died 2015) showed up at KNAB in Burlington in 1967 to work as an electronics engineer, expecting a 30-day job. She ended up staying close to 50 years. If you grew up on the eastern plains tuning in your hometown station, odds are Bette helped keep it on the air.

    KNAB

    Before Burlington she had an engineering background and had done on-air work at a Top 40 station in Great Falls, Montana. KNAB signed on in 1967, and she served there as both engineer and disc jockey. Eventually she owned it, and in 1980 she added an FM sister station.

    Speaking up for small-market radio

    Bette put 15 years on the Colorado Broadcasters Association board, serving as chair at one point, and she was also on the small-market board of the National Association of Broadcasters. Back home she took the lead at the Rotary Club and the Burlington Chamber of Commerce, and she sat on the advisory board at Morgan Community College as well as the Kit Carson County Fair Board.

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  • Bill Stewart

    Bill Stewart took KLMO in Longmont from a 250-watt local station to a 10,000-watt AM, which at the time put it behind only KOA in power in Colorado. If you grew up in Longmont with your hometown station on the radio, that was his handiwork.

    KLMO in Longmont

    Bill took over KLMO as president and general manager in 1959. The FCC signed off on the power increase to 10,000 watts in 1964, and in 1969 he put KLMO-FM on the air.

    Before Longmont

    Bill was born in Winfield, Kansas. His Army Air Corps service lasted three years, with two of them in the Asian theater. After that he studied radio and TV at Columbia University and finished a radio-TV degree at the University of Denver in 1948. That same year he worked nights as news editor at KMYR, and for six months he wrote news for Starr Yelland at KOA.

    Next came sales at KFKA in Greeley, where he eventually became general manager. He then ran KGHF in Pueblo starting in 1951, and from 1958 he ran KWRL in Riverton, Wyoming.

    Honors

    Bill served as president of the Colorado Broadcasters Association, which also named him its Broadcaster of the Year.

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  • Ed Scott

    If you grew up in Denver in the ’50s and watched kids’ TV on Channel 7, you remember Ed Scott as Sheriff Scotty. Before that, he was a Denver kid who made it to network radio.

    Early radio years

    By 16 Ed had finished high school and was running a teen record show. He left the University of Washington to work full time at KING in Seattle, and at 19 he made his network debut at CBS’s WBBM in Chicago. Credits included The Quiz Kids and The Gene Autry Show, along with People Are Funny and Sky King.

    Home to Denver and Sheriff Scotty

    He came back to Denver in 1947 and worked first at KOA, then at KLZ. Starting in 1953, he spent nine years hosting and producing Sheriff Scotty on KLZ-TV Channel 7.

    Station and business owner

    In 1961 he pooled everything he had and bought a share of KLAK, the Lakewood station. By 1966 the place was a thoroughly modern operation, and KLAK-FM signed on that year. He launched the Accent Sound background-music company in 1970, purchased KFEZ in Kansas City in 1971, and then sold off his businesses in 1976.

    Public life and honors

    Politics came next: Ed sat on the Englewood City Council, and he ended up as the youngest mayor in the state. His Denver Post column ran in 63 papers across 30 states, and he hosted There Was A Time, which earned a Telly Award.

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  • Bob Martin

    Bob Martin died in February 1990. For a generation he was the voice of Denver sports: he called Denver Broncos games for 25 years and started the city’s first sports talk show. If you had Broncos football on the radio back in the day, his was the voice in your car or kitchen.

    KOA and the Broncos

    Martin was sports director at KOA radio and KOA-TV, and for 14 years he anchored the evening sportscasts on TV. Broncos games were his signature, 25 years of them, but the play-by-play list was long: football at Air Force, Colorado State and the University of Colorado, plus the Denver Rockets, AAU and NCAA basketball, the Denver Bears and golf tournaments.

    Getting there

    Martin moved to Denver from Oak Park, Illinois, in January 1954 to be program director at KMYR, where he later had an afternoon music show of his own. In 1960 he became co-owner of KMOR in Littleton, the 1510 signal that later became KDKO, and he served as its general manager and hosted its classical music program himself. Five years after that, in 1965, he put Denver’s first sports talk show on the air at KTLN.

    Honors

    Radio World calls him the voice of the Broncos for 499 broadcasts and credits him with launching Denver talk radio.

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  • Rex Howell

    Rex Howell (born 1907) got KFXJ on the air as a teenager and later built Western Colorado’s first television station. If you grew up on the Western Slope with TV in the living room, you can thank him, and if you work in Colorado broadcasting, the CBA’s Rex Howell award carries his name.

    A teenage broadcaster

    Rex was born in Norton, Kansas, and grew up in Longmont. He held a broadcasting license by 1921 and, while still in high school, worked at a KFEL station. He launched KFXJ in Edgewater in 1926 at 15 watts, boosted it to 50 watts in 1927, and later to 100. The station then relocated to Grand Junction, where it became the city’s pioneer station, with authorization for 1,000 watts in 1942. Today it lives on as KNZZ 1100.

    Television and industry leadership

    KREX-TV in Grand Junction signed on May 4, 1954, with Rex behind it. He later added satellite stations KREY in Montrose and KREZ in Durango, and founded the XYZ Television Network. During World War II and Vietnam, he operated the ham station WORX to handle communications for service members. His industry roles were many: he served as the Colorado Broadcasters Association’s first president, chaired the National Association of Broadcasters board, served as a BMI director and sat on CBS’s board of advisors.

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  • Hugh B. Terry

    Hugh B. Terry (1908-1987) managed KVOR in Colorado Springs and then KLZ in Denver, and became known around the industry as “Mr. Broadcasting.” If you watched Channel 7 in Denver for decades, you watched his station.

    Getting started

    Hugh was born in Alexandria, Nebraska, and graduated from the University of Missouri journalism school in 1930. He started in radio at WKY in Oklahoma City in 1932, came to Colorado in 1936 to manage KVOR, and in 1941 took over as manager of KLZ.

    Radio into TV

    Hugh carried KLZ into television and ran Channel 7 until he retired in 1974, with the station holding the top spot in Denver for about 20 years. His on-air editorials in 1955 helped push the Colorado Supreme Court to allow cameras in courtrooms. He also served as a director of the National Association of Broadcasters, and he was in the Broadcast Pioneers of Colorado’s first Hall of Fame class in 1998.

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  • Pete Smythe

    Pete Smythe (1911–2000) was the Denver radio host behind the make-believe mountain town of East Tincup and its folksy general store. If your parents or grandparents listened to Denver radio in the 1950s, there’s a good chance they knew East Tincup.

    Bandleader to broadcaster

    Born in Glenrock, Wyoming, Pete started out as a saxophone and clarinet player. In the 1930s he led a dance band and then the Pete Smythe Orchestra, and he spent 1935–36 in Hollywood with the Orville Knapp Orchestra.

    Denver radio

    He landed in Denver radio in 1941 at KMYR with Meet the Boys in the Band. In 1945 he moved to KLZ, working in sales and as program director.

    East Tincup

    Pete started his General Store show at KTLN, then took it to KOA in 1951 as Smythe’s General Store. The show broadcast from the imaginary town of East Tincup, with Pete playing its storekeeper and its characters.

    Honors

    Pete semi-retired in 1969 and died at 88.

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