PRESERVING RADIO HISTORY ACROSS COLORADO

Archives: People

  • Steffan Tubbs

    Steffan Tubbs is a Colorado news broadcaster who spent a long stretch as co-host of Colorado’s Morning News on KOA-AM, working alongside April Zesbaugh to anchor the station’s morning coverage of local, national and international news. If you got your Denver headlines from KOA between 2005 and 2017, you probably heard him.

    Before that, he worked as a TV reporter in San Luis Obispo and Fresno, spent time at KOA, and then moved to a FOX affiliate in New York City before returning to Denver in 2005 to host the morning show. After he left KOA in 2017 he kept broadcasting and documentary work going in Colorado, and he was hosting afternoons from 4 to 7 p.m. on Salem’s 710 KNUS when he announced in 2023, at age 54, that he planned to leave radio that fall, with November 3 as his last day, to focus on film. His 2020 documentary Denver in Decay had drawn more than 800,000 views, and he was working on a new one about the effects of the fentanyl crisis. We haven’t confirmed what he has done since.

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  • April Zesbaugh

    If you tuned in to morning radio in Denver at any point over more than twenty-five years, odds are April Zesbaugh was woven into your routine as a familiar voice on KOA-AM’s Colorado’s Morning News. She came aboard in 1996 and wrapped up her daily broadcasting career in May 2022, after 26 years with the station.

    Zesbaugh is originally from Arizona, and she holds degrees in journalism and English from the University of Northern Colorado. Her path to KOA ran through public radio at KUNC and Wyoming Public Radio in Laramie, and then a stint as news director of 710 KNUS. KOA’s news director back then, Jerry Bell, was the one who brought her on. Across a career of roughly 30 years in broadcast journalism, she picked up a national Edward R. Murrow Award and plenty of regional ones, plus other recognition for the show.

    Her co-anchor for many of those mornings was Steffan Tubbs; since 2017 it was Marty Lenz. Announcing her retirement in March 2022, she said she felt deeply lucky for every moment spent at the KOA microphone, that she planned to spend more time with family and on the tennis court, and that listeners would be well looked after by Lenz. Greg Foster, KOA’s program director at that point, described her as one of the best-known and best-loved voices in the state.

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  • Susan Phelan

    Susan Phelan is a Colorado traffic reporter and musician. If you ever sat in a Denver backup and listened to the radio for a way out, Susan was probably the voice telling you which road to avoid.

    Traffic across the dial

    Susan’s Denver radio work included on-air traffic reporting for KOA, KBCO, KBPI and KRFX, putting that voice on several formats across the iHeartMedia stations.

    On bass

    Alongside broadcasting, Susan has worked professionally as a bassist, including with Ryan Chrys & the Rough Cuts. A Westword profile described a traffic-reporting career stretching about a quarter century, and a recording career with multiple albums.

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  • Steve McCoy

    Steve McCoy is a veteran radio personality best known for his long Atlanta morning partnership with Vikki Locke, who spent a year and a half waking up Denver on KXKL-FM Kool 105. If you were a classic-hits fan in the Mile High City around 2010, he was your morning guy.

    Denver mornings

    Steve started as morning host on KXKL-FM 105.1 on May 17, 2010, shortly after his Atlanta run at WSB-FM/B98.5 ended. It brought one of Atlanta’s best-known morning voices to Denver’s classic-hits station. He stayed about a year and a half, then left in December 2011 to go back to Atlanta and be closer to family.

    Before Denver

    Steve had already built a major-market career. He’s best known for the Steve & Vikki Morning Show with Vikki Locke, a partnership that lasted more than 18 years across Atlanta stations including WSTR and WSB-FM.

    Parkinson’s advocacy

    Steve has spoken publicly about living with Parkinson’s disease. He has been involved in advocacy work connected with the Michael J. Fox Foundation and has talked about the need for more research funding.

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  • Tim Hager

    Tim Hager is a Christian-radio executive with a hand in two Colorado signals: KPOF-AM in Denver and KFCO-FM. If you listen to Christian radio along the Front Range, Tim is part of the team behind it.

    Pillar Media

    Tim was named chief operating officer of Pillar Media, with responsibility for the organization’s stations in Colorado, New Jersey and Ohio. That ties the management of Colorado’s longstanding Christian broadcaster KPOF to Pillar’s wider group of contemporary Christian and spoken-word stations.

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  • Steve McGrew

    Steve “Mudflap” McGrew has two careers: country-radio morning host and touring comedian. If you started your day with KYGO-FM between 2001 and 2009, Mudflap was the voice in your kitchen or your car.

    Mornings on KYGO

    Steve became closely tied to KYGO in Denver, where his morning show ran from 2001 to 2009 and was a big success.

    Back on Denver country radio

    He later returned to the Denver dial on 92.5 The Wolf, KWOF-FM. His comedy and podcast work carried on after daily radio, including projects with other familiar Colorado radio voices.

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  • Dave O’Brien

    Dave O’Brien joined KQMT-FM, 99.5 The Mountain, as morning host in 2019. If you started your Denver mornings with classic rock around then, Dave was the one on the mic.

    Morning host on The Mountain

    Dave came to the Denver classic-rock station as an experienced rock-radio personality and hosted the morning show. Earlier in Dave’s career came work in Indianapolis and in traffic and weather broadcasting.

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  • Mike O’Connor

    Mike O’Connor is listed in the Colorado Radio Archive as a programmer connected to KBCO, the Boulder-born adult-alternative station that Denver listeners know well. If you tuned in to KBCO in the 1990s or 2000s, this is a name from the programming side of that story.

    This is a short page with limited records, and we’re still tracking down sources for the details of Mike’s time at KBCO and what came after. There are other broadcasters with the same name, so we’re keeping this page to the Colorado programmer only. If you worked with Mike or have more to add, we’d love to hear from you.

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  • Lee Larsen

    Lee Larsen spent 48 years in radio, and for more than two decades he was the boss at KOA. If you tuned in to KOA news and talk anywhere from the 1980s through the 2000s, he was the one running things behind the scenes.

    Arriving in Denver

    Lee left KLOS in Los Angeles for Denver, where he was chosen in 1983 to lead KOA and KOAQ as general manager. The two signals later went their separate ways, and KOAQ turned into KRFX-FM. Under his watch the news-and-talk station covered big stories, and it lived through the painful aftermath of host Alan Berg’s murder in 1984.

    The rest of the résumé

    Before Denver, his path ran through KFI as well as KLOS, both in Los Angeles. At KOA and KOAQ he held the general manager job and then the presidency, 23 years in all. He wrapped up his career in December 2010, retiring as president and market manager of Clear Channel Colorado. Along the way he led the Colorado Broadcasters Association as president two separate times, Radio Ink counted him among radio’s 50 best managers, and in 2011 he went into the Broadcast Pioneers of Colorado Hall of Fame.

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  • Pat Connor

    Pat Connor was a longtime Denver radio executive and market leader. If you listened to Denver’s big music, news, talk and sports stations over the last few decades, you were hearing a group Pat helped run.

    Running the Denver cluster

    Pat led the Clear Channel Denver stations and stayed on as market president after the company became iHeartMedia, overseeing a group that included many of the city’s best-known stations. That tenure spanned decades of consolidation and format change in Colorado radio.

    Where is Pat now?

    Pat remained market president through 2015 and later moved into other media and business work.

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