PRESERVING RADIO HISTORY ACROSS COLORADO

Archives: People

  • Dennis Constantine

    Dennis Constantine was the founding program director of KBCO and one of the architects of the station’s Colorado-centered approach to album radio. If you’ve ever loved KBCO’s mix of singer-songwriters, roots music and local bands, you have Dennis to thank for the original recipe.

    Before KBCO

    After working mornings at Denver’s KBPI, Dennis was recruited by Bob Greenlee while Greenlee was acquiring Boulder FM station KRNW.

    Building a station

    Dennis worked air shifts on KADE while waiting for FCC approval of the FM purchase, and he developed the new station’s musical concept with KADE program director Randy Morrison. On June 2, 1977, KBCO began broadcasting from Lee Hill. The calls stood for Boulder, Colorado, and the first song Dennis played on the new station was James Taylor’s “Handy Man.”

    The format combined singer-songwriters, roots music, album rock and Colorado artists, and it helped establish the programming philosophy later associated with Adult Album Alternative radio.

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  • Alan Berg

    Alan Berg (1934 – June 18, 1984) was a Denver talk host whose combative style made him one of the best-known and most remembered voices in Colorado radio history. If you stayed up listening to KOA in the early 80s, you probably remember his show, and you almost certainly remember how it ended.

    From attorney to talk host

    Born in Chicago, Alan trained as an attorney before getting into Denver radio through his friendship with KGMC host Laurence Gross. When Gross left the station, Alan took over and began building the on-air persona he became known for. His career went on to include KHOW and KWBZ before KOA. He auditioned there in January 1981 and began his regular show that February, and KOA’s powerful signal carried it across much of the country.

    The show

    His program often dealt with religion, race, politics and extremist movements. Alan was deliberately combative: he challenged callers, ridiculed arguments he thought were dishonest or prejudiced, and provoked strong reactions, which made him both popular and controversial and put him in direct conflict with the racist and antisemitic far right.

    His murder and legacy

    On June 18, 1984, Alan was murdered outside his Denver home by members of The Order, a white-supremacist extremist group. He was 50. The killing became a major episode in the history of domestic extremism in the United States. History Colorado preserves recordings of his KOA audition and broadcasts, and books, documentaries, films and journalism have kept examining both his radio career and his death.

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  • Charley Martin

    Charley Martin (died 2012, age 67) was the funny half of Hal & Charley. If you drove to work in Denver in the ’70s, ’80s or early ’90s with KHOW on, you know the sound.

    The team that owned Denver mornings

    In 1976 KHOW put Charley in the studio with Hal Moore, and Hal & Charley took off. Charley cracked the jokes while Hal played it a bit straighter, and that mix made the show famous well beyond Colorado and kept it atop Denver mornings for years. Movie fans can even catch the show on a car radio in the 1980 film The Shining while a character drives through the Colorado mountains.

    The pairing held together for 19 years. It wrapped up in 1995 when Charley left KHOW, and he eventually settled in Arizona.

    How he got to Denver

    The story starts in Iowa, where Charley and Hal knew each other from KSO in Des Moines. By 1969 Charley was hunting for radio work in California, and Hal, who was running programming at KHOW by then, got him to move to Denver. He began on weekends and later settled into the 9 p.m. to midnight shift.

    Things changed in 1971 when Buzz Lawrence left the morning show. Charley stepped into mornings alongside Rosemary Barnwell. After she departed, a highly publicized search turned up Marti Martin, and Charley & Marti turned into one more ratings hit.

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  • Hal Moore

    Hal Moore spent more than 60 years on Denver radio. If you listened to KIMN in the ’60s or woke up to Hal & Charley on KHOW, he was part of your life.

    “Hal Baby” at KIMN

    Hal came to KIMN in 1964 from Des Moines. As “Hal Baby” Moore he became one of the station’s best-known voices at a time when AM personalities were central to youth culture, and listener polls repeatedly recognized him.

    Hal & Charley at KHOW

    In 1969 he moved to KHOW as program director, hosting afternoons while his longtime friend Charley Martin worked other shifts. In 1976 the two were paired in mornings as Hal & Charley, which became a Denver institution. At their peak, Hal recalled, roughly a quarter of everyone listening in the market was tuned to them. You can even hear their KHOW broadcast in Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 film The Shining during the drive to the Overlook Hotel.

    Sixty-one years on the air

    Hal stayed on Denver radio long after the partnership ended, finishing a career of about 61 years when he retired in 2019. That made him a rare firsthand witness to more than half a century of the city’s broadcasting, from the personality-driven AM days of KIMN to the modern era.

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  • Bobby Oz Vargas

    Robert “Bobby Oz” Vargas was the guy who got Colorado Springs country fans out of the car and into the room. If you went to a KCCY concert or artist hangout in the 2000s, his team put it together.

    Promotions at Y96.9

    Bobby Oz was promotions director for Clear Channel’s Colorado Springs stations in the 2000s, and trade coverage lists him as promotion director of country station KCCY (Y96.9). His job was the stuff you remember: artist appearances, listener events, remotes and contests.

    Events you might remember

    In November 2007 he was pictured with the KCCY crew at an acoustic happy hour with Capitol Nashville’s Eric Church at SoDo. In January 2008 he turned up again at another acoustic event, this time with the band Whiskey Falls.

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  • Marisa Seaton

    Marisa Seaton is named in our archive’s catalog of a Clear Channel Colorado Springs staff photo from around 2004. If you listened to KCCY, KKLI, KMOM or KVUU in those years, Marisa was part of the group behind them.

    The Clear Channel crew

    The photo has the Clear Channel Colorado Springs staff gathered with Tommy Lee. The catalog ties the group to KCCY, KKLI, KMOM and KVUU, but it doesn’t say what Marisa’s job was or how long Marisa was there.

    This is a short page built from one archive photo. If you worked with Marisa or have more to add, we’d love to hear from you.

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  • Tom Collins

    Tom Collins was an air personality who worked at KIKX in Colorado Springs and at Vail’s KVMT (now KKVM) in the mid-1980s. If you listened to KIKX around lunchtime back then, you can actually hear him again: the archive has a KIKX aircheck under his name.

    Back on KIKX middays

    In late September 1985, the trade press reported that Tom had returned to KIKX for middays. The archive’s aircheck, “Tom Collins KIKX 1985,” runs a little over five minutes and gives you a taste of how he sounded on the air.

    A stop in Vail

    Supplied by the archive: the Tom Collins who was on the crew at Vail’s KVMT in the summer of 1986 is the same Tom Collins who worked at KIKX in Colorado Springs. A former KVMT staffer remembers him on the staff there that summer.

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  • Shawn Martinez

    Shawn Martinez is a Colorado Springs country-radio personality on Cat Country 95.1 (KATC-FM). If you spend your weekends with Cat Country, you’ve probably heard him.

    Weekends With Shawn

    As of October 2026, Shawn is listed as host of Weekends With Shawn on Cat Country 95.1, which the station schedules on Saturdays and Sundays. The Colorado Springs Gazette’s 2026 arts-and-entertainment listings named him a bronze tie in its Radio Personality category.

    The Archive also holds an undated photograph of Shawn cataloged with KATC-FM. This is a short page built from station and newspaper listings. If you know more about his career, we’d love to hear from you.

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  • Roger Tighe

    Roger Tighe is on record at KKCS-FM in Colorado Springs. If you were part of the KKCS crowd in the early 2000s, you may have crossed paths with Roger.

    On the KKCS team

    Roger shows up in two places: a staff-meeting photograph in our own archive, cataloged as 2002, and a Colorado broadcasters’ Area 4 emergency-alert plan that lists Roger as the station’s contact. That plan points to a role in emergency-alert coordination, but it doesn’t give a job title.

    This is a short page built from limited records. If you worked with Roger or have more to add, we’d love to hear from you.

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  • Jay Miller

    Jay Miller is a broadcaster, voice-over artist and audio producer who spent part of his career on the air in Colorado Springs. If you’ve heard a polished commercial or narration lately, you may have heard his voice without knowing it.

    92.9 Peak FM

    Jay worked at KKPK-FM (92.9 Peak FM), where he followed Dan Hardee in an on-air role. That puts him in the modern 92.9 FM lineage after the station changed from KSPZ to KKPK.

    His professional biography describes a career of more than two decades in broadcasting and voice-over, with radio work in Detroit, San Jose, Monterey and Colorado Springs.

    Voice-over and production

    Jay has expanded beyond daily radio into commercial voice-over, narration and audio production, and has won more than 30 awards for his broadcast and production work.

    Where is he now?

    As of October 2026, Jay offers professional voice-over and audio-production services through his own business.

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