People - Page 89 of 93 - Colorado Radio Archive

Chris Austin

If you’ve spent a weekday afternoon with KKFM’s classic rock, you’ve heard Chris Austin. He’s a rock voice in Colorado Springs with Southern Colorado radio time going back to 1997.

KKFM

Chris now hosts weekday afternoons on KKFM 98.1, from 2 to 7 p.m. That shift includes the station’s “Big Ass Block of Classic Rock.” His station bio names sports and live music as big interests and points to his long ties to the community.

Local roots

By his own account, Chris is a graduate of Manitou Springs High School, and his family arrived in Colorado Springs in 1980. Earlier stops in Southern Colorado radio include KILO and KVUU. By March 2014 he was at KSPZ 92.9 Peak FM, where a Sky Sox announcement called him the local DJ on a panel judging national-anthem auditions.

X103.9

Next came KRXP/RXP at 103.9, where he co-hosted the Chris & Coba morning show and later moved to middays. When Ross Ford took over as operations manager/program director of KILO and KRXP in 2017, Chris, three years into his time at the station, was promoted to KRXP music director.

Sources

September 25, 2026

Gina Kavali

Gina Kavali goes by “Southern Colorado’s Classic Rock Chick.” If 98.1 KKFM has been your companion on a Colorado Springs workday, chances are you know her voice, and KKFM has had her on staff more than once.

On the air today

Her slot on the KKFM schedule is weekday middays, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., with a Saturday shift as well. After stints in other radio, syndicated and digital work, she returned to Cumulus and then to KKFM, which the station itself counts as her second go-round.

The multitasking years

Her first long run in Colorado Springs involved far more than playing songs. Records from the Citadel/Cumulus era give her titles of director of interactive marketing, digital sales manager, KKFM midday personality and community officer. One colleague’s recommendation calls her the interactive director for Citadel Broadcasting in Colorado Springs, running the cluster’s digital side while radio companies were growing their online businesses. In 2011 her team earned a corporate “Budget Buster” recognition, after digital revenue rose to around four times what it had been. Through all of that she kept her on-air shift, and in a 2012 Gazette feature she weighed in on which songs local personalities were tired of hearing.

Off the air

Away from the microphone, Gina acts and produces on independent films, and she’s a committed advocate for people with autism. She helped create Table Talk, a speed-dating night for young adults on the autism spectrum, which KKFM says led to a walk-on role in the Emmy-winning Netflix show Love on the Spectrum. She also developed Life With the Spectrum and related audio and digital projects.

Where it began

Gina says she was hooked on radio at age nine, after a DJ spun a song she’d requested and she captured the moment on her boom box. She later got on the air at the University of Georgia’s student station, WUOG. Before landing in Colorado Springs, she had worked in Atlanta, Fort Myers and Wilmington.

Sources

September 25, 2026

Tony Spicola

Anthony “Tony” Spicola owned a Top 40 powerhouse in Pueblo and landed some of rock’s biggest names for Southern Colorado audiences. If you saw the Who in Colorado in 1968, he’s the reason you could.

From Trinidad to promoter

Tony grew up in Trinidad and Pueblo. He began by promoting and managing local musicians, then graduated to putting on concerts. The acts he brought to Southern Colorado included the Everly Brothers, Ike & Tina Turner, the Animals, Buffalo Springfield, the Yardbirds and the Who, and Colorado Music Experience says he’s the one who delivered the Who to the state for the band’s 1968 Colorado debut.

Owning KDZA

Tony’s way into KDZA was a sales job, which he took toward the end of the 1960s. Roughly ten years later he purchased the station, and he held it from 1979 to 1985 while continuing to promote concerts. Trade reports from 1985 recorded KDZA and its sister station KZLO being sold to Surrey Broadcasting for $2 million.

Van Halen and the Hall of Fame

Among the shows he promoted was Van Halen’s well-known performance on a University of Southern Colorado stage, the one connected to the band’s “no brown M&Ms” contract story.

Sources

September 25, 2026

Super Shannon

Super Shannon was the air name of radio personality Stephen Alexander Reid, remembered as one of KDZA‘s signature voices during the station’s “Rock of Pueblo” era. If you grew up on KDZA rock in Pueblo, you probably remember the name.

The Rock of Pueblo

Retrospective radio histories identify Reid as Super Shannon, and Pueblo’s Vintage KDZA archive keeps his memory alive with a gallery of the station’s golden years.

After Pueblo

Stephen later worked in Buffalo radio at WGRQ and WKBW and eventually moved into television. He died in 2014.

Real name: Stephen Alexander Reid.

Sources

September 25, 2026

Steve Scott

Steve Scott was one of Southern Colorado’s big Top 40 and rock programmers. If you grew up on Pueblo or Colorado Springs rock radio from the 1960s into the 1980s, his fingerprints were on what you heard.

Pueblo and KYSN

Steve worked at KDZA in Pueblo in the early 1960s and later recalled helping move the station into rock and roll in 1964. He then became a prominent personality at KYSN 1460 in Colorado Springs.

KEDI, KCMS and KKFM

Archives: People

KKFM

Local roots

X103.9

Sources

On the air today

The multitasking years

Off the air

Where it began

Sources

From Trinidad to promoter

Owning KDZA

Van Halen and the Hall of Fame

Sources

The Rock of Pueblo

After Pueblo

Sources

Pueblo and KYSN

KEDI, KCMS and KKFM

Sources

Voice of the Tigers

Sources

Colorado Springs radio

Where is he now?

Sources

On the air and behind the scenes

Sources

Finding a home on 92.9

Woody & Bobby

Sources

Woody & Bobby

Reader favorite

Before Peak FM

Sources