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KZUE "The Zoo" 1977-1979

B

BobbyTbone

Every time I mention KZUE to somebody it seems they don't remember it. It was a fun radio station and brought personality radio back to Oklahoma City. I can still hear some of the old jingles in my head. Who all worked there? Name as many jocks as you can from "The Zoo". I can only remember a few..."The Hit Man" Johnny Lane...Jungle Jim West (saw a post of his on the forum)...Boogie Man was there before he went to KOFM. There was a midday guy there that was named "Shannon" something (I think). On Main Street and at 50 Penn Place...who can you remember. Any airchecks?

BT
 
When and if you ever get some airchecks of the station I'd love to hear them. Please post them or post a link if you do. I didn't get to hear too much of them but what I do remember of the station, it was awesome. From what I heard the station owners were really the early failure of the station. They are bad enough to their help that the help got tired of their crap and bailed on them. That's when KOFM really picked up...
 
KOFM had the benefit of having a big signal. For example, KOFM could easily be heard on any radio in Stillwater, while KZUE wasn't listenable, even in a car. I don't remember the timing, but KOFM was kind of an adult Top 40 for a while before KZUE started. When did KJ come around?
 
wildthangjim said:
KOFM had the benefit of having a big signal. For example, KOFM could easily be heard on any radio in Stillwater, while KZUE wasn't listenable, even in a car. I don't remember the timing, but KOFM was kind of an adult Top 40 for a while before KZUE started. When did KJ come around?
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I want to say KJ-103 debuted in 1983. The time between KZUE and KJ-103 was filled by K-Joy.
 
In the 75 to 76 era, KOFM was very much sounding like a top 40 station during the day and trying to kill Trevor's "Fresh Air" program at night. Their old antenna was on the Channel 5 tower. I think they were the biggest stick in OKC at the time. Don't make which made more money, KOFM or the musack like programming (Sonax?) on one of the subcarriers.

John Michael Scott and Trevor Hulse later moved to KATT. I could be forgetting others.
 
I remember the name Trevor Hulse from KATT. Where was he before then? I remember KWHP having a rock format at some point, maybe 74-75 timeframe?
 
I was Jungle Jim West on KZUE. I came over from KELI Tulsa where I worked weekends with Dan Chase, and Jon Michaels, the PD. Dan used the name Shannon (Mike I think) he was middays. Dave Bauer from Wichita's KLEO was morning drive, John Michaels used the name Johnny Lane and was afternoon drive. The Boogie Man, Les Michaels, was on 6 to 10 p.m. I was on 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. I forget the name of the all night guy but he was kinda like a Venus Flytrap from WKRP, meaning, very soulful, lights off in the control room and candles lit and read poetry. He had a big following.

We came on the air the Monday of Memorial Weekend 1977. The station was previously KFAG running automated oldies. One of the hold overs from the station was a young man named Dan Stroud now with KXY. I don't think he stayed once we went on live. The station was located at Main and Virginia in downtown OKC. We were the sister station to KTOK.

KOFM was top 40 at that time but we came on with a blend of top 40 and played the album versions of hits like Steve Miller and Peter Frampton. We had a great jingles package. You might remember we had a Datsun 240(maybe 280) Z that we had painted with zebra stripes and drove around town. We also had several billboards across the city.

I later worked at WKY on weekends and KOMA from 10 to 2 a.m. using Brother John Williams. I also was music director of KLTE-FM which used to be KFNB, beautiful music from on top of the First National Bank tower. If anyone locates some air checks of KZUE please let me know. More on KELI- http://tulsatvmemories.com/tulradi2.html

I miss having a hand in radio and still love the biz.
 
I thought KZUE was a great sounding Top 40 station, when I could pick it up in Bartlesville on a good skip in the late 70's on my Realistic STA-90 receiver. The first time I heard Van Halen's "You Really Got Me" was on KZUE.

I have a 1975 aircheck of Dave Bauer on KLEO, he sounded great. Whatever happened to him?
http://www.divshare.com/download/10014833-c26
 
stacker said:
BillyG, would that have been the Dave Bauer that worked at KELI and later KXXO?
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I dont remember hearing him on KELi. And I barely remember listening to 1300 in the seventies. 1300 day signal is weak in Bartlesville (great if you were in Pawhuska though) and disappeared at night. The only time I listened to 1300 was when it had a brief fling with Top 40 as KMOD-AM around 1981-2.
 
First, a BIG thank you to Jungle Jim West (fullness) for that rundown on the history of KZUE. Some of that brought back some real memories. For one, I had forgotten about the little zebra car but remember it from seeing it at a movie premier I had tickets to. I *think* it was Thank God It's Friday. But that little car was cool. I still have a round KZUE sticker I got from that premier dance/remote. Dave Bauer I instantly remembered because of the "Bauer Shower." I listened to you, fullness, a lot because I got off work from a little station not far from OKC at 10:00 and would listen until past midnight, so I remember you well. It was a fun radio station and I'm always surprised at how many locals don't remember it. I remember a lot of the jocks changed and some came and went and then the station went AC as Z-103. I remember because I was really sad to see the personality leave. It became robotic and didn't last long after that.

Fullness, you say you miss the biz, but you're not missing much if your memories were KZUE, KOFM, WKY and KOMA. If you can imagine a station that works much like your home PC, with tons of commercials, no real commitment to employees (but people stay and put up with a lot to have a job), tracking and all the other things that make it more of a data manipulation job than real radio, that's the state of corporate radio today. How long have you been out and what are you doing now?

I possibly have a source for airchecks from KZUE, he's going to check his storage unit this weekend. He said they're mostly on reel-to-reel and I would need to do a lot of work to make them sharable.

Thanks for the input, everybody, on "The Zoo."
 
It might be that Michael Dean has some cassette airchecks of KZUE. A guy that is now deceased, David Bennett, might have recorded them. He was a huge Boogieman fan so I'm guessing there's at least some audio there.
 
fullness said:
You might remember we had a Datsun 240(maybe 280) Z that we had painted with zebra stripes and drove around town. We also had several billboards across the city.
Click to expand...

Would you happen to have any photos of the car or the billboards?
 
A bit of history...the original call letters were KAFG (pronounced by some industy people and listners as "KFAG".) In the mid and late 1960's they ran the sundicated Drake-Chenault Solid Gold Rock n Roll format. Following the two years of KZUE, ownership changed the Call letters to KJYO and picked up the short lived Shulke Two format (mainly light AC but not Muzak like the regular Shulke format). The calls illistrated the image at the time"KJYO-The Joy of Oklahoma." That lasted for a year or two, then they went CHR.

Dave Bauer came from KLEO in Wichita. I don't remeber him ever working in Tulsa at KELI or any other station in T-Town. Dave did the morning show, and drifted into sales, becoming sales manager for the ONN. That led him to doing talent on car commercials, which led him to opening his own ad agency specializing in auto dealerships. After a more than twenty year run in that business he gave it up and moved on other business ventures.

I'm checking our David Bennett collection to see if we have any KZUE in the collection. I'm pretty sure we do and will post when I know for sure that we either do or don't have KZUE in the colleciton.
 
Was there a period when this station was called Z103? I still have a sticker from that one, but didn't remember exactly when that was. I'm thinking it was right before the switch to KJYO.
 
frequency_modulation said:
Was there a period when this station was called Z103? I still have a sticker from that one, but didn't remember exactly when that was. I'm thinking it was right before the switch to KJYO.
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Yes, it became "Z-103" in '79 or '80 as an AC before going Easy Listening with "K-Joy" in '81.
 
Dave Bauer came from KLEO in Wichita.
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Michael, a couple of old brain cells finally banged together. It was Fred Bauer in Tulsa.

Bauer was a popular (cheap) AM transmitter brand way back. Wonder how many jocks chose their name looking at the transmitter?
 
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