Fabulous Fifties on KJR with J.J. Valley

Lee Askervold was my mentor at KING, when I worked there as a switchboard operator and tour guide in 1965. Lee had the overnight show, and after my shift on the switchboard, I’d hole up in a production room with a reel-to-reel Ampex, records, news and commercial copy, and be a DJ. Lee would critique my tapes, and helped me assemble my first audition tape, which got me a gig at KMO (Tacoma). After stints at KMO and KJNO (Juneau), I was hired by Lee in January 1967, to replace Bruce McMichael who was heading to KIRO Radio. At the time, KTAC’s business offices and newsroom were in the Winthrop Hotel. Jerry Geehan owned and managed the station, Fred Kaufman (formerly of KOMO) was the sales manager. The jocks did their shows from a ramshackle studio out at the transmitter site near the Puyallup River. Dave Allen (Darrel Sauve) was doing mornings, John Welsh afternoons. Lee Knudsen, a former KING FM announcer, did 6 p.m. -12m. Jack Allen (Thompson) came to KTAC from Idaho just before I left for KOL in June 1967. Dave and Jack and I worked together again in the ‘70s at KVI.” William Engelhardt retired in 2011 after 27 years as a public information officer for the Washington State House of Representatives.