 |
|
 |
  |
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
March 24, 2004 |
|
|
Good guy. I first met Steve Heller when he was doing his best to get away from radio. Steve came to Grand Junction to be behind the microphones at KNZZ and after several years decided it was time to join the real world so he sold life insurance. Jan and I owned a struggling little “coffee pot” radio station, then it was crammed into 600 square feet of a Fruita strip mall, and we thought a real morning guy on KEKB-FM, someone who could give our station a presence, was just what the doctor ordered. Of course we also required this multi-talented individual to sell advertising when he wasn’t a disc jockey. So I caught Steve in a weak moment back around 1985 or 1986 in the midst of as bad an economic doldrum as our valley has known. Un-employment hovered around twenty per cent and It was not only a bad time to try and sell life insurance or radio time but equally impossible to barter any commodity be it houses, cars, refrigerators or groceries. Still Steve said “OK” and drove to Fruita at 5 in the morning to play radio every Monday through Friday. While I didn’t know him well, it quickly became apparent that not only could he and I finish one another’s sentences we both possessed the same gross, extremely juvenile, sense of humor. No matter the conversation, be it the Bronco’s latest loss or attempting to conjure a sure-fire promotion that would cause a car dealer to send some of his advertising dollars our direction, within ten minutes both us would be convulsed with laughter. For whatever reason our chemistry was great. We just got along. After a few months with the economic fortunes of KEKB continuing to ebb, the morning news guy opted to take a different job, one that paid a living wage and I decided we could save that salary by my doubling as the a.m. news geek. And so began Heller and Maynard, “The Breakfast Flakes” on KEKB-FM. For almost fifteen years, we functioned as Grand Junction’s “dual air bags” occasionally playing a country song, ever so often passing along useful information, but mostly bringing “silly” to the airwaves of Western Colorado. Somewhere along the line roles switched and Steve did the news while I played disc jockey but the one constant was no two people ever had a better time together than Heller and Maynard. If someone ever tuned in or better yet phoned, that was great, but the big guy and I were perfectly content to simply amuse one another for way over a decade. Eventually the economic tide turned in the valley and at our radio station. “The Breakfast Flakes” grew to dominate morning radio and KEKB became the Grand Junction radio giant. But no matter how successful “Heller and Maynard” were, and some years we had the highest share of audience of any morning show in the country, working with Steve every morning remained four hours of was flat out fun. Eventually all good things play out. Getting up at four in the morning, day after day, year after year, takes a toll. Steve left KEKB to take a job with normal hours at the Grand Junction Chamber. Jan and I found a buyer for our radio stations. Life moved on. I don’t know if any age is the right age to be diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. But I’m certain 54 is too damn young to have this insidious disease be a part of your life. Alzheimer’s is now a daily battle for Steve Heller. This May KEKB turns twenty. It was a real Horatio Alger success story. Many people worked incredibly hard to make that little Fruita coffeepot a “killer” radio station. Of those folks who were the heart and soul of KEKB, none was more important than Steve Heller. And I just wanted him to know that.
|
||
|
|