In the words of Pleasant Hill High School graduate Marc Curtis, “As a teenager, I had a transistor radio glued to my ear. I passionately wanted to be an announcer on a radio station. It wasn’t easy to break into the broadcasting business in 1968, but when you want something bad enough, you find a way. My friend Bill Weil knew my desire and called me one evening to let me know that the local FM station was looking for high school students to call in on Friday nights and report the scores of their football games. I called immediately and put in my request to be the “field reporter” for Pleasant Hill High School. Even then, I had a decent voice for radio, so I was accepted by station manager Doug Laue. After a few Friday night scores were called in, I started asking Doug if I could do the sports report at the station. He replied, “We have no budget for that.” I answered back, “I’ll do it for free.” It took a few rounds of phone calls before he finally agreed to give me a shot. The rest, as they say, is history.”
Curtis would wind up working at KDFM for three years before heading off to college and a lengthy career in broadcast media, a story he tells on his website. Fifty years after his high school graduation, these photos taken for the Pleasant Hill High School student newspaper The Ram Page surfaced. Taken in the spring of 1969, they show Curtis at work and offer a remarkable glimpse of life in a small suburban radio station–the sort of place where a high school kid could get his start in broadcasting just by asking. Curtis has generously granted his permission for us to offer these photos here.
I worked at KDFM at the same time as Marc. I even see my FCC license on the wall! I was at KDFM in 1969-70. Thanks for the pics!
Was this when KDFM was over the piano store and the ballet studio?
Tom, according to another fascinating post by Marc Curtis: yes. https://marccurtis.com/rodney-king-cop-beating-trial/
“Broadcasting from the penthouse of the Hendrick Piano Company, this is KDFM in Walnut Creek.”
I worked a few shifts at KDFm while working at KKIS in the sixties. In the ’80’s we read the news at KKIS which was recorded at KDFM for boadcast.