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KIOA's Larry Monroe
by Ray Dennis

 

After working at KLIF in Dallas, Larry Monroe (Berg) was on the air and program director at KIOA for part of 1957-58 and again in 1960-61 PD and then station manager for a short while.


Larry Monroe business card

 

In Larry's own words

"The 1957 days were amazingly interesting with our huge dominance of the market (as I recall, a 40+ share). Our staff included (let's see if I can remember) Frosty Mitchell, Don Bell, Rex Miller, Hogan (one name), Don and Doug MacKinnon. Don Hughes (news), Russ Lavine (news) and Ray Carney (news), and some others whose names I can't recall."

We celebrated the first anniversary of the "new KIOA" in 1958 and turned the town upside down with a parade in downtown Des Moines, a Miss KIOA contest, a cake baking contest, a free show with some top recording artists (it drew thousands), and everything but the kitchen sink. They were heady times for us."

"I left there in late 1958 to become p.d at KXOK, St. Louis. When I returned in 1960, most of the above had moved on to fame and glory in larger markets. During my last stint at KIOA, the station was sold by the Kamin interests to the Swanco group. I left shortly afterwards for WCAO, Baltimore as on air talent and p.d. Three years later I bought WBUT AM/FM in Butler, PA which I sold 14 years later and stayed on to do a talk show (it lasted 36 years in all), an 11 year stint at KDKA Pittsburgh and finally retirement a few years ago."

 

As of early 2005, Larry is still living in the Butler area and we thank him for his commentary and the 1961 KIOA aircheck.

 

Larry Monroe KIOA April 30, 1961.

 

"The New KIOA" was about to celebrate it's 4th anniversary on May 1. The aircheck demonstrates the tremendous amount of personality Larry put into his program and some of the promotions the station was doing at the time. In that time, many of the commericials were done live by the air talent and double spotting was discouraged, meaning that there were commercial breaks practically between every record.

 

Live spot complete with sound effects and call to action. Two minutes long!

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