[Description by contributor Jeff March] This is an aircheck that captures a lively radio station at the top of its game, entertaining a town that returned the favor by routinely giving it astronomical Hooper and Pulse shares in the 30s and 40s. Las Vegas in the spring of 1966, when this aircheck of KENO was recorded, was more of a town than a city. Vegas, which now has an urban population of 1.3 million residents, had only about 90,000 residents in 1966. Back then, the town had only three public high schools, and what is now UNLV was a small campus known as Nevada Southern University (you’ll hear a mention of it as “NSU” in this aircheck). The Aladdin Hotel and Casino had opened only six days before the date of this aircheck, and Caesars Palace was still four months from its completion. Later that year, Howard Hughes would take up residence at the Desert Inn, which he subsequently bought. Circus Circus was not yet open, and the MGM Grand would not be completed for seven more years. The bright lights of Vegas in those days were confined to the “Strip” (which extended only as far south as the Hacienda Hotel and Casino — now the site of the Mandalay Bay Hotel-Casino), along with a short stretch of the Boulder Highway, and Fremont Street in the downtown area. Back then, cars could drive on Fremont all the way to First Street, and the sounds of Radio KENO poured into the warm night air from the windows of nearly every car that cruised down “glitter gulch” past The MInt Casino & Hotel, the Golden Nugget, the Horseshoe Club, the Fremont Hotel & Casino and the El Cortez Hotel & Casino. “Coffee” Jim Dandy, Mark Lane, “Uncle” Bob Martin, Bill Wood Jr., Dave Ambrose, Corky Mayberry, Scott Morgan, Jeff Colson and Jim Blaine — some of the “Radio KENO Good Guys” during that era — were mobbed when they made public appearances in their natty “Color Radio Channel 146” blazer jackets. KENO always had special meaning for me. During my early teenage years in the San Fernando Valley in the northern part of Los Angeles, I enjoyed DX-ing (listening to distant radio stations at night) and requesting QSL (reception verification cards) from radio stations that I picked up. One of those stations was KENO, which invited me to visit the station. My folks vacationed in Vegas a few times each year, and in December 1963 I took KENO up on its offer. The KENO studios and transmitter site were on a sand-blown patch of land a couple of hundred yards northeast of the intersection of Flamingo and Paradise roads. The station’s jocks — notably Mark Lane, Coffee Jim and Jeff Colson — gave me an undeservedly warm welcome and allowed me to hang around the station while my folks headed to the casinos. As a means of thanking the KENO jocks for their hospitality, I began to aircheck L.A. radio stations and took the tapes with me on my recurring visits to KENO. One of the ReelRadio subscribers who listened to this aircheck commented that he noticed the similarity between some KENO formatic elements and those of KRLA Pasadena. I was partly responsible for that. The KENO Good Guys were particularly interested in my airchecks of KRLA which, like KENO, had a distinctive, unique sound. As soon as I would arrive at KENO, the jocks would escort me into a production room, rack up my latest aircheck tape on an Ampex open-reel machine, and study it intently. Throughout the mid-60s, I was KENO’s teenage conduit to L.A. radio. Still, KENO did not mirror KRLA; it merely adapted a few imaging concepts but gave them a distinctly Vegas feel. KENO engaged in day-parting: varying its approach to appeal to differing audience compositions at various times throughout the broadcast day. Morning guy “Coffee” Jim was zany, quick and sometimes mildly risquê. Midday guy Mark Lane, a family man, had a more subdued approach to appeal to parents at home or at work. The tempo kicked up again during afternoon drive. And because KENO was the only “top 40” station in town in the mid-’60s, the station wasn’t shy about testing new records on the air. KENO took chances on some klunkers, but broke some really good records that would have become national hits if only music directors at other stations would have had as much courage or sense of adventure. Upon hearing this aircheck, Uncle Ricky observed, “This is an amazing unscoped hour of mid-morning KENO. We get the last half-hour of Coffee Jim Dandy and the first half-hour of Mark Lane, plus two local newscasts and Whitney Bolton with Mutual News. In fact, the aircheck opens and ends with the Mutual news sounder. The music selection is an absolute delight for me. I was only 15 in 1966, when this aircheck was recorded. I freely admit I had not heard several of these songs before, and I had a daily radio show! Coffee Jim is wrong about the year The Playmates had their biggest hit, and Mark Lane has a much more familiar mix, even with the required Tony Vann song. All of it is too delightful. Comments for the Coffee Jim Dandy KENO exhibit that precedes this one are interesting — Coffee Jim himself stopped by years ago.” Regardless of the individual songs, listeners tuned in to hear KENO and what the Good Guys had to say. Throughout the mid-’60s, KENO was the the most prominent sound of Vegas. Imagine yourself heading out the door of the Sands, or the Stardust, or the Silver Slipper Casino, after enjoying a 69-cent buffet breakfast and making a quick couple of passes in your favor on the craps table. The pockets of your pants are bulging with jangling silver dollars as you stride across the expanse of asphalt in the balmy morning air, unlock the door of your car, turn the ignition key and twist your radio dial to 1460. Listen, and you’re there.