The Jeff Randall Collection

KNBQ was licensed to Tacoma, about 30 miles south of Seattle but was giving KUBE a run with a high energy top 40 format. As I recall, this was a time of transition for KNBQ (I arrived in March of 1984), Gary Bryan (now at K-Earth) had gone to KISW and Sean Lynch was the PD/Midday Jock. John Murphy & newsman Mark Pierce were holding down mornings. Beau Roberts was doing PM Drive, in 2015 he was the imaging voice of KZOK. Ron Harris was doing nights and was moved to weekends/fill-in in the spring of 1984. Jennifer Michaels handled overnights. By the fall of 1984 Morning man John Murphy would leave for Z100 in Portland, Oregon and most of the rest of the staff had turned over before that in the spring of 1984. The narrator was production director R.P. McMurphy, who would end up in the AM Drive slot with newsman Mark Pierce in the spring of 1984.

KNBQ was licensed to Tacoma, about 30 miles south of Seattle but was giving KUBE a run with a high energy top 40 format. As I recall, this was a time of transition for KNBQ (I arrived in March of 1984), Gary Bryan (now at K-Earth) had gone to KISW and Sean Lynch was the PD/Midday Jock. John Murphy & newsman Mark Pierce were holding down mornings. Beau Roberts was doing PM Drive, in 2015 he was the imaging voice of KZOK. Ron Harris was doing nights and was moved to weekends/fill-in in the spring of 1984. Jennifer Michaels handled overnights. By the fall of 1984 Morning man John Murphy would leave for Z100 in Portland, Oregon and most of the rest of the staff had turned over before that in the spring of 1984. The narrator was production director R.P. McMurphy, who would end up in the AM Drive slot with newsman Mark Pierce in the spring of 1984.

The Slim One rolled into the Northwest for reasons unknown to me, but we were glad she found us at KNBQ. We all knew her reputation from her past work at some legendary stations and I couldn’t believe I got to work with someone like Slim – she did weekends and I did afternoon drive! 1987 was about the time that Viacom acquired the station from local owner the Tacoma News Tribune and from the time they took over there was a plan — but Slim managed to make any shift at any station her own! Around 1988 Viacom changed the calls/format to KBSG/Oldies thinking that we were the third top 40 in the market. Shortly after the switch the “research” showed that KNBQ would have been #2, beating KPLZ just behind longtime market leader KUBE. After a long run with the oldies format the frequency is now KIRO-FM news/talk.