Red Jones - KILT

Another KILT Ex has checked in.

Red Jones worked for KILT from 1957 to 1962, with a stint as Program director from ‘59 to ‘62. He got out of the Army in September, 1956, and joined KXYZ doing evenings in November of that year, working with Chuck Dunaway and Larry Kane among others. About a month after KILT signed on in March, ‘57, Don Keyes hired Red to do overnights but he soon moved up to Noon to 3 pm. After Keyes left to go back to Dallas, Jack Sharp was PD; Red replaced him in 1959 and moved to 3pm-7pm for the rest of his time in Houston.

Red says when he made PD, Bill Weaver told him ‘You run the upstairs and I’ll run the downstairs’ and he never went back on his word. As far as he remembers, they never had staff meetings - everybody did their own thing and it paid off. They had great Hooper and Pulse numbers and a dominant staff including the likes of John Trotter, Rob McLeod, Bob Presley, Bill Slater, Joel A Spivak., Cecil Tuck, John Land, and Thom Beck. Glen Cook was CE and Hank Poole was production engineer. It was fun times according to Red (and fun to listen to, too).

He was invited to interview for a gig at WABC, New York, and did. He didn’t get the job but when KILT heard about it he was ‘eased out.’ News Director Cecil Tuck took over as PD for a brief spell.

Red was hired by Kent Burkhart, another KILT alumnus, as PD of WQXI, Atlanta, and spent the rest of his career in Georgia radio. He’s retired now after 63 years in radio and living in Georgia. He was inducted into the Georgia Radio Museum and Hall of Fame in 2008 and recently celebrated his 80th birthday, still going strong.

His Georgia Radio Museum and Hall of Fame page (a much more impressive site than out TRHOF) contains more biographical information about his early years in South Texas and Austin and his stint with AFN in Germany before coming to Houston, plus much more about his long career in radio in Georgia, in a collection of clippings from his career.

The picture above is from the GRHOF site.