From H. Jay Melnick via Tom Mulvey

Don Stubbs, worked at KLZ in the "Old Days" Hope all is well with you...... Jay

By A.D. HOPKINS
REVIEW-JOURNAL
Copyright 2006 © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Don Stubbs, former news director of two Las Vegas television stations and retired owner of small-market radio stations including one in Ely, died Sunday at Nathan Adelson Hospice in Las Vegas after a yearlong battle with cancer.

Stubbs, 67, was born in Montrose, Colo. In 1957, he began a 45-year career in electronic media by spinning records at KLAK, Denver's lone country music station at the time. He graduated from the University of Denver in 1962 with a bachelor's degree in communications arts.

He worked as a news anchor, TV reporter, and assistant news director in Grand Junction, Colo.; Tulsa, Okla.; and Kansas City before moving to Las Vegas in 1972 as a reporter for the local NBC affiliate, Channel 3, then called KORK-TV and owned by Donrey Media Group, which also owned the Review-Journal.

Stubbs became news director in 1974. In 1976, he moved to the ABC affiliate, Channel 13, also as news director.

Later, Stubbs returned to radio and pioneered the all news/talk format at KVEG in Las Vegas.

In 1988, he married Dianna Stevenson of Clearwater, Fla. The couple lived in Las Vegas until 1992, when they bought a radio station in Ely, renaming it KDSF to incorporate their initials.

"We were very successful with that station because we tried big city ideas in a small city, and people loved it," said Dianna Stubbs. They did remote broadcasts from a hearse, which they painted hot pink, and named Patty Hearse.

They sold the Ely station in 1995 and went on to own stations in Pagosa Springs, Colo., and Carlsbad, N.M. In 2003, the couple retired to Las Vegas.

Stubbs was active in the now-defunct Las Vegas Press Club and more recently in the Republican Men's Club and F.I.O.R.E., a club for amateur and professional comedians.

In addition to his wife, Stubbs is survived by a sister, Patricia Bailey of Minneapolis; two sons, Donald Stubbs III of Buena Vista, Colo., and Brad Stubbs of Denver; a stepdaughter, Wende Stevenson of Dallas; and a stepson, Wes Stevenson of Athens, Texas; three grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.

From John Rayburn
If sung by me it would be very un-Autry-like, so let's just say it's a case of "Back In the Saddle Again."

Reclaiming our Colorado citizenship is now a fait accompli, although there are scads of boxes still unpacked. If the past repeats, they'll still be taped up for a goodly spell.

In spite of that, Carol and I have hit the ground running and our ceramic tile murals will get a gallery showing in Longmont on September 8th and 15th at the Great Frame-Up and will remain on view on into October. We've now had contact with other galleries in Estes Park and Fort Collins, with upcoming trips to Breckenridge, Vail and Aspen...busy, busy!
Will continue voice-over work as a means of staying out of mischief. Have mike, will travel! Heh, heh!

Please keep in touch.

New location info:
John and Carol Rayburn
917 Champion Circle
Longmont, CO 80503
720-494-8340
jdr718@peoplepc.com

From Alan Cass:
A couple of questions for your marvelous memory. First of all, we're looking for the station microphone I.D.? The metal "CBS" logo that adorned the top of the old radio microphones (I don't know the "real" name for them). We have a vintage microphone for the Glenn Miller Archive and would like to find one of these items to add to its authenticity.

Secondly, you'll remember the homicide of C.U. coed Theresa Foster in November 1948 and the subsequent arrest and conviction of Joe Sam Walker. I've been doing some research for the grand-niece of Foster and I have run across an interesting story about radio station KGMC. In 1957, the KGMC news director and engineer sat down with Walker as he was given a "truth serum" to determine his guilt or innocence. I believe the news director was D. Verdon. Later, the taped event was broadcast to an interested audience throughout the Denver area. My question is ... does anyone know if a recording of this event exists? I
thought maybe someone in your legendary group of broadcasters might know. There was also a private detective hired by Walker's attorney, John Gibbons, who might have had evidence that Walker was innocent. His name was R. J. McDonald. We would like to know what may have happened to his files.

Anyway, thanks for reading this and I'll look forward to hearing from you. Hope all is well!

Alan Cass
Curator
Glenn Miller Archives
University of Colorado
cass@colorado.edu
(303) 492-5317

From Don Mueller:
In my usual surfing the Internet, I stumbled across a website of a radioman who did some Denver work at KTLN in the 50s and 60s -- his airname was Johnny Rowe, his real name John Rook. At his website he talks about working with Ray Durkee, Joe Finan, Arch Andrews & tells some stories. (I just saw Arch Andrews two hours ago at the Denver Dinosaur's meeting!) and there's some interesting pictures.

From Don Mueller:

I got a nice email from Jim Hawthorne  (who's living in California these days with his son, and who's in frail health in his mid 80s)   Jim even included some old archival jpgs which are included in this.  And the subject line, naturally, was "klarvygram" ----

hi, howzit going?  I read your kind words on the WFMU page-----THANX!!  I assume youve heard about podcasting, "the world's radio"---sensational and will revolutionize radio as we know it today!!

ALL my best2U!

Jim Hawthorne