Texas Renegade Radio Monday

DJ: Ranger Randall
Monday 4 pm – 6 pm
KNON Format: Country

“Yeah, I’m Ranger Randell from the Rock Creek Ranch which is a spread along a mostly dry Brazos branch out west in Jack County where the dirt turns red and so do the necks.”

Thanks to my friend, Rusty Weir, I was dubbed a “Radio Ranger” (during an interview) while hosting a Texas Music radio show, The Rock Creek Ranch, at KNON, in the early 1980’s. The moniker has stuck. I am now Ranger Randell always and forever.

Radio was my first introduction to music of all kinds. KGSA in Graham, Texas was a mixed format radio station in the 1950s and momma always had the radio on in the house and we always listened to radio on the road. Radio was much more accessible than television in Jack and Young County in those days.

 

My parents and aunts and uncles went “daincin” at The Corral or The Barn, dancehalls, at Possum Kingdom Lake until we moved from Jack County to Dallas in 1962. They would talk about and play the music by the touring musicians of the 1950s and early 1960s in our home. Momma would teach us dance steps like the jitterbug, bop, two-step and the twist when we were kids.

After moving to Dallas my parents immersed us in country & western, honky-tonk, early rock ‘n roll and pop music by taking the family to the Big D Jamboree and the State Fair of Texas. They were frequently going to the Longhorn Ballroom, Panther Hall, Ole Top Rail and other Dallas dancehalls. My parents became familiar with DFW radio stations as well. My mom listened to KPCN, Grand Prairie, and that was my first introduction to “Groovy” Joe Poovey who would become the first country DJ at KNON.

As I grew to be a teenager in Dallas in the 1960s, I started seeking out my preferred radio stations and watching music based television programs. I had a 16-transistor radio that I would listen to day and night. My parents had a combination stereo radio/record player that had detachable speakers. We would place the speakers on each end of the living room sofa and dance to whatever we felt like. Later in life I would bring some of the LPs from my mom’s collection to KNON to play on the Texas Folk Music Show and the Super Roper Redneck Revue Show that I hosted between 1984 and 1992.

I met my wife, Cindy, a native Dallas girl, in 1971 and fell in love. She too is, and was, a big music fan. With two older brothers growing up in the 1960s they shared a variety of music on 45s and LPs. We married in 1974 and began a life that is, to this day, enriched by music and music events. Our combined vinyl record collections became the core of our entertainment and still is today. We listened to DFW radio stations from the 60s to current times and were some the first supporters of KNON from the day they aired. I started volunteering at the station and was offered an on-air show in September of 1984. An opportunity of a lifetime for a music fan like me was being on KNON Community Radio! It was heaven sent. It seemed like it was “meant to be” considering my interest and excitement for radio since I was a kid.

My return to KNON came in 2014 when my dear friend, the late Mark Ivey, asked me to come learn the new equipment and serve as a substitute for the country format. I am forever grateful for that invitation.

My future plans are to facilitate peace, love and understanding through open space gatherings, playing, singing and storytelling, around one of my electric campfires in urban settings or around a blazing campfire under the stars somewhere as often as I can. So please tune in the Mondays, 4 to 6 pm, for the Electric Campfire Radio version of the Texas Renegade Radio Show.