In its first few months, KZZO strived to be the "Greatest Radio Station Ever" for the Clovis/Portales area. We were able to accomplish that with an exciting sound, air staff and giveaways of free money and other prizes. In the spring of 1985, the powers that be tried to get into the major event business. The few years before I started attending Eastern New Mexico University, they had an annual "Battle of the Bands" music festival with area rock bands. There were other activities, including a bikini contest. My freshman year in 1983, they got rid of the "Battle" part and just made it a "Spring Fest." My sophomore year, they didn't do it, period. Usually, the problem was that on the day of the festival, it was overcast and a bit rainy. It just wasn't very spring-like.
KZZO decided to pick up the slack and present its own spring music festival. It was called the "KZZO Superfest" and it was scheduled to take place at the Clovis Fairgrounds in the rodeo arena and run from 1pm to 5pm one Sunday afternoon. It included area bands, contests, prizes and a bikini competition with the winner getting a trip to Hawaii. We started with on-air teasers that mentioned that "something exciting" was coming to the area on a certain day. I had already been told about the Superfest, but was unaware that we were going to take an ambigious approach to it at the beginning. The first time I heard that promo, I had to think for a bit to figure out what they were talking about. I then remembered the small discussion surrounding the event.
Some months before, the ENMU Associated Students Activities Board was working on getting its next major concert in Portales. The ASAB was responsible for hiring entertainment for the students. This included the "Battle," "Spring Fest," touring comedians and other music and novelty acts. It also included big name music acts. The year before I started going there, they had managed to land their first sell-out show ever with Pat Benetar. That was the legacy of the Board's President at that time. The next President landed a sell-out show with the country group Alabama. These set a bar that every following Board President would attempt to aspire to. The third President who served during my enrollment there was this real jerk I'll refer to as Gerd. He was hungry for his sell-out. He told the Board that he was in serious discussions to try to get Madonna to come to Portales. Under normal circumstances, whatever gets discussed at those board meetings is supposed to stay at those board meetings. But this was too much to keep as a secret. Word somehow leaked out and everybody on campus was buzzing about the possibility that Madonna was coming to town.
Of course, she didn't. This created a problem for us because when we first started teasing the event, a lot people thought it was going to be Madonna. THERE WAS NO WAY IT WAS GOING TO BE MADONNA! I mean, it's nice that people thought we had that kind of pull, but when we revealed what it was, it was a bit of a letdown.
Still, we pulled out all the stops to promote it as something that had never been seen in Clovis before. Those of us who were working at the station were really looking forward to it. We all felt like it was something that was just going to blow our competition away and just make everybody quit listening to them. A week before the event, we had a pretty intense meeting about what was going to happen. We were basically going to have to set up the stage and the sound system beforehand. Mind you, this was all mandatory voluntary, which meant we weren't going to get paid for it. Program Director Crad also told us that we were going to be out there introducing the bands and we needed to give the station a good image. We would not be allowed to wear T-shirts. I must have been on spring break the week before the Superfest because I told my Mom I needed a new shirt. We went out shopping and she bought me a new polo shirt.
I drove up to Clovis from Artesia to start my shift at midnight. The plan was for me to work the shift, sleep on the couch in Crad's office until it was time to go to the fairgrounds and completely be a part of the show. I knew I was going to enjoy myself. The only bad thing was that it rained all the way up. I hoped it wasn't going to rain the next day, which would have caused us to have to cancel. (I didn't want this to be a pattern. A few months earlier, we had canceled a touch football game in which we would be competing against a team from the KMCC station. Dr. D had told me about it a few days before and asked if I would be a part of it. I did express interest and he said he would say something to have a T-shirt printed up for me. On my way to to take part in the game, it was raining and Deed, who was on the air at the time, announced that the game was canceled. On top of that, they didn't print me up a special T-shirt like Dr. D said. "We didn't know you were coming." "I told Dr. D I was going to be here!" That still stings to this day because all the other part-timers got T-shirts.)
But the forecast called for a sunny day that Sunday. They weren't going to cancel. (In fact, it wound up getting so hot, a lot of people got sunburned.) However, I had arrived for my midnight shift and found out that Crad had scheduled me to also work Sunday afternoon from 12pm to 6pm. That meant I wasn't going to get to take part in the Superfest. While it was going to be nice to get a bigger paycheck because of this, I really didn't like being left out of the action again and felt like I was specifically targeted to not be part of the fun.
If you're familiar with rodeo arenas, you're aware they're mostly comprised of dirt. Dirt turns to mud when there's a lot of rain and there was a lot of dirt at that arena. So much that when the KZZO staff arrived, they couldn't set up the stage without first going out and getting a bunch of planks to place on top of the mud to get to the stage. Setting up our audio equipment was supposed to take 15 minutes, but it took two hours. On top of that, the bands had to transport their equipment the same way.
Sunday afternoons on KZZO were spent playing several hours of syndicated programming. While I was running the programs, I would get phone calls from the staff who were there, including Crad and the J Team. I had to keep putting them live on the air as they explained the delays in getting the Superfest under way. They were putting a postive spin on the situation and talked about some guy who drove his four-wheel drive into the arena and spun around a couple of times. At about 3pm, they made it sound like they had finally started getting the bands to play. I went on the air during breaks and kept promoting the Superfest, that things were finally happening out there and that everyone was having a good time. At 4pm, Crad called to be put on the air. I asked what was going on. He said, "We're about to get started!" WHAT? Three hours late? And it was going to get dark in a couple of hours?
The rest of my shift was spent fielding phone calls from people angry about the Superfest. The station produced promos after the event that made it seem like a positive experience. In the end, I was glad I didn't have to be a part of that fiasco.
But that didn't keep me from being a part of other fiascos, like the one I'll go into detail about Tuesday.
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