Frank Kalil

When people from Tucson hear the name Kalil, they think of the Kalil bottling company. But there was a time when people thought of a different Kalil, Frank Kalil.

In the mid-1950's Tom Wallace was the Program Director at KTKT and in an attempt to boost ratings, he moved the station from 1490 to 990. He also hired a young disc jockey named Frank Kalil.

Kalil was hired to do the afternoon drive show from 3-6 pm. It turned out to be a pretty solid hire as he held the job and the spot for 10 years (which in the radio business is like having the same job for 40 years).

When KTKT switched their format to playing Top 40 music his show became the most popular and built their programming around his show. His show was the basis for KTKT's color radio marketing campaign. They called themselves color radio because this was the time when color TV was becoming popular, so they tried to appeal to that audience and market.

According to the KTKT tribute site, Kalil was loved by high school students who religiously listened to his show and talked about what he said on the show.

He unofficially was the Program Director at the station. While many had the title of PD, he was the one who controlled what happened at the station. He demanded that you acted professional and that you did the best job that you could.

Kalil was the guy who ran the machine at KTKT and helped make it the most popular radio station amongs teenagers in the 1950's and 60's.

Until next time, Namaste.

*Side note: that is a cardboard cut out of Frank Kalil and not an actual picture of him.