Country Radio Hall Of Fame Inductee: Randy Carroll

Randy Carroll has been a household name to many in San Antonio for over three decades. He has been at KJ-97 (KAJA) in San Antonio for over 32 consecutive years and is still doing the KJ Morning Show with co-host Jamie Martin to this day. This coming Wednesday (6/24/2015) at Omni Hotel Nashville, he will be one of two radio personalities inducted into the Country Radio Hall of Fame for 2015. This award goes to a very select group of individuals that have made "significant contributions" to the radio industry over at least a 20 year period, 15 of which must have been in the Country format. With approximately 37 years in radio, and at LEAST 35 of those being in Country radio, I'd say this is long overdue! Randy's daughters Kelsey and Hailey (pictured above) will be introducing him on Wednesday night. Both girls have accompanied Randy on the air as fill-ins at times when his co-host was unavailable, and the girls also joined him often for a Christmas Eve show.

Randy was born in Corpus Christi, TX and lived there until at the age of fourteen when he moved to Pleasanton, TX with his family. He began his radio career during high school working for KBOP in Pleasanton, TX for about two years. He left KBOP and worked at San Miguel Power Plant in Pleasanton, but soon after began a once-per-week overnight shift on the air at KBUC-FM in San Antonio, which Carroll had listened to often during high school. When KAJA went on the air in 1981, Randy took a twice-per-week overnight shift and continued this for about three to four months before taking a job in early 1982 at KMFM. KMFM was in the almost non-existent Contemporary Christian format which was beginning to gain popularity at the time. After 2 job offers to return to KAJA over a nearly two year period, Randy finally returned to KAJA on November 16, 1983 as a mid-day/afternoon jock before finally taking over the morning show about a year later. Not to make Randy feel old, but if it helps you put it into perspective just how long Randy has been in radio, he was there for Randy Travis' radio tour when he signed his first record deal.

Randy and co-host Jamie Martin have worked together for the past 7 years. As a team they received the CMA (Country Music Association) "Large Market Personality of the Year" award back in 2012, and although there have been numerous reports of them winning a similar award from the ACM they still remain the "Susan Lucci of radio" (nice quote, thanks Randy!) from the Academy of Country Music. Please share this and congratulate Randy if you get a chance, this is a pretty cool honor for somebody that has devoted their life to music!

links:
Randy & Jamie (KJ97.com)
Randy on Facebook
@randycarrollkj on Twitter