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Mario Benedict Valdes April 3, 1953 - September 14, 2007
September 15, 2007 3:33 PM
Dear Friends,
We are deeply saddened to bring you the news that KRCC's mentor, friend and former station manager, Mario Valdes, passed away Friday morning, September 14th, 2007. He was with family, and died peacefully. We will provide you with more information about memorial services and tributes in the coming weeks. Meanwhile, Mario's obituary follows.
-Delaney Utterback and the KRCC crew
Mario Benedict Valdes
April 3, 1953 - September 14, 2007
Mario Valdes entered eternal life on September 14, 2007. He was born in Havana, Cuba on April 3, 1953. His father was a dealer of import/export domestics and the family moved to New York City when Mario was a 2-year old. He grew up in Brooklyn and Queens and attended Brooklyn Technical High School.
In third grade, Mario determined he had three goals in life: to be a New York City cab driver, to design houses and to run a radio station. After briefly living in Miami, 19 year-old Mario returned to New York and drove a yellow cab in Manhattan for a year--his most famous passenger being Katherine Hepburn.
Mario attended Oklahoma State University to study architecture and moved to Denver in the mid 1970s to begin a career as an architectural designer. For several years he designed beautiful custom homes and offices for clients in Denver, Perry Park, Monument and Colorado Springs.
A music collector, Mario started at radio station KRCC in 1979. He became the station's manager and first paid employee in 1980 and first full-time employee in 1983. He left the station in 2006. As station manager he created the blueprint of what KRCC is today. He was instrumental in bringing National Public Radio to Colorado Springs and all the listening areas throughout southern Colorado.
Mario was married to wife Donna from 1982-2000; their son, Adam was born in 1986. Mario enjoyed giving Adam the unique opportunity of meeting such personalities as Johnny Winter, Lyle Lovett and Randy Newman at the concerts which KRCC produced in the early 1990s.
A self-proclaimed "political junkie," Mario thoroughly enjoyed the intricacies, philosophies and personalities of politics. As a naturalized United States citizen, he held close to his heart the personal rights and freedom of his country.
Mario's favorite peaceful past-time was fishing. He particularly enjoyed the many times he spent fishing with his son at 11 Mile Reservoir and Lake Powell, Utah.
Mario was preceded in death by his mother Gilda Valdes and grandparents Jacqueline and Jean Gall. He is survived by his son, Adam Valdes; his sisters Joyce Skowron and Frances Collado; his nephew Luis Hernandez and his father Mario Valdes. He is also survived by many dear friends including Shari Montgomery, Pat Bass Black, Delaney Utterback and Donna (Valdes) Sheloski.
Memorial information to follow.
Posted by Delaney Utterback on September 15, 2007 3:33 PM | Permalink
Comments
Mario's Memorial
There will be a memorial service for Mario Valdes at Shove Chapel on the Colorado College campus at 1PM, Friday, September 21st. Call KRCC for more information: 719-473-4801 / 800-748-2727
Posted by: Delaney Utterback | September 18, 2007 8:18 PM
awww, ma-aa-ann...
...so I found Mario's notice (by hook-&-crook)... mainly because (as a music-collecting-fellow-traveller with Mario) my default internet behavior is to start with wikipedia & search up all the people I used to play on KRCC years ago (check out "Nash the Slash," "Snakefinger," "Ultravox," "Vivian Stanshall," "Raymond Scott" & "Captain Beefheart"... man, they have some substantial coverage in Wikipedia).
So... I thought, "Hey... I've been finding the most intriguingly quirky items using wikipedia so, why don't I try to find the old station ("ahem"), KRCC?" And... low-&-behold... there's a big article on, just that: KRCC. The article goes through the history of the station &, of course, part of that history is Mario. In the article was a live link on the name of "Mario Valdes" so I clicked it and... much to my surprise, it linked to his obit on KRCC's site.
Listen... when I was there, there was no internet in existence, much less radio-station websites or... crap, I'm gonna start feeling a whole lot older in a sec... especially as Mario was 2 years younger than I am.
Anyway... I'm Heinz Obermite... I was a proud KRCC DJ for 5 years in the late 1970's & early 1980's. My main show ran from midnight until 3 in the morning & I insisted on never repeating a single track (I mean, during a given week, that is) which... hey... let's just say, that's the most extreme opposite of "Top-40" or any form of definable programming in existence today ..."Adult Contemporary"... whatever they call it... YOU try it, it's Damned Hard!! You'll have to plan for most of the week for one 3-hour show that week that was full of intelligent, great music or commentary that segued contextually & always intrigued ME... never mind the listener...
I called the show "Mondo Catharsis" and ummm... well... it was a beautiful time... I mean, for one example (of what I call 'beautiful') I would play selections from the soundtrack for "Marjoe," (therefore, q.v.) which immediately got multiple death treats from fundamentalist Christian fools who ...ummm... ..."took exception" to my choice of midnight material. Then I would go on the air, explain the death threats I just got to any listeners and, well... (this was the only time I went against my 'no-repeats' policy) ...I'd play the offending tracks all over again... you know... in case anyone missed the point in the first place.
So... I was having a massive on-air love-affair with Frank Zappa & Captain Beefheart... I mean, how could you not?? However, I remained reasonably demure and refrained from playing tracks that might be defined as patently obscene. Well... I managed to attract a charming young lass to join me for my midnight stint - Carol was all of 18 - and our goofing around evolved into "The Further Adventures of PreHansel and ReGrettal." With this, we tried pushing the envelope-du-jour by reading miscellaneous selections from the "Guiness Book of Sexual Records" as part of the evening festivities.
We'd done this for a few weeks when, apparently, Mario decided he'd tune in to see what we, his midnight gremlins, were up to. We did a few particularly odiferous reading selections & he called up, demanding to know what the hell we thought we were up to. Being the exCEPtionally extrovert, boisterous ex-NY cabbie that he was... I was immediately shouted down without managing to offer more than the meekest, most-pathetic explanation and... anyway... 1, maybe 2 in the morning, he's yelling at me that he's coming down "RIGHT NOW" to ...check up on us.
When he got there, no explanations or protestations were tolerated, he yelled at us that we were approaching this all wrong and (I suspect now in retrospect, he understood my Zappa fixation) put on one of my Zappa records... umm... namely one I hadn't had the courage to play, specifically, "Broken Hearts Are for Assholes." ...1983(?) - 1984(?)... something like that...
I was astonished... I thought he was coming down to excoriate us for being too profane & maybe putting the station's legality & (therefore) existence into jeopardy and... much to my amazement, he (himself) went WAY over the edge we hadn't EEE-ven dared to cross. I swear this memory is true but, I have to admit I was the only witness: this song is a hot piece of rock & roll and, as it gets worked up, Mario was literally - physically - throwing his entire (substantial) body against the walls... "bouncing off the walls, " as it were... I mean, if it can be said that ANYbody invented moshing or the mosh pit, it HAD to be Mario... the dude MOSHED!! ...I'm just sayin'...
So, amazed beyond amazedness, I said, "Mario! What the hell?" And, while still bouncing off the walls, gleeful beyond words, he yelled at me, "You know why they won't send the National Guard to come get us & shut this station down, Heinz?"
..."Uhh... No!(??!!??)"
"'Cause they know it'll take the WHOLE ENTIRE ARMY to get us crazy bastards! They'll have to barricade this WHOLE STATION to get us out!!!!"
...and the evening degenerated rapidly from there... "Broken Hearts Are for Assholes(??)"... went straight into "The Ballad of Bobby Brown" (therefore again,q.v.) for just one example.
I gathered - from all the sympathetic call-ins I'd get from students & midnight partiers - that our efforts were genuinely appreciated during those days.
...anyway... I'm glad he managed a happy marriage & progeny... would that we were all so lucky...
Rock on, Mario!!
Heinz (HOHOHO) Obermite
PS, I'm still 21!!!
Posted by: Heinz Obermite | October 10, 2007 10:42 PM
