Steve Heller, a radio man who kept Grand Junction giggling in the early-morning hours, died July 14 from the effects of Alzheimer’s. He was 56.
A service is planned at 1 p.m. Friday at First Presbyterian Church in Grand Junction.
Heller, a native of Denver, was half of the morning “Breakfast Flakes” team on the air every morning on KEKB, Grand Junction.
Friends said Heller and his co-worker, Dick Maynard, owned the airwaves every morning with their antics and ad-libs.
When the area code for Grand Junction changed, the two announced that they had to “blow out the phone lines” to get rid of the 303 area code and used a vacuum cleaner for sound.
“Steve just grabbed life,” said Cheri Konakis, who knew him for 20 years. “He saw good and happiness everywhere.”
One of his biggest fans was his mother, Elaine Heller, who said her son “could always laugh at some stupid thing.”
“And he reported news, not gore,” she said.
Steve Heller had wanted to perform from the time he was a young child, when he did comedy routines in the Heller basement, holding a broomstick as if it were a microphone.
Once in a while, someone in Grand Junction would say to Elaine Heller, “Your son is nuts.”
She’d reply, “I know it. I love it.”
Konakis remembered Heller showing up at an Old West theme party dressed in red long underwear and boots.
Her mother, Judy Gibson, who sold ads at KEKB, recalled the promotion the station did to play on the name “Breakfast Flakes.”
They worked a deal with a local supermarket and glued new pictures to the sides of cereal boxes. The revised boxes showed the men with their names on full cereal bowls sitting in front of them. The cereal was renamed “Breakfast Flakes.”
Randy Hampton was a new reporter when Heller, who also was news director, sent him to interview a politician.
“I asked some stupid question; the guy went ape and threw me out of his office,” recalled Hampton. “I knew I was toast.”
After he told Heller what happened, Heller called the politician and said he wouldn’t allow a reporter to be treated that way and if it happened again, he would never allow the man’s name on the station again.
Steven Heller was born Oct. 6, 1949, and graduated from high school in Thornton. He joined the Army, learned Vietnamese and worked as a translator for the intelligence division for three years.
He earned a communications degree at the University of Colorado, worked at a radio station in Lamesa, Texas, and then moved to Grand Junction in 1979. He retired in the late 1990s.
Heller was married to Sherry Robinson. They later divorced. In addition to his mother, he is survived by his son, Paul Heller of Denver, and two grandchildren.
Staff writer Virginia Culver can be reached at vculver@ denverpost.com or 303-820-1223.
