KIKK Radio

[WillowBend56]

In the 1970s, station KIKK promoted itself with bumper stickers which boldly proclaimed, " I'm a KiKKer" or "I'm proud to be a KiKKer." (The Ks were in cowboy boot form.) Has the station changed its broadcast format since then?

I had one of those stickers on my vehicle. While traveling on the West Coast in the late 70s, I got a dirty look and angry reaction from someone who probably did not see the small 'i' in KiKKer--- or didn't know what "kicker" meant.

[NenaE]

In the 1970s, station KIKK promoted itself with bumper stickers which boldly proclaimed, " I'm a KiKKer" or "I'm proud to be a KiKKer." (The Ks were in cowboy boot form.) Has the station changed its broadcast format since then?

I had one of those stickers on my vehicle. While traveling on the West Coast in the late 70s, I got a dirty look and angry reaction from someone who probably did not see the small 'i' in KiKKer--- or didn't know what "kicker" meant.

I remember the logo (K's) were in the shape of a boot. The radio station was located on Southmore street, in Pasadena.

[Original Timmy Chan's]

I was definitely a KiKKer as a kid...while all my panty-waist schoolmates were blasting the Q-Zoo on their boom boxes.

[crunchtastic]

'KiKKers' was a huge part of 70s culture here and a major social food group. No one used the term 'redneck'. Growing up in 70s suburban Houston, you were either a jock, a kikker, a head, or a noboby. We had turf wars. I think I may have told the story of how at Katy High the heads had the smoking area, and the kikkers had the 'dipping tree.' As you would guess, the kikkers and the jocks (there was probably 80% overlap) would gang up on the heads and beat the crap out of them. The heads would sabotage the kikker's trucks (the gearheads being a subgroup of the heads), and it would start all over again.

[pineda]

Here's where all the Westbury High School KiKKer's hung out on the weekends!

[lockmat]

'KiKKers' was a huge part of 70s culture here and a major social food group. No one used the term 'redneck'. Growing up in 70s suburban Houston, you were either a jock, a kikker, a head, or a noboby.

I never knew this is where the term kikker came from! I remember calling people that, but just thought it was something everyone knew; I found out in California that everone did not.

interesting...

[WillowBend56]

Was the term "kicker" derived from the radio station KIKK? I thought not. I thought kicker (spelled just like that) had widespread vernacular usage---at least in Texas--- aside from the word's association with KIKK in the Houston area. Hmmm...

[memebag]

As I understood it, the radio station KIKK piggy-backed on the pre-existing term "flurf kicker".

At my high school, the heads were called "jellies" or just "jels".

[texianjoe]

The term "KiKKer" was a shortened polite word for the term "flurf Kikker" refering to the cowboy boot wearing folks running around with cattle stepping in or kikking cow patties. It started as an insult and evolved into a badge of honor for cowboys and country music lovers.

joe

[crunchtastic]

Was the term "kicker" derived from the radio station KIKK? I thought not. I thought kicker (spelled just like that) had widespread vernacular usage---at least in Texas--- aside from the word's association with KIKK in the Houston area. Hmmm...

you could easily be correct--I always assumed it was from the radio station, but that's because as an impressionable young anti-kikker I felt like I couldn't escape it's evil grasp. I'm trying to remember what I heard in other parts. I know my cousins in Beaumont said 'kikker' also.

[RhinoVP]

We always called them "Goat roper's", "Stoner's" , "Jock's" , "Prep's , "Punk's" and "Nerd's". Then there was the ROTC guys....

I do however remember KIKK, form back in the time KIKK and KILT were the two country stations. You also had rock stations KLOL, KSRR and KRBE (KRBE was awsome back in the day). I remember 79Q on the am dial too, before the fm 93Q.

[rsb320]

Crunch, which category did you fall into??

KRBE did rock back in the day. I remember John Alan Whites was a DJ.

Later came 93Q with the Q Morning Zoo. Mr. Leonards was hilarious. Apparently, he wore a lime green suit. One of his lines was "That's a real purdy dress, but it's a booger to iron".

[FilioScotia]

you could easily be correct--I always assumed it was from the radio station, but that's because as an impressionable young anti-kikker I felt like I couldn't escape it's evil grasp. I'm trying to remember what I heard in other parts. I know my cousins in Beaumont said 'kikker' also.

I've never heard the term "flurf kicker." However, I HAVE heard the term "sh-t kicker" all my nearly 70 years of living in Texas. When I was growing up it was a derogatory term city people used to insult people who weren't from the city. Somewhere in the 60s, we "sh-t kickers" -- "kickers" for short -- started feeling pride in the fact that we didn't live like city folk, and in fact we started feeling sorry for them.

Then, in the early sixties, the owner of KRCT Radio in Pasadena changed the call letters to KIKK, and we listeners just went with it and proudly started calling ourselves KiKK'ers. The station owner promoted that image with those bumper stickers and everything else he could find to stick those letters on. That "Boot-I-BOOT BOOT" sticker was everywhere.

Some KiKK'ers were open and unashamed racists, and scissored the letter "i" out of the bumper sticker, leaving only the letters KKK. The sticker then read "I'm proud to be a KKK'er." There were a good many vehicles around town with that particular sticker on them -- mostly pickup trucks with gun racks. It was about that time that I started disassociating myself from that station and finding other things to listen to on the radio.

I still love country music though. Too bad Houston doesn't have any. REAL country music that is.

[memebag]

I've never heard the term "flurf kicker."

"Flurf" is what the profanity filter calls the vernacular for "feces".

[Original Timmy Chan's]

There were a good many vehicles around town with that particular sticker on them -- mostly pickup trucks with gun racks.

aka "KiKK'UP TRUCKS"

Slightly off topic, but something I've thought about a number of times recently...when's the last time you saw a truck with a gun rack? Maybe it's my redneck family, maybe it's the fact that I spent much of my childhood in Pasadena, but it sure seems that 95% of all pickup trucks in the 70's and 80's had a gun rack, and 95% of those had at least one rifle or shotgun on the gun rack.

When did that go out of style?

When will it come back?

[memebag]

aka "KiKK'UP TRUCKS"

Slightly off topic, but something I've thought about a number of times recently...when's the last time you saw a truck with a gun rack? Maybe it's my redneck family, maybe it's the fact that I spent much of my childhood in Pasadena, but it sure seems that 95% of all pickup trucks in the 70's and 80's had a gun rack, and 95% of those had at least one rifle or shotgun on the gun rack.

When did that go out of style?

When will it come back?

I think pickups just became more popular with long gun-less drivers. When I was a kid, pickups were mostly driven by people with blue collar or agricultural jobs, many of whom were also hunters. I think in the 80s they broke through to white collar folks.

[crunchtastic]

Crunch, which category did you fall into??

I started out as a head/jock, but could not do better than JV volleyball. So, head/nerd, basically. Honor student/speech and debate team and ran the school newspaper. that and one of the first two 'punkers' in school. The heads still claimed me despite the punk music thing, which was nice. I was very outgoing, but terribly (awfully) uncute and uncool. Won a crapload of speech trophies though. At one of the class reunions much later on I found out I was a huge fan favorite of the nerd underclassmen. Funny.

Ha! goat ropers ad flurf kikkers were popular variants. And the FFA kids in their blue corduroy jackets (those kids were cool because they actually did something country-ish). Kids used to go the Fulshear rodeo on Friday nights. Very small town-ish, even late into the 80s. I believe that's now a Kickerillo development out there.

I think pickups just became more popular with long gun-less drivers. When I was a kid, pickups were mostly driven by people with blue collar or agricultural jobs, many of whom were also hunters. I think in the 80s they broke through to white collar folks.

I haven't seen a gun rack in a while. They used to be everywhere, or so it seemed growing up. You'd think people driving the 1 ton dualies in my parking garage at work might need gun racks, but I guess not. What am I thinking? They've all got CHLs.

[baron]

I can confirm that at Memorial High in the mid 70's, the stoner kids were referred to as "jels" I have never encountered that term anywhere else.

[HarrisCountyEx]

Some guys had very domestic girlfriends and they would make curtains for the back window of their truck!

[KimberlySayWhat]

I thought "Kikker" was primarily a '90s thing. Had no idea it went back that far.

One thing I noticed was that "Kikkers" seemed to always have bad acne.

[Fringe]

I can confirm I was a "head" in the 60's. Stoner was a seventies term. Never have I heard the term

"jels".

And yes "flurf kicker" was a popular term long before the radio station came along.

[memebag]

More on the "jel" term:

It came from "jelly head" or "jelly brain", and referred to the effects of smoking large quantities of weed. "Flip-flop" sandals were known as "jelly thongs" when I was in school. The uniform was long hair, black concert shirt, faded jeans and jelly thongs, sneakers or bare feet.

[crunchtastic]

More on the "jel" term:

It came from "jelly head" or "jelly brain", and referred to the effects of smoking large quantities of weed. "Flip-flop" sandals were known as "jelly thongs" when I was in school. The uniform was long hair, black concert shirt, faded jeans and jelly thongs, sneakers or bare feet.

That's really interesting, because I suspect you and I are the same age, give or take a year. The uniform was the same pretty much everywhere, but the jel thing just didn't get used out my way. Maybe because we were so country. Katy was still 2 A for my first couple of years of high school.

[rsb320]

That's really interesting, because I suspect you and I are the same age, give or take a year. The uniform was the same pretty much everywhere, but the jel thing just didn't get used out my way. Maybe because we were so country. Katy was still 2 A for my first couple of years of high school.

I think that Houston must have lagged other areas of the country, in fashion anyway. By the late 70's, we were already in Levi straight leg jeans rolled up at the bottom, Izod shirts and Bass Wejun penny or tassle loafers. This created a new sector, referred to as Preppies.

We called the stoners 'Heads' too, even though we partook ourselves.

[icepickphil]

At Robert E. Lee Sr. High in the mid-seventies there were the kickers, freaks (stoners), jets (jocks, rich kids), and the geeks (nerds). The boundaries between the groups were fairly distinct.

The kicker boys used to get to school a half hour or so early before school started and park their trucks across Beverlyhill Street in the vacant lot (a lot that was also used for some serious drug dealing by the freaks). Once parked they'd take their car stereo speakers out of their trucks and put them on the roof where they'd blast KIKK or the latest Charlie Rich 8-track.

You'd have the same thing going on in the other end of the lot except it would be a freak and his van. If he was lucky he'd have his girlfriend in the van with him. Instead of KIKK it would be music like Robin Trower or 'Dark Side of the Moon'. Cranked up volume to the max. Alot of the freaks would smoke reefer before school started with their car windows closed. You'd see them open the door to go to class and the smoke would just pour out of their cars.

This all started to wind down after the big HPD narc bust of several students selling acid in the vacant lot before school. That happened in October of '74. Before that kids would buy their "Quays" (quaaludes -- usually Rorer 714s) for a dollar in the lot before school.

I knew some FFA kickers who used to "shotgun" pot smoke into their steers faces right before they were inspected by the teacher. They said it sedated the animal and they always got a better grade.

[memebag]

That's really interesting, because I suspect you and I are the same age, give or take a year. The uniform was the same pretty much everywhere, but the jel thing just didn't get used out my way. Maybe because we were so country. Katy was still 2 A for my first couple of years of high school.

Maybe. I was at Dobie, which was a huge school that was in Houston but part of the Pasadena ISD. Maybe we just had better weed...

[NenaE]

Maybe. I was at Dobie, which was a huge school that was in Houston but part of the Pasadena ISD. Maybe we just had better weed...

Wonder why that was...a Houston location, but a Pasadena school. Never heard of that before. That's where a lot of people went, when they moved out of my neighborhood. Those sandpits were talked about alot. What years were you there?

KIKK also reminds me of KENR, that other country station.

[rsb320]

Wonder why that was...a Houston location, but a Pasadena school. Never heard of that before. That's where a lot of people went, when they moved out of my neighborhood. Those sandpits were talked about alot. What years were you there?

KIKK also reminds me of KENR, that other country station.

Spring Branch ISD is in Houston - go figure. As a matter of fact, so is Alief.

[crunchtastic]

Nothing said KIKK like rodeo time! Do schools still give rodeo days off? It was a huge deal out in Katy, with such a big FFA. Maybe it's me, or that it's all become such a bland 'entertainment' venture, but the LS & R is a lot less kikker than it used to be.

Of course these days it's all about how I can score tickets to the cook-off, not watching small town/suburban teenagers get drunk at fight at the carnival.

[memebag]

Wonder why that was...a Houston location, but a Pasadena school. Never heard of that before. That's where a lot of people went, when they moved out of my neighborhood. Those sandpits were talked about alot. What years were you there?

KIKK also reminds me of KENR, that other country station.

I believe Dobie was built before Houston annexed the area. We were right at the edge of Houston. I never understood why PISD was involved, though. I was there in the late 70s, early 80s.